Thursday-Saturday

Things have finally settled down a bit, so we had a few days at a slower pace, with John in Key West and Bridgette going to work from 8:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.  Thursday, Joe, Tyler and I got the yard work done for our hosts, picking up the piles in the backyard, mowing and weed-eating both the front and back yard.  It was a hot job, and we probably won't make that grand gesture again, especially since Tyler won't be here to help.  Bridgette has Fridays off this summer, so she and Tyler went to the movies on Friday and Joe and I went shopping at the outlet mall about 15 miles south of their house, looking for some lightweight pants to wear on our trip to the Everglades, hoping that will give us some mosquito protection.  There was a Columbia outlet store there where we were successful in our search, so we got that mission over with.

Friday night Bridgette decided she needed to run on the treadmill -- obviously, Tyler hadn't worn her out.  She wanted us both to try out the treadmill, which I did barefoot and very briefly.  But Joe decided he would go 5 laps on it, about 1/2 hour.

It made his "new" big toe a little sore, but otherwise he did not suffer any ill effects.  I think Bridgette is getting ready to put him in her boot camp.  They have a Wii here borrowed from her parents, and we've done different things with it during our two-week stay, but Saturday, Tyler finally got Joe talked into boxing.

The rest of us had done some boxing earlier in the week, but this was Joe's first bout.  We may have to get our own Wii when we get home, because his opponent did not stay down, so Joe's not done with him yet.  He did some ping pong and we all bowled a little, and we keep wondering if we would actually use one if we had it.  But we're pretty sure we would have to have Cody or Kaylee set up every game for us, so I don't know.

John got back from Key West just before noon on Saturday, having gotten up and on the road about 4:00 a.m.  He caught a cold down there too, so he was pretty tired.  But Saturday evening, we all went to an arena football game, after dinner at Hooters right on the bay.  Bridgette got free tickets from University of Tampa, so we thought we should see what the game was like.  They had a tailgate party going on when we went in, with a band playing outside and people milling around.

 We got there early because our tickets were general admission, so we got to see both teams warm up.

Here is the Pittsburgh Power going through their stretches. 

And here is the Tampa Bay Storm warming up.

They had a lot of pre-game stuff, including a band, which also played at halftime, and a parade of motorcycles just before they introduced the home team players, which was also quite a production.

 

We had great seats, and there was a lot of scoring.  There was a little more defense in the second half, and Tampa Bay Storm won the game 62-55.  It was a late night, but we got home around 11:00 and we all immediately went to bed.  We're hoping a night's sleep will help John recover from his cold, because we're going to the beach tomorrow!