Boating and the zoo

This weekend, our friends Russell and Julie took us out on their boat. It was tons of fun! We cruised around the St. John's river and saw about 15 or 20 dolphins! We boated across the river and ended up docking at the zoo. The zoo was decorated really cute for Halloween! There were pumpkins everywhere and they even dressed up some of the animals (see pictures below). I haven't been to the zoo since I was like 5 years old! Russell and Julie's adorable and extremely well behaved kids were with us and a good time was had by all. We saw Jaguars, monkeys, apes, and we got really close to this enormous gorilla! So of coarse I took pictures...

Sold!

We finally have a signed contract on our flip house and we are closing in 10 days! Woohoo! The lady that's buying it from us is so cute and so excited! She has two little kids and this is her first home. It's so cute how excited she is and it's very gratifying for us to see how proud she is of the place and how much she is going to LOVE living there.



I've been trying to get into the fall spirit lately by putting out my fall decorations and breaking out the fall clothes. One problem though, it was 90 degrees today! It feels more like June than October! Don't get me wrong, I love the warm weather but it's almost November for heavens sake! I'm supposed to be wearing sweaters, not shorts! Hopefully it will cool down in Jacksonville so I don't feel so weird! Here's a picture of my cute straw man and scary pumpkins. I'm all ready for my trick or treaters!

A Proud Moment…

Every now and then, John does something that makes me SO proud of him! Tonight was one of those nights. After work, we went over to our flip property to show it to an interested buyer. Afterwards, we went to grab a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant. When the waitress brought us our food, I realized that she brought me the wrong thing, so I told her that this wasn’t what I ordered. I ordered the Fiesta Lime Chicken and she brought me fish. She began to apologize profusely and told me that she would take care of it. In the meantime, she brought me a free salad and all was fine. As she came to check on us now and again, I could tell that she was really upset about her mistake and she told us she was new and was really sorry about the mistake. She was so sweet and I felt so bad that she was so upset. I let her know that it was an honest mistake and not to worry. We started to talk to her a little bit and we found out that she was from a little town in Tennessee, really close to where John’s parents live. She and John began talking about Tennessee and he asked her what brought her to Jacksonville. She looked a little uncomfortable with the question and mumbled something I couldn’t quite understand. I asked her to repeat herself and she leaned in and whispered in my ear that what brought her to Jacksonville was a domestic violence shelter.
I was so incredibly humbled by this sweet girl and her circumstances. I told John what she said and we both agreed that we should leave her a generous tip. I was thinking maybe $10, which was over 50 percent of our bill. John told me that she could probably use a little extra money. He asked me if I would be okay with leaving her $20, which incidentally was more than the cost of our entire meal. Of course I agreed that it was okay with me. I was really touched by my husband’s compassion and generosity. Everyone who knows John knows he’s a little on the cheap side! And money has certainly been tight with us lately. I was really proud of him tonight! He has such a kind heart and I was very touched by his generosity. When we left, the happy expression of this sweet waitress’s face was so rewarding to us and it truly made my night! I realize that in the grand scheme of things, this was a small, ordinary thing that we did, but it was done with love! And as Mother Teresa once said
“Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.”
What a wonderful night!