In Orlando w/ the Lefto'ss

spent some time with a 93 grad from Mora high this past weekend. flew from Fortlauder Dale to Orlando to hang with Kara Lynn (Ostrom) Lefto and her family. I was excited to see her and to 'play' in Florida for a couple extra days. I arrived late Friday night and kicked it with Justin (her husband) cuz she was at work...

Saturday I woke up and was super tired and ended up falling in and out of consciousness all day long. it was sort of a bummer of a day in Florida (compared to MN, so i heard). cloudy and dim all day long...low 70's - so we just sort of kicked it old school all day- did a lot of catching up with Kara and that was so nice. that night Justin took the boys and Kara and i got to go out on the town. We ended up in Orlando at The Rainforest Cafe where there was a 2 hour wait unless we could find two seats at the bar...so, the bar it was. while at the cafe we had good conversation again, along with good food!!!! and a very funny, and some very attractive bar tenders. nice. after that we walked around...than drove around...than ended up at the cheese cake factory for some desert and coffee. had to take this picture of light up palm tress.

Sunday woke up and went to church, which was very cool. (Justin- i need your Church's web site) and than Kara, the kids (Jakin, Asher and Eli), and I got in the van and headed towards Clearwater beach....oh the beach!!!!! i was so excited. it was about 1 1/2 hour drive...but when we got there traffic was backed up like i've never seen before and it took us 3 hours before we finally found a beach to park and play at. We asked a police dude why it was so busy and he mentioned that there was a volleyball tournament going on- man, so cool. Of course laying around the beach was awesome! the boys seemed to enjoy it. it was a beautiful day out - just right. not super hot...but hot enough that you could feel your skin getting tan. i love that feeling. after about 4 hours on the beach we packed up. on the drive home Kara had the best 'parent' convo with her middle child (Asher) ever...made me smile. Asher was so overly tired that he was talking nonsense. at one point Kara looked at him and said "Asher...I have a challenge for you. Can you close both your eyes and your mouth at the same time...and keep them closed. It's really hard....try it." Asher- "ok"...and he tried it. Of course this went on for about 15 minutes. Kara's intentions were of course to help Asher fall asleep...needless to say- it did not work. but, about 5 minutes from home he did fall asleep. good times with a 4 year old. Monday was my last day with the Lefto's and was spent packing, going to lunch and getting my last hour or so in the sun. I had a fabulous time with them and cant wait to return. Fell in love with freshly squeezed orange juice, and grapefruit picked right from the tree for breakfast - i will never be able to drink normal o.j. again. thanks Lefto's.