Spring

March 23, 2009

Meg Cabot & Judy Blume

Trevor & Nadene

Amber Leigh at the Seafood Festival

Spring



There is a very short window for Spring in the Keys, it goes from a summer-like winter straight into real summer most of the time, but there is sometimes a brief period of very comfortable, breezy and sometimes rainy spring which seems to be the case this week. The great weather is perfect for the large crowd of college students who seem to be here on Spring Break. In fact this is as busy a spring season as we have had in years if sheer numbers of students and traffic jams are any indicator.
The new season hasn’t lessened the amount of activities that we have been involved in, in fact it seems of late that the opposite is true as the social scene in Key West has continued unabated and work for both Kathy & I has become extra busy as well.

Rhett & Melissa

Trevor

Among the past week’s fun-filled activities was a birthday party for our friend Trevor “Shooter” Orr. Trevor celebrated his 40th birthday with a gathering of friends at his home. We seem to have been attending a plethora of birthday celebrations and they have all been pretty damn enjoyable. Trevor doesn’t look a day over 39, though he did seem to have the pallor of a lobster, having spent most of the day poolside at the Casa Marina.

Graf & Eileen

Melissa & Jack

Kathy’s father Jimmy was hosting a visit from a family friend, Carolyn Sones, from Marshfield this week and we took them both up to the huge Marathon Seafood Festival as part of her Keys vacation.

Amber Leigh

Jimmy, Carolyn & Kathy

The Marathon Seafood Festival is one of the biggest festivals of the year in the Keys as over 17,000 attend the two day celebration of Keys Seafood that features entertainment, vendors, fresh Florida seafood and beer.





Brian

Our friend Brian Roberts was part of the entertainment as he sat in with the Marathon based band John Bartus & Storm Watch. We watched their show and stayed for the afternoon show that featured a talented young Country singer named Amber Leigh. It was a great afternoon of music.





Joy Tatgenhorst

Monday, The Friends of the Library hosted a wonderful discussion between two of the finest writers in America, Judy Blume and Meg Cabot about writing for young adults. It was a pleasure to her two such fine writers in such an intimate exchange. It was obvious they were having a great time and the standing room only crowd loved it as well.

Martha with Judy & Meg



It has been crazy busy at work as well as we have been preparing for the upcoming summer season when we will be working in Albania, Sicily and Montenegro. This week we had to ship two boats over to our base in Malta. Howard & Todd have done a great job getting the vessels ready and getting all the additional gear that we are sending in a container prepared. The archeological search work will begin in May and we are scrambling to have everything ready.