Jane and Bill arrived Monday, 2/4/08, to spend a few days with us. We had a fun time with them and the weather was just gorgeous. We didn't need sweaters and could wear shorts most of the time. Monday night we just visited and caught up and I fixed chicken corn chowder and corn bread and kumquat pie.
Tuesday, we went to Plant City to see the strawberries and to Parksdale. Parksdale is a big fruit and vegetable and plant stand where they also serve lunch and all sorts of strawberry desserts. It's too early for the Strawberry Festival, but they still had plenty of big, beautiful strawberries. Carol went with us. We came back to the condo and had lunch, then went to Lake Mirror and Florida Southern to see the 36 beautiful bronze statues by J. Seward Johnson. They are life size and you almost have to touch them to see that they are not real.
Ash Wednesday, we started out by going to Mass at 7:30 a.m., then Dan and Bill played golf, while Jane and I went to Bok Tower. At Bok, we had a guided walking tour of the gardens, listened to the beautiful carillon concert, visited the gift shop where I bought a "Crown of Thorns" plant, and had lunch at the Carillon Cafe.
Thursday, we went to Tarpon Springs. We did not go the best way or come home the best way, but had a great time while we were there. It is a Greek town with lots of tourist shops and boats on the docks. We had lunch at Mykonos restaurant and it was delish! Lastly, we took the city trolley on a tour around the whole town. The driver was like a tour guide. We wished we had done the trolley tour first because we would have visited some of the sites he pointed out that are open to the public. We recommend a day at Tarpon Springs. Carol and Bob invited us over for dinner on the way home, and we stopped there for cocktails and dinner. They enjoyed seeing Bob (haven't seen him since their wedding) and the boys. We even all got to meet Krista while we were there (Eric's girlfriend).
They left Friday morning. It rained. First time all week.
