"They say America's got talent.... but it sure ain't here!"

Well, we just had an incredible weekend. I don't mean to rub it in (well, maybe a little bit) but we went to Fort Lauderdale. My grandmother lives down there and was celebrating her 90th birthday last week so the family decided we would all go see her and throw her a party. Of course, this was also our big vacation of the summer (even if it was only for a weekend) so we were staying in a nice hotel on the beach - absolutely gorgeous!! (see picture) We had an ocean view, looking out over the courtyard around the pool, and spent as much time as we could out on the beach. I miss the ocean - there's something spiritual about it for me with the waves and vastness of all that water supporting all that life.

Anyway, Grandma's party was the most interesting part of the weekend - she had said she didn't want one at all and then once we said we wanted to do it, she tried to take over. Gotta love family. She ate up all the attention while we struggled to have conversations with people we didn't know and will likely never see again. It was great to see my relatives - many of them I hadn't seen since my dad's funeral almost 5 years ago - but the strange thing about family (at least mine) is that the relationships seem to work better via long distance. It's like we don't know what to do when we're actually all with each other. Anyway, there were a lot of gifts, much to my grandmother's joy. We girls from the family all pitched in and took her to a spa to get her a massage (a first for her) and pedicure the day before. She probably won't ever do the spa thing again - she admitted she's never go by herself, but I think she had fun in spite of her misgivings about getting undressed and touched by a man. :) Aside from watching my grandmother, there were a couple of significantly funny things from the party.

First, was the cake taster. This one guy was trying to be coy while admiring the cake, but was caught swiping a big piece of frosting off of the cake!! I took a picture and we couldn't believe how big a chuck he took - not even off the corner where it might not be so noticeable!! We took it as a sign that it was time to serve the cake, and moved on to do just that.

Then there was the sing-along. Someone (probably my grandmother, but I don't really know who) compiled a song sheet of about 25 songs from the 30's-ish era. I didn't know most of them, but most of the crowd was older and seemed to enjoy the trip down memory lane - if only of them could sing!! There was a woman with a microphone trying to lead it, but she was horrible - and the people sitting around the room had no qualms about saying anything about it. She then tried to put the mic up to other people as they were singing (such as my Uncle in the picture), but for some reason there was a great shortage of people who could actually find a pitch and rhythm at the same time. Several relatives tried to get me to take over, but I didn't even know the songs so what could I do? An older woman sitting behind me was cracking me up with her commentary on the party in general when I heard her say the line which has now become the title of this post. "They say America's got talent, but it sure ain't here!" I did end up on the mic when they sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and a couple of people thanked me, which I thought was interesting.

Other than the party and going out to dinner, our weekend was spent at the hotel and airports. We tried boogie boarding from the hotel beach rentals (a first for me and A LOT of fun, as you can see in the pics), swam in the pool, sat in the sauna and hot tub, and had breakfast on our sundeck off the hotel room. The hotel room scenario itself was interesting, but now isn't the time to get into it. We had a great time, got sun, watched the sunrise both mornings we were there, and got to spend some good time with my mom and each other before everything changes at the end of the month. Hope you like the pictures...

P.S. I'm having a hard time with the pictures, but this post has been sitting for 2 days, so I'm just posting the text and will get the pictures up ASAP. In the meantime, thanks for the great discussion on my previous post!