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The convention Patrick had to attend was held at the Gaylord Palms Hotel. It is a huge hotel with an atrium covering four and a half acres of gardens and paths.

The Atrium

The Convention Center



The rooms and atrium are divided into three Florida themed areas...

St. Augustine,

Key West,

and the Everglades.
I got to put faces with the names of people I have been hearing about for years. The food was great. The hotel was beautiful and best of all I got to see my husband every day instead of waiting at home missing him.

© Michelle Hines

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Patrick had to attend a convention in Florida this week, mom and I tagged along. The first leg of our trip was spent in Lakeland visiting Mom's siblings.

Lillian, Donald, Mom (Eileen) and Maureen

Joe, Lillian, Donald, Trish (holding Quincy), Mom, Dennis and Maureen

Three years is way too long between visits.

© Michelle Hines

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Ego Alley, Annapolis, Maryland

© Michelle Hines

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Matt's new tattoo.

© Michelle Hines

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My hydrangea is fuller this year than it has ever been. It is as tall as I am and is covered with beautiful blue blooms the size of dinner plates. Except near the bottom on one side where there are two pink ones.

© Michelle Hines

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This beautiful flower is called Tequila Sunrise and inside it holds a surprise.....

a tiny little flower.

© Michelle Hines

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Tonight I decided to dust off my macro lens and take a walk around the yard. I was hoping to find something unusual to photograph. I got lucky but I wasn't the only one...

Love bugs

© Michelle Hines

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Oliver in his happy place.

© Michelle Hines

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Yesterday morning Lilly came for a play date while Chloe was at swimming lessons. Lilly and I worked in the veggie garden weeding and planting more peas. Last summer Lil loved eating peas straight from the garden. She worked really hard but I think she had a lot of fun too. After swim class Chloe came to play too. We had lunch and spent time picking clover and making crowns in the backyard. I hope they had as much fun as I did. Of course I took a lot of pictures. Chloe played shy and wouldn't look at the camera and Lilly has mastered the fake cheesy grin.

I am really having fun playing with black and white photos.

© Michelle Hines

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Oliver quietly celebrated his 9 month birthday yesterday. He is getting so big. He is crawling and cruising. He loves to swing and lunges towards it when he sees it. I am so head over heels in love with this little man.

© Michelle Hines

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I spent the weekend in Texas with Patrick. Saturday morning we drove out to the Kemah Boardwalk . It was nothing like an East Coast boardwalk. There was no beach. Lots of nice restaurants, rides and boardwalk games but the sound of the crashing waves was missed.

I had never seen a double decker carousel.

The wooden roller coaster was neat.

It was a nice way to spend a part of our day. After lunch in Kemah we headed back to Houston and drove around looking at different communities. I am still shocked when I see how inexpensive the homes are compared to Maryland.

© Michelle Hines

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Last fall Kate and Matt bought two pumpkins, one orange and the other white. They didn't carve either of them for Halloween. They sat on the patio until after Thanksgiving until they got squishy. Thinking the squirrels and chipmunks would enjoy them I moved them off of the patio table and into one of the gardens. The first blizzard came in December then two more in January and the pumpkins were forgotten by me and the wildlife. After the snow melted there sat two pumpkins remarkable still in their original shape. The outside shell had hardened kind of like a gourd. I had been thinking about growing pumpkins in our veggie garden this summer and decided instead to just let them grow in one of our decorative flower beds. I got out a shovel and turned the soil over where the pumpkins sat and wait to see if they would grow. They are flourishing. The orange pumpkin plant is much larger but both already have flowers on them. In the morning and late in the evening the flowers are closed up tight...

But during the day they are open, big beautiful orange stars.

© Michelle Hines