Hanging out by the pool in March

Hi New Yorkers, this photo is for you! It is a beautiful 78 degree day here in sunny southwest Florida. This is a shot of our lanai and backyard. I am sorry to seem cruel but you just need to know what you are missing so that you immediately make plans to come for a visit! Also, you may have noticed the new "Not me Monday" button over on the side. This is a place where you get to be totally and brutally honest about all the things that happened (or did NOT happen) to you every Monday. Check out some other people's hilarious Mondays and stay posted to hear about ours. Love you all. God bless,

I'm trying to catch up!

Well, here is another installation of life with the Perceys. Since I have last written I continue to be very busy! It seems like I have just posted a message and then I realize two weeks or more have gone by! I vow to do better people! Besides my business cooking along, I am in four different bible studies. I know that sounds crazy, but it just worked out that way. I am actually really enjoying them and finding that I am able to keep up pretty well with the reading and workbook. So I have posted a somewhat eclectic group of pictures. Dave and I recently went to a wonderful marriage conference sponsored by our church and run by our friends Travis and Paul Pracher. It was really fun and a huge blessing for everyone involved! I completely forgot to take pictures while I was there, so I only have these two! This is the view of the lake from our room. Sam came down recently to pick up her car after we had some work done on it. She has lost a bunch of weight and looks amazing! Here is a rare photo of Sam and Maddie both facing the camera and smiling together!!! Sam is not actually taller than Maddie these days. She is just wearing really high heels. Maddie and I have been working hard at getting in good shape too in anticipation of our trip to NY in April. We are looking forward to seeing everyone but really dreading the weather! I don't think we own enough warm clothes anymore. Well, I must sign off for now but promise to try really hard to write again soon. God Bless and love to all!

Where does the time go?

I have been so busy the last month! I am very blessed that Venice Cleaning is in full swing and doing well this season at such a tough time in the economy. I haven't done very well keeping up with my blog. Sorry! Here is a collage of some family photos that didn't make it in anywhere else. (They are somewhere on the right side. I can't seem to figure out how to keep my relevent photos next to the posts they go with! Please bare with my very limited web design skills.) Hey, come to think of it, I believe I do know an actual webmaster that could probably help. Hmmmm.

Happy Birthday Gram and Dave!

The prettiest Gram ever!
The party goers.

The revelers

Dave blowing out the candles on his ill-fated cake!

January brought two special days in our family. My beautiful, young looking grandmother turned 80 and my honey Dave turned 36! I hear my gram had a great birthday. Sorry we couldn't be there to celebrate with you Gram.For Dave's birthday we had a party at a local italian restaurant, ironically called Gianni's (no we did not name our puppy after the pizza place!) We enjoyed the company of a bunch of our friends and really had an awesome time. I think one of the big highlights for everyone was when I dropped Dave's cake upside down on the floor right before I was about to cut it! Praise the Lord that I had a second cake, so I didn't panic too much. Thanks everyone for helping make the best of a rather embarrassing moment! I am sure I will be asked to bring my famous "upside-down cake" to every church event from now on.

Gianni and Neko

Adventures at the dog park

We are happy to have our own dog to take to the dog beach these days. In the past we have taken our friend Donna's standard poodle Jazz while babysitting. It is always fun, but we kind of felt like possers! Plus, all of the dog owners discuss their dogs vital stats and we just don't know all of Jazz's info. It is amazing how much of a community it is there. The dogs all get along great and seem to have an amazing time playing together. Gianni fit right in, after his intitial fearful reaction to being charged by a pair of Shelties who wanted to check him out. He plays like crazy, goes in the water, which is a riot, and sleeps like an angel when we get home. Here are some photos. I hope everyone is having a good week. God bless,

Musical Holidays

As many of you know, in the Percey household, we like to sing. A lot! And if we don't know the words, we make them up. Sometimes even when we do know the words, we make up our own. It is one of our hobbies! Well, Maddie has been blessed to have a beautiful voice and has been putting it to very good use this season. She is in three choirs at school including the select choir called "Le Voce de Venezia". (The Voices of Venice) They are amazing! They perform all over town at various functions. At one point Maddie had six shows in one week! We also all had the pleasure of being in a new group at our church called the "Bridge Ensemble." We performed about eight songs in the form of telling the Christmas story. It was a lot of fun. Maddie even had a solo in "Oh Holy Night". She sang the entire third verse by herself! We were all very impressed! I have included a few photos. I didn't have my nice new camera then, so please forgive the limited selection and quality! I also wish I could figure out a way to include audio. I am working on that. Much love and blessings,

Happy New Year

Happy 2009! May it be a blessed and wonderful year for us all. Today's post will be quick, I'm feeling rather lazy today after yesterday's excitement. Dave spent the morning having a boating lesson on the Intercoastal Waterway while Maddie and I went and did a quick job. After that we took a picnic lunch to the marina and joined him on the boat. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the sites along the intercoastal. It was a blast! I took a bunch of pictures of the houses, the scenery, us on the boat and a very friendly dolphin named Moochie who came up along side the boat a couple of times. I could have reached out and touched him! Awesome! Anyone who knows me from my childhood knows that I longed to be a Marine Biologist and that dolphins have always been one of my favorite animals. I can't even believe I live in a place where they are a common site! God is so good! I also have a friend of a friend who is a marine biologist and is in charge of keeping an eye on the local manatee population, as well as rescuing them if anyone calls in a problem. I signed us up for the volunteer rescue list. Anyway, after our afternoon of boating we went out to dinner at our latest great find, the Rendezvous Cafe. It is about two minutes from our house and reminds us of our favorite diner up north, Bob's. (I hear that they have closed by the way. Can anyone confirm or deny that for me?) Well, this cafe is open 24/7 and has a sign on the window that says "Open all hurricanes and holidays". Isn't that cool? They have great food at reasonable prices and an outdoor eating area where you sit in these swinging, covered picnic tables. We love it. So, after dinner we went to a great party at our friends the Crites house. There was live Christian music, most of the people from our church were there, and just a general fun time. We ended up leaving Gianni at the Williams house with Maddie and Casey and Corey. That was probably best because there were so many people and he is little and underfoot. Today was just a very lazy and relaxing day. Maddie and I did manage to get in a bike ride though, on our way to and from dinner at Craig and Amy's house, which is 1.7 miles from ours. Well, I will sign off now as I still have many pictures to post. Love and God Bless to all!

The new camera has arrived!

I am so excited to report that I have received the new digital camera that Dave found on EBay for us (at a fabulous price, of course!) Dave is the master bargain hunter in our family. I do pretty well with most things, but leave all electronic purchases to his expertise. I will now go completely crazy taking pictures of everything in our world. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and also our nine year wedding anniversary, where does the time go? We have awesome plans to go out on a boat and roam around the intercoastal waterway and possibly out into the Gulf of Mexico if we become brave enough! Then we are going out to dinner (not sure where yet, but many incredible choices here in Venice), then we have been invited to a party at our friends the Crites house. They are musicians too so it should be a really fun way to spend the evening. Of course we will be bringing Gianni so that he can play with his half-brother Casey Crites. (Photos to follow soon.) Much love to all,

Merry Christmas!

This will be a quick post because it is Christmas day and I will not have a free minute once my family wakes up. I just got up, thanks to little Gianni's little bladder, and now I am waiting on coffee. I thought I would take a minute and say Merry Christmas to everyone! It seems like it is a lean one this year for many families and I am reminded of how incredibly blessed we have been this year. Dave still works for the same company doing web design for 11 years now, which is pretty much unheard of in his field. Thanks Worden's gang! My company, Venice Cleaning, has been thriving in a business where many are closing their doors. In the past year we have experienced an abundance of new friendships, some reconcilled relationships, and the joy of living in paradise, all while developing a deeper and more profound relationship with the King of Kings. All praise, honor and glory are yours Jesus! Much love to all on this special day,

Finally!

Well, finally, after one year, seven months, and three days in Venice, Florida, I am starting a blog to be able to keep up with all of our loved ones, near and far. Thanks a million to my friend Travis for getting me started! I will try to keep up with my posts at least once a week and let everyone know what is going on in the fascinating, fast paced life of the Perceys! Today is Christmas Eve, which I am still having a hard time wrapping my brain around because it is 82 degrees and we just got back from the beach! It was Gianni's first ever trip to the Gulf and he was the absolute star of the dog beach. He is just about the cutest thing you ever saw in your life. We are really enjoying him. Maddie and I went to work this morning for a while. (If you call getting to spend time in a 4th floor condo right on the beach work!) Then off to the beach, then home to work on my blog. Later we will be attending the Christmas Eve service at our church home, The Bridge Church. It should be a lot of fun. Tomorrow we are hosting dinner for nine, including our friends the Williams family and Craig's parents, Marge and Rich. We are looking forward to our first Christmas in this house. It is small but homey. Well, Merry Christmas everyone. Much love,