Fun Friday…

Growing up, Fridays in the summer time were usually fun days for us. My mom always had Fridays off work. I say there were “usually” fun days, because, probably the first half of her Fridays off were spent at my Grandparent’s house putting up vegetables from the garden… picking and shelling peas, canning tomatoes, creaming corn, cutting up bell peppers---you name it, we probably did it! At the time, those were not my favorite Fridays, but I look back on those days with the fondest memories of my grandparents and their back patio. I can see their dog, “Charlie-Boy” chewing on whole pea pods… I can hear my Papa, in the voice he only used with those he was affectionate towards say, “Annie-Girl, won’t you please go make Papa a glass of half-and-half, sweetheart?” (half and half, for my diabetic Grandfather was half Coke and half water. He couldn’t stomach a Diet Coke, so he’d just drink a watered down “real” one. :) I can smell the fried hotdog sandwiches Granny would cook in her big cast iron skillet mixed with the scent of whatever vegetable we were putting up that day.

On the days we weren’t gardening with the Grandparents, Momma usually planned something fun for us to do. It was always a given that on one of our Fun Fridays, we’d visit Homosassa Springs State Park. The tradition lives on, because we do the same thing with AB now (and we did with Cooper, too).

Mom’s Fridays off started a couple weeks ago, and on the Thursday before her first one, AB was packed and ready to have a slumber party!

Excited?!?!?

My aunt got her this backpack and it says, “Off to Grammy’s” on the back.

 

This past Friday, we took our annual trip to Homosassa.

We got there just in time for the last boat ride of the day over to the park! There was hardly no one else there, and AB loved getting to walk and run around.

We saw, “Lou,” which has always been a favorite of our family.

He was actually out of the water and eating this time. In fact, all of the animals were moving around and providing quite a show!

We saw lots of birds, which AB said were “Sheweeee” (that part of the park does get pretty smelly).

We even saw some ugly ducklings swimming by. One of them had a broken leg that was bent completely backwards and was sticking up out of the water. When AB saw it, she said, “awww, it “boke” (broke), Pop fix it.” She’s like her momma and thinks Pop can do anything.

AB’s favorite sighting of the day, “Albert!” Any and all alligators, are “Albert” to our girl. Her Daddy is so proud. The first thing she did was “chomp” at them, and the next was holler, “Shoot ‘em, Pop!” I’m afraid she’s watched one too many Swamp People episodes at my parent’s house.

 

We made our way to the other side of the park and saw this big guy swimming under the bridge. We haven’t actually seen a manatee the past couple of years that we’ve been, so that was neat.

The last stop was the underwater fishbowl to see all the fish.

And no trip would be complete without the standard manatee picture.

I’m not sure what our next Fun Friday outing will be, but I’m sure we’ll make a memory.

~amw~