Barney & Bee

Pete's show - BARNEY & BEE opened tonight!! BARNEY & BEE tells the tale of Jo and Stephen, hosts of an ill-fated dinner party to which Stephen has asked Barney, the husband in a newly separated couple. Unbeknownst to Stephen, Jo has also invited the wife (Bee) and her new boyfriend - a recipe for social catastrophe! Two talented actors play all five comic characters in Frayn's witty, fast-moving farce.

It was great and the actors were working very hard but they couldn't have done it without Pete's props which included a fully set table that Pete has tricked out so that everything (plates, bowls, full silverware setting, napkins, place mats and wine glasses) smoothly slide from one end of the table and back!

It's a cute play and Pete did a GREAT job - more pictures as they become available!

Spring Training Day 4 - Mets vs. Nationals

Our last spring training game, we opted to see another park rather than drive back to Jupiter to see the Cardinals. Conveniently, the Mets were playing the Nationals only about 45 minutes from where we were staying in Harmony. So we got a new park! Also, though this is the Nationals training facility, during

the regular season it will be the park where the Brewers' Florida State League team will play - so a Mets game for Karen, Steven and Anya and a home-town connection for us! It's a beautiful park and we had great seats behind home plate in the sun! We didn't want to return North without a little color!

Because of it's location Space Coast Field has a lot of Cape Canaveral tie-ins including foul poles that commemorate the lost space shuttles Columbia and Challenger. Unfortunately, the Mets lost - 8-3, but as we said earlier, the top 15 Mets are not with the team as they are spread among their home countries teams in the World Baseball Classic. After the game, we went to The Melting Pot for a dinner of bread & vegetables soaked in Melted Cheese and fruit & Cake dipped in melted chocolate. Good friends, Baseball & Sun, tasty food - the end of a perfect vacation!

We had one non-baseball day, Monday we were forced to amuse ourselves around Harmony before our flight home. It was torture to walk to the pool for a swim and then sit in the sun and play cards. Torture!

Back home in the rain and fog, it's still 27 days to opening day. *sigh*

Spring Training Surprise

So as a special Spring Training surprise, instead of meeting Karen in Downtown Disney for dinner, we went to the Magic Kingdom for dinner and an evening of rides, shows and magical fun!

Pete was in seventh heaven with his Camera - Just when he would think he had the perfect shot, the subject would change colors! I think he has the castle in Pink, Green, Blue, and Yellow, but this is my favorite shot.










We started our evening on Mainstreet and dinner at Casey's Corner, it's a great little restaurant with (you guessed it) a baseball theme! They serve hot dogs, corn dog bites, chili and cracker jack! In the eating part of the restaurant there are tables, but also bleachers so that while you are eating you can enjoy all of the Disney baseball and other sports themed cartoons. The walls were also a museum of baseball history. It was a perfect start to our Spring Training Disney surprise! We rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, watched a parade with lighted floats, rode a run-away train roller coaster which we were on when the fireworks started! Then we were off to a 3D musical movie it was amazing! After the fireworks we continued through Frontier Land into Liberty Square and the Haunted Mansion ride. After that it was into the world of tomorrow. There was too long of a line for Space Mountain, but we rode through the whole world and wound up in the Monsters Inc. Laugh floor - kind of a cartoon/live action stand up show.

And because you can only have so much fun, it was time to head home! But not before Pete tried his luck at pulling the sword from the stone and becoming king! As you can see, he did not succeed.

We also couldn't leave Disney without some home-made fudge!


It was a great surprise and we had a blast, Pete hasn't been to The Magic Kingdom since he was 4-5 years old and I haven't been there in 20 years so it was great to see all the updates and new attractions.

We're really not much for group pictures! What a motley crew we are here! But it was a long day and an exhausting but fun evening in the happiest place on earth!

Spring Training Day 3 - Cardinals vs. Astros

For our third Cardinal game of our Spring Training dream vacation, we get a new park! The Osceola County Stadium is the only park on our trip that is only used for Spring Training, and doesn't have a team during the regular season. It kind of looks like that in it's plainness. But it was a great game and the Cardinals won 5-1! Karen wasn't able to join us because she had to work (more on that later) but with Pete's help, Anya is making headway on her game scoring. It's very strange, it feels like a minor league game with major league players, it's great to see all of our favorites this close!

Spring Training Day 2 - Mets vs. Cardinals

So on our second day of spring training we convinced Karen, Steven and Anya (Big Mets Fans) to play hooky from work and school and come to Jupiter with us for a Cardinals v. Mets game. I don't recall that it took too much arm twisting! We headed to the game and it was another beautiful day. The game was good, the Mets have 16 players out at the World Baseball Classic to the Cardinals 2, so we joked throughout the game that the Mets had thrown uniforms on the front office staff for the game, unfortunately, they still beat the Cardinals! It was OK though, it was a good close game and a couple of VERY Questionable calls could have easily thrown the game the other way. After the game we wandered around Jupiter, which is a really cute community, and found an Irish Pub to sit and talk and have dinner. We made it an early night. It's a beautiful sunset and a nice bite of summer!

Spring Training! Day 1 - Dominican Republic vs. Cardinals

Here we are in Florida - we FINALLY made it to Spring Training and we're having a Blast. We are staying with our friends Karen, Steven and Anya and on our first day,




they loaned us their car so we could drive to Jupiter FL (about 2 hours from their house) to the Cardinals training facility to see a game. In anticipation of the World Baseball Classic next weekend, the Cardinals played the All-Star Dominican Republic team. Against the odds, the Cardinals Won! Whoo Hoo! And it was a great game. We are loving how close we are to the action - minor league intimacy with major league players.

One of the great things about this game is that at the top of the game, they started with the Dominican National Anthem and then the US National Anthem (not sure who the singer was, but I'm guessing it was an Elvis impersonator... at least I hope so!) Then throughout the game, all of the announcements were bilingual! They had a guest announcer from one of the Spanish radio stations and all of the announcements were done in both English and Spanish.Pete said he was not prepared for how hard it would be to score a Spring Training game with all of the changes/substitutions to allow many players to get a chance at bat, but he was able to keep up. We met some very nice people who were sitting next to us and had been coming to Spring Training for 25 years. Where are they from? High Ridge Missouri where Pete's parent's live!! Small baseball world! It's just such a thrill to be watching baseball this early. And the weather is great!