Florida Activities

We have been taking full advantage of the Florida lifestyle. Here are some of the activities we have been doing lately:

1. Manny and I get our cardio exercise by walking on the beach. During high tide this can be quite the work out!

2. This past weekend went to the beach for the day. Physical activity included a beach walk, swimming, and riding the surf on the boogie board.

3. Fishing and chumming out on the ocean on our boat, then anchoring near the beach for a swim.

4. Skyler rode his tricycle out on our cul de sac. He is able to ride a tricycle now, thanks to playground time at school.

5. We played tennis Monday evening. Shayna and Skyler got thier own rackets. We went to just ONE of the many available free tennis locations in Boca.

6. Shayna and I went roller blading at our spot, which is along A1A on the path by Spanish River Park in North Boca with an awesome view of the ocean.

7. I even snuck in some family geocaching, last weekend, at Tradewinds Park.

The Guy

There are these homeless guys that stand in a few intersections of central boca asking for money. It seems to be somewhat organized as they have shirts. usually they have a hand scrawn sign that says something like "help me...I'm hungry." I find them extremely annoying and avoid eye contact because if you even glance thier way they pounce. not that I am against helping the homeless, I don't think having them panhandle is the best idea. also, I don't mind giving them food, because we all know where the money goes.

shayna and I bought these 'cookies' called O'cocos or something weird like that and we didn't like them. so instead of throwing them out, I said, lets put them in the car and next time we drive by the homeless guy we will give them to him. manny made some comments about how this was akin to the seinfeld episode where they got the muffin bottoms.well it happens that coincidentally the day of or before we put the cookies in the car something happened and Boca kicked the panhandling guys out...apparently they were too aggressive and disobeying the rules, harassing drivers, etc. so no homeless guy/s. we have been driving around for the last few days with the cookies in the back seat.



today we were on our way to the park and manny was hungry and asked for the cookies. skyler said "you can't have them, they're for the guy." the thing is, we didn't know he was paying attention when shayna and I were talking about this.

Later we went through McDonalds drive through and there was a panhandling Muscovy duck (these are the big ducks with reddish faces) right in the lane where you drive through. So we threw him some cookies and he ate them.

Ballet in Boca

The Boca Festival of the Arts is going on now until March 16th in Mizner Park. Its a series of cultural events and concerts.

Tonight they had a free ballet by Chopin so we took the kids for a little culture. It was such a pleasant experience. They covered the outdoor ampitheater with an elaborate structure (not a tent). They have folding chairs (normally at the ampitheater you bring your own chairs) and there was a little bar with not only drinks (beer, wine, etc.) but snacks. So we settled down for the show with a chardonnay, bottle of water, and white cheddar popcorn. In some way it reminded me of an extremely upscale version of the "casino" nightclub in peekskill, NY at my grandpa Leon's bungalow (they had a snack bar there). They had those wooden folding chairs there too and "cultural" entertainment. Before the ballet they showed a movie about Degas (the Boca art museum, next to the ampitheater, has an exhibit of Degas statues running currently). the ballet was beautiful and perfectly executed, and while skyler may have rather watched micky mouse at least he now knows what the ballet is.