In honor of Bastille Day I'm posting a Paris Banner from the Disney World Food & Wine Festival 2009.  I have photos of the Eiffel Tower replica but can't find it.

Here is a link to a Disney blog showing the beginnings of the French Pavillion at Epcot and a photo of the Tower.

Click Here

I've been visiting Disney World quite often lately. The Osborne Light show is amazing and the Disney elves are working hard to get the rest of the Parks and Resorts Christmas and Holiday ready.

At the Grand Floridian they always have a wondrous Gingerbread House. This is what the preparations look like. All that's missing is the Gingerbread and the icing.

Photo taken by my inherited daughter, Vanessa.

I know that this isn't Kissimmee but it's close. Derek Gores is a collage artist who lives on the East Coast of Florida and has done the poster for this year's 47th Space Coast Art Festival.



I've signed up to take a 2 day class with Derek. I'm looking forward to it but need to figure out who I want to do. It's a portrait class.

Since some of you liked our first video, here is the second Sunshine Diva video. We did this here in Kissimmee in May when we had our last get-together. We spent so much time getting this done that we missed the free wine and beer at the poolside cabana. Now that's dedication to our Il Divos.

This is my cat, Shadow, telling me to wake up and smell the roses and perhaps start blogging again. He's usually right and very bossy so I guess I'll make an effort to post more often.

Sorry I haven't posted but I'm taking a break to renew my enthusiasm for this blog. In the meantime I'm having lots of fun going to concerts and hanging out with friends.
This was done yesterday in South Florida with my Sunshine Diva group. This morning it was posted to Youtube and we should all be embarassed but we're not. It was such a fun two days and these are the best group of women ever assembled. Just wanted to share it with all of my blogger friends.

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days. I'm fine, just still recovering from my trip, had company and crazy schedule. I'm off to Puerto Rico tomorrow for a few days to see Il Divo and some friends.
I need to decide whether to continue this blog or head in other directions for awhile. It's been a year and I'm thinking it may need a rest. I'll ponder while I'm away.

Today I will be at Epcot at Disney World for the Food and Wine Festival. Hopefully I can stay awake and not wear out before the end of the evening and the fireworks. This photo was taken the last time I was there.
Food and Wine Fest is lots of fun and I'm sure I'll have a bit of a pang when we get to Paris. I plan to have a glass of wine and a creme brulee.
Hope to get some photos for future posts. I am out of pictures for this blog so I need to get to work.

Big surprised when I got home. My neighbors painted their house. It was grey with white shutters. I love the green shutters but I photographed it at dusk so the yellow wouldn't blind anyone. It's very bright but looks nice against the green grass and the green in the shutters calms it a bit.

I need to get out and about and find some new things to photograph in Kissimmee.

Here is an update on Jasper. He's become so famous and given so many interviews that he lost his voice. Today it was slightly improved as you can see in this video.
I also just noticed that the 1st of November was the one year anniversary for this blog. No wonder I'm tired.

Home

I'm home and posting a photo of one of my semi-feral yard cats. It seems that Jasper was a hit while I was gone so I may need to take pictures of the Cats of Kissimmee for future posts.
I so want to thank my friend Sharon for all her hard work filling in for me. She did a great job and thanks to those who commented and made her feel welcome. I'm trying to recruit her to start her own blog. She does it well.
I need to catch up on some sleep and all the other stuff that awaits me. I had a wonderful time in Paris.

Karen is back but is sleeping in today so she asked me to post for one more day. Having moved to Florida from up north I was surprised when I first saw orange blossoms. Unlike up north where the trees have no leaves and are totally covered in blossoms, the orange blossoms pop up between the leaves and often arrive before the year's harvest has been completely picked. Perhaps because of the scarcity of blooms, orange blossoms are very nicely scented to attract the bees. The second pictures shows the beginning of next year's crop.

Well, the month is up and Karen will be back posting tomorrow. Jasper has his Ferrari hat on so it's time for us to take off. Thanks for allowing me to share my pictures with you all. Farewell from the Space Coast.``Sharon

You cannot live on the Space Coast without witnessing a shuttle launch. This was taken from across the Indian River in Titusville, probably the best place to watch and experience the launch. I have gone several times by boat to the Banana River to watch but the saying goes, "you almost guarantee that the launch will be postponed if you go to all the trouble of going out in your boat to see it".

My favorite part of the Kennedy Space Center other than the IMAX theaters is the Rocket Garden, a wonderful history of the U.S. space program. The Saturn V is pictured lying horizontally because it's too tall to display vertically. My Rockets of the World Chart gives a good comparison of the Saturn V bottom right to the shuttle, second from the left in the bottom row. It always amazes me when I see the small cramped capsule where the astronauts were seated. The shuttle's crew compartment is so much larger and the fact that they can move around once in space has got to be a plus.

Here we are back on the Space Coast. Most people flock to Daytona Beach and Cocoa Beach in Central Florida but there is a very pristine beach on the Canaveral Seashores called Playalinda Beach. Since it's located in a protected area, there are NO condos. There is an admission fee to get into the Canaveral Seashores area but you can use your National Park pass to get in. It's worth not having to look at all the ugly tall buildings. The only structures in the distance are the launch pads from the Space Center. It is east of Titusville and north of the Kennedy Space Center. There is a controversial nude beach there, but it is located at the far north end of the beach in a fairly remote location.

Junkanoo is a Bahamian celebration that is held twice a year: January 1st and December 26th. In the large cities like Nassau it is a carnival-like festival but in small villages in the Outer Islands the kids take newspaper and shred it into strips and make their own costumes and paint their faces to match. This boy was an incredible drummer.

Dolphins often accompany you while sailing. They especially like ride your bow wake. This one looks like it's floating in the air because the water is so clear on the Bahama Banks.

Conch on the Barbie. Living on a boat meant diving for one's supper. Conch was my "hamburger" of the sea: I figured anything you could do with hamburger, you could do with conch. Once you figure out how to get the conch out of the shell, the recipes are endless. This is conch pounded and put on the fire. Yummy.

This is a typical Bahamian sailing smack boat. An old Bahamian I knew named Robbie, who was almost completely blind often sailed one from the Staniel Cay in the Exumas to Nassau (about 85 miles to the NE) and back with only a compass. Each April Bahamian sailors head to Georgetown in the Exumas for the National Family Island Regatta. I have not attended in a long time and I hope that they have kept their tradition and not gone to mylar and kevlar and all the other high tech gadgets that the sailboat racing industry have embraced.