~Solomon's Castle~

The other day we decided to visit Solomon's Castle in Ona, FL.   The home and working studio of Mr Solomon is here.  He is a well known sculptor and artist and we had a 1/2 hour tour of the museum - it was all so unique and very interesting.

Mr Solomon has been been sculpting and making different things since he was 4 years old!!! He is now 78. He does art work, metal and glasswork, woodwork and everything in between.  He is an incredible artist with an extraordinary creative mind.

 Everything on the property has a "story".

 Everything he makes is from "junk" or "treasures" that he has found somewhere and his work is incredible.   He has a very special talent.

 These animals were made from coat hangers.

 This train had a lampshade for the smokestack as well as a shock absorber for the driving piston and it actually ran on a vacuum cleaner's motor - amazing!!

 This lion was made of bronze and then painted.

We had a private tour and our guide was so sweet to the kids.  He made a joke out of everything he was describing!

He made several types of guns - this one was funny as he used a staple gun as the trigger and it shot forks as the bullets. 

 When he was 4 yrs old his mother gave him a razor blade (can you just imagine?) and told him to go outside and do something with it????   Anyhow.....that was the beginning of his creativeness as he came back inside with his first creation/invention - box at back on the left.  The bowl in the front with the lid he made when he was 9 yrs old and has inlays in it - wow!

This is the "Boat in the Moat" restaurant.  It took him 4 yrs to complete.

These are the "fencers" guarding the castle.

At the end of the tour we went for a walk around the castle and visited Mr Solomon's workshop - he just happened to be working on another project !!!   We had a nice chat with him and he showed us some of his projects he was working on.  It was so great for the kids to see this amazing artist in " real life" and to see someone still loving doing his "job".

 We went for a nice walk through his yard looking for the alligator - no luck today!

What a lovely way to spend an afternoon and to see that with a little imagination amazing things can be made from someone else's junk!

~A wonderful time at the strawberry patch!~

 Another wonderful, sunny Florida day!   One morning last week we decided to go to "Center Hill Farm" a short drive away from our campground in Wauchula.  There were rows and rows of beautiful, red strawberries that we were allowed to pick.............and eat too!!!   The man was so sweet to us all and we enjoyed chatting about farm life in Florida.

 We have been missing our fresh produce from home so this was a real treat for us.

 I am not sure if we enjoyed the picking or the eating more :)

It didn't take us long at all to fill up two buckets of these beauties!   We bought 12 1/2 pounds of berries, 2 butternut squash and 2 containers of grape tomatoes - and all for only $15 !!!!!  Eating strawberries while doing school this week has been a real treat!!!  YUM!!!

~Winter Jam ~

WOW - We just had the most amazing day!   We left our campground around 11am and headed into Tampa for the day.  It was really pretty - right on the river with beautiful views of the downtown area.

This is the Tampa Bay Times Forum where the concert was held and also where the Tampa Bay Lighting play their home games.

We parked our van not far from the arena and went for a lovely walk down the river.  It was such a hot day.

When we first walked past the arena there were already people lining up - it was 1pm!!!  The concert was due to start at 6pm !!!   WOW!   We asked and the lady said "You should start lining up around 2.30p and you should get in" .....what???   Oh well.... this should be fun eh??

HAD to take a hockey photo - not "our" team.....but still fun to see.

The lady directed us around the corner to where the line had ended and that is where we "sat", "stood", "paced" for many hours while waiting!!  Not joking.....it was over 32 degrees and VERY humid too.

They had a live band that kept us entertained.

At about 4pm we decided to see how it looked near the entrance and to our horror there were now thousands of people crowded into the main area - NO more lines!!! Oh dear.....we asked the "lady" and she said....."We've lost control of it" - so.......after a bit of thought we picked ourselves up and marched to the main area and found a new spot.

Then around 4.30pm they decided to start letting a few hundred people in at a time - the pre-concert started at 5pm.  Everyone was very anxious about making it in..........

but.............WE DID !!!!   And....we ended up with great seats with a view straight ahead of the stage.  There were 20 000 people there (a full house) and another 4000 people outside that didn't make it inside the arena.

The concert was SO great, but also VERY loud!!   It started with "Capital Kings"............

then "OBB".............

"Jason Castro"............

"Royal Tailor"...............

"Newsong".................

"Jamie Grace"..............

Toby Mac joined her for "Hold me"....................too cool!!!

"Sidewalk Prophets".......................

They had a HUGE disco ball with lights, they had fire, they had smoke...............it was all so incredible and such an experience for us all................

They had a wonderful speaker - Nick Hall who gave a great message.

Then came "Red" - oh my goodness...............it was SOOOO loud..................

This is Travis and Scott "enjoying" this part of the concert !!!! :)   :)

This is Austin Greene who shared about his World Vision experience - amazing.

Then came Matthew West....................

and finally.................Toby Mac !!!

The concert lasted for  5 hours and we had such a fun time with MANY laughs and stories that we will share later!!!!

The girls LOVED the concert and each bought a souvenir t-shirt!!