What a weekend!

Hi Everybody!

The entire family took a weekend trip across Florida, from the east to the west coast, to visit my parents, who live in Palm Harbor, near Tampa.
My mother, now 89, is in the last stages of Alzheimers.  But we had a beautiful, though bittersweet visit with her, she had her eyes open and seemed to react to our words and kisses.  I think she knew she was with her family.  We all left pretty affected, but glad we had the chance to tell her we loved her.

My father has not been well lately but we were happy that he was able to really enjoy seeing the girls, and received all their hugs and kisses with joy.  See the picture in Icho´s post below - his face says it all!

On Saturday morning, Diana, Icho and the girls went to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to visit the famous dolphin, Winter, star of the movie, A Dolphin Tale.  It is a true story about a dolphin that loses his tail and is rescued by the Aquarium.  He was fitted with a prosthetic tail (!) and returned to swmming normally and lives at the Aquarium.  Of course, the similarity of his problem with Maria and her friends at the Paley Institute is evident and all the kids want to go and visit him.  So they were thrilled with the visit and even got to see the set and places where the movie was filmed.
See the pics below in Icho´s post.

It was a long, tiring trip, but we have returned very happy from our four-generation family reunion!  Aren´t we lucky?!