Back Home

That was a fast five days at Cedar Key. I tried so many times while I was there to make a blog post, but their internet didn't run fast enough. Sorry. I apologize right now for the inferiority of some of these photos. All of them were taken with my cell phone, then posted on facebook. I have simply dragged the photos from facebook and am posting them here. I did take some pictures with my nice camera. Hope to post some of those soon. Above is our view the first morning.

We were sitting right on the Gulf of Mexico. It rained the entire first day we were there, this was taken by the dock - shooting back towards what used to be an awesome restaurant until it got gutted by fire. The building has been fixed back up and is currently for sale. I wonder if Kali could run a french pastry business from there. Hmmmm.

Day three brought this little bundle of sunshine to us. Fourteen months old now, she is the happiest little thing I've ever seen. She only cried twice - once because she was tired and wanted a bottle, and the second time was because Mark tried to hold her instead of me holding her :). Good girl!

And she ate great this day. A sweet potato for lunch, with cinnamon butter. And for dinner - garlic mashed potatoes, crab bisque, sweet corn with rice, and apples. Topped off with pepsi and sweet tea. Hahaha! And she slept like a champ that night. Not so the next, but she did this night.

The sad thing about Cedar Key is the way it got hit with economics. So many of the shops are closed, and most of the restaurants. Not many good ones left, so we went back to Steamers again last night. Little bug had more garlic mashed potatoes, crab bisque, and this time we added peanut butter mousse and a little lemon pudding. 

She did finally settle in and let Mark carry her on our walk back to the resort. She is soooooo cute!!! And such a good baby. So happy and smiley.

Our last night. The sun finally came all the way out. I shot this on our way to supper. The water was beautiful! I will post some other photos soon. It was a nice break, sorry I couldn't post while I was gone. Actually those posts you got while I was gone - they were all pre-programmed to pop up and look like I was posting because I was afraid there'd be a problem. I just didn't make enough of them because we added on an extra day to our trip. Technology is great. When it works. 

Trying New Things

Wow! That's really big! You can see every line I drew and all my little slip-ups, too.  >,< Actually, I like the pictures being big so you can appreciate all the lovely color against the black backdrop of the blog :).
So, it's 2014 already. Seriously? What happened to 2013? Our family seemed to have a fairly eventful year: 
Jason and Bobbie blessed us with a beautiful little precious granddaughter in Frankie. She was five weeks early, and weighed 4 pounds, 9 ounces. Beautiful and perfect in every way.
Kali moved to Maryland to attend culinary school and is on the way to realizing her dream of being a professional pastry chef. She is working at a world-class French restaurant in their pastry kitchen when she isn't at school. 
Mark continues to work at Shands and hunts every chance he gets, and I do mean every chance. 
Nicole and Dale are still enjoying life with all six of their children. Nicole changed jobs this year and seems to be enjoying life immensely. I love to read her and Dale's facebook statuses! They make me smile on a regular basis. 
I have had some health issues this year, and continue to work with them, trying to get things back to normal. It's been a very stressful year for me personally, but the family is all doing great. I continue my journey into the new land of art and creativity. My art was published in two books this year. I can tell you that it feels really strange to stand in a store and see your artwork staring back at you from a page in one of the books for sale!
Here's hoping that 2014 will see even more positive changes. Some new things, if you will. Kali will be finishing school and continuing with her two-year commitment to the restaurant. Little Frankie will celebrate her first birthday. I have artwork coming out in at least two new books this year, will be starting to co-write a book with a friend, and will continue working on my own e-book. 
May 2014 be rosy and bright for you and your family. May God richly bless you and provide for you in abundance as you honor Him with your life. Thank you for hanging in there with me and The Creator's Leaf in 2013! You are appreciated more than you will ever know! Hugs!!!
(A working note to myself: hits at 35,704 and 103 members.)

Hazardous-Reviews, Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Unfamiliar with Hazardous-Reviews? Well, that's something we hope to change. 

Hazardous-Reviews is a website/movie review blog written and managed by my son, Jason Hendon.  He reviews various genres of movies, including movies in theatres, on Redbox, and Netflix. 

Today, Hazardous-Reviews has posted a critique of Catching Fire, giving it a 5 out of 5 stars. I've only seen him do that one time before. Click on the link here to read his review.

With a Promise of More to Come

 Two weeks old. Five pounds, one ounce. Home with mom and dad, and on this day visiting her 88-year old great-grandmother whose name she shares. 

And of course family pictures needed to be done while we had the opportunity. That would be my son Jason right there with his beautiful wife Bobbie.

Four generations in this picture: great-grandmother, mom, son, and daughter. Pretty awesome! I'm sure you will be seeing more pictures before too long!

Finally Home

 I haven't been posting very regularly recently. Hopefully that is about to change. I've been a little pre-occupied. See Exhibit #1, above.

I didn't expect to be able to show you these precious little toes for another several weeks.

I guess she was just in too big of a hurry to wait. Actually, my son and daughter-in-law's baby wasn't due for another five weeks. Mom Bobbie got into some problems with high blood pressure and this little one had to be born, to help mom stabilize. Five weeks early, she's precious! That's dad's hand on her tummy - to give you an idea of how small she is. She weighed 4 pounds, 9 ounces. Teeny tiny but in perfect health.

And my mom has kept me busy. She's been in the hospital five times in the past two months, and in rehab/therapy once. Currently she's home and we think we have a good plan in place to keep Mom from relapsing.

The third thing that has been keeping me busy is that my daughter is moving to another state in a couple weeks for school and we had not found any place for her to live. This past week, Kali and I flew out of state to go search for an apartment and perhaps a job.

I was looking forward to being in a hotel room where I could tangle to my heart's content! So how do you decide what to take on an airplane and how do you transport it? I chose this sweet little special edition, anniversary Hello Kitty metal lunchbox. Of course.

It was actually a great size. I have learned from experience that pens don't always fly well, so I bagged all of them. Good thing, too, because on the plane both of my expensive Rotring Rapidograph pens exploded and filled their bag with black ink. I was not happy! Can you see the sweet little string pencil I got from Sandy Bartholomew? And my journal/workbook I got at CZT training? I loaded my lunchbox up with various pens and tiles of different sizes.

As for what to work on, I still have a number of ATCs to make for a swap I'm participating in. That's where I started - with ATCs. Then I noticed this scrap of paper about 2" x 8" had landed in my lunchbox. Well, that's what I worked on next! I consider our whole trip a success. Kali found an apartment and had 3 job offers, and I got to do a whole lot of drawing! It was a win/win all around!

Thanks for being patient while I was dealing with family crises. Let's hope those are behind us now.

Baby Girl Hendon

This is the most recent sonogram of Jason and Bobbie's baby girl. If you look around 54 seconds in, you can see her yawn. So sweet! Can't wait for her to get here!