It's a Woonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life

by Janet Marsh Webster White

I recently saw a map called "I hate Florida"saying "Today is National Hate Florida DAy!" It showed all the temperatures in the country at freezing or below and then there was South Florida at 80 degrees!

I live in SFLO and I must say the weather lately has been perfect. I think I have always taken it for granted until recently. Therein lies my story.

Then we went to the duck pond where the ducks know us and they swarm around us and let us feed them out of our hand. Tyler thinks this is so cool and one duck lets Tyler pet him. This is Tyler's favorite pastime. Emerson even has names for some of the ducks.

So here it is Christmas eve and we are watching It's a Wonderful Life on tv. It suddenly hit me: we have a wonderful life right here! Yesterday was perfect and each one of us had the best time. I feel very lucky to be outside enjoying perfect weather with people I love.

So the next time some of you look at our weather don't say "I Hate Florida" just come down and visit. We will swim, ride bikes and feed ducks, and we will do it all in the dead of winter.

Thanks Florida you give me a wonderful life.

Merry Christmas to all.

My son Tyler and his wife Kim are here visiting from Raleigh, NC. Tyler is an indoor person whose only exercise is getting up to go to the bathroom. Yesterday my granddaughter Emerson came over, and Tyler and I were just sitting around.

All I wanted to do was go swimming. I never swim after September, but it has been hot and KIm had said it was warm when she went to the pool so off we walked! It was 85 degrees and no one but us were at the pool.

Tyler jumped right in and so did Emerson. I soon followed. It was perfect and so warm. We had so much fun; We raced, dove and played games. Tyler was relieved that he could still beat me in a race!

Then the three of us got out and lay back on lounge chairs and soaked up the sun: it was heaven. I told Emerson how lucky we were. I said, "I wonder what they're doing in Minnesota?"

I explained to Em that people pay lots of money to come to Florida, and we get to live here. I decided to go for broke and told Tyler we wanted to bike to Starbucks. Much to my surprise, he sais ok! So the three of us went on a great bike ride and had a yummy drink. Emerson was on the adult 3 wheeler, Tyler rode Jeff's Kermit the frog bike with the big skinny wheels, and I rode my mountain bike with the big wicker basket like Aunty Em. We were quite the trio.

I thought Tyler's body would be in shock by now but he actually loved it.