I thought this would be a fitting post for my Dogs on Thursday entry, so…

Apparently, Ebby has decided to take a long weekend and head for Jacksonville, FL. She is exhausted from watching all the chaos of finals week for her parents and needs a break. She will need a driver and some stimulating company, of course, so we have decided to go along for the ride. We are all looking forward to a little R&R and some different scenery. Photos to come…
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Takin A Break
National Polka Festival 2009
Things around here have been so crazy that I have been unable to post this years collection of images from the Polka Festival. Now that the mid-terms are over and the grandson has returned home I can finally turn my attention to more entertaining subjects. Ebby enjoyed the trip to Dallas.
The trip back was another story. There were three of us, Me, Scott, and our three year old grandson William in the front cab of our little truck for the 14 hour trip back home. Ebby lived in my lap the entire ride back. All is well though. We made it home without incident, unless you count the first hour in the truck when William turned to me and basically lost all his orange juice he had taken in before we left. It was a mess, but we survived.
This year my dad and I competed in the King and Queen Dance again. There were 21 couples competing this year and we didn’t even make it past the first cut. We had fun though and the couple who won were far superior dancers and will represent the festival well in the year to come.
Here is the video of our 2009, meager attempt at stardom…
On Saturday, we went to the parade as usual, but the parade was a huge disappointment this year. Not only did it start about an hour late because of an inadvertently parked train across the intersection, but there were bands included in the floats that had absolutely NOTHING with Czech heritage, except perhaps that the members were residents of the greater Ennis area. These bands were beyond metal in flavor and there was not a polka to be found. Sad, really. If Ennis wants to do something to promote the Polka Festival in the future they might want to try updating the website and begin thinking “nationally” again. They are, after all, the National Polka Festival. Ok, rant is over… The best part of the parade for me was seeing Ebby all decked out in her costume. She is truly a Czech/Mex dog! Ha Ha
We will not be attending this festival next year (or probably for a few years to come), mainly because we want to go visit some other festivals in other parts of the country. Now that I have my supply of costumes, we can dance in style throughout Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Ohio, to name a few. Stay tuned here for updates on our adventures to a polka festival near you.
Timing Is Everything // Beachcombing Between Storms
Last weekend we were going to go to the beach, but the threat of tornadic activity and the torrential downpours kept us home and inside. This Thursday, we were able to make the trip, even with the threat of more rain. Our objective was to try out our new tent and enjoy the sand and surf. We thoroughly tested the tent and it withstood both the wind and rain well. We had never set up this tent before and we did have to set it up in the rain, not something I would recommend if you have never set up a tent before.
Our camping experience is pretty extensive and we were able to get it up with few issues. After we got settled in, we were talking about it and decided that it would be a great idea for couples who are thinking of getting married to go through setting up a tent together as part of their pre-marital counseling. Anyway, this tent is huge. We have always had backpacking tents, i.e. ones you can’t stand up in. So it was a refreshing change to be able to freely move around inside the tent.
Friday morning, the rain had ceased and it was quite cold before the sun came up. Ebby had no problems finding a warm place to await the sun’s arrival.
We packed up the beach stuff and headed for the beach on Friday morning. Ebby had a ball!
She was a little concerned by the waves, but soon got the hang of running on the beach with her mom and dad. She really loves to run and if you check out the bottom photo you can see that sometimes she even knows how to fly. Enjoy
How we spent this Friday // Georgia Aquarium
Have a look at this awesome video Mr. K put together of our visit to the Georgia Aquarium on Friday. Cool, huh?
KeyWest via Honda Shadow
For those of you who want to know a little bit more about me, Scott has written a great blog post that I have to share with you all. I could not have said it better myself…when are we going again????



















