Okay....so I haven't been on here forever. We just got back from WV where we spent 10 days at home with our families for Christmas. We had a great time and even got to see some snow..FINALLY..while we were there. We miss seeing it, but don't want to live in it. We woke up the first morning to snow and then about 1 day later James and I decided we had seen enough. We had a great Christmas with our families and are now back in Florida and back to the everyday tasks. At least it's warm though :) !!! We are getting ready for a cruise in about 5 weeks. It's my trip for FINALLY reaching my goal weight..actually I'm 10 lbs under it. James promised me a trip when I began on my weight loss journey 2 years ago..if I ever got to my goal. I am proud to say I have passed it months ago and have set a new goal for myself of about 7-10 more lbs...and then I will be finished FINALLY. So, I hate flying so we decided a cruise would be best. I'm really excited. We got our passports in the mail last week and we are more than ready!! Other than that nothing new. We are looking forward to family coming to visit. James parents will be here in a few weeks for the winter and my parents are coming for the month of February. We are looking forward to spending time with them!! Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

My dad just came to visit for the week. We had a great time. I'm sad that he left this morning but we will be in WV for my brothers wedding in a month. We had so much fun now I'm bored :) !! We took a ferry to Caladesi Island just north of Clearwater Beach where they had amazing shells. We went to Siesta Key Beach, in Sarasota for sunset, Lido Beach in Sarasota during one of the days he was here and we went shopping at St. Armands Circle. We went to Fort Desoto Beach and walked around. Went to ride airboats and got to see some alligators and had lunch at Downtown Disney. We took my dad to a lot of different resaurants and got to do and see a lot of things. We had fun and I'll miss him!!!

Toby loves to pick up things and carry them around...in his mouth of course. I usually find him with as much as he can stuff in walking around the house. Well a couple weeks ago I was cleaning and he likes to take off our socks when we get home. I don't know why but ever since he was a puppy he has liked socks. So by the end of the week we have an accumulation of socks around the house it seems. So I picked them up and put them in the laundry basket and came back out into the kitchen to do some cleaning. A few minutes later what do I see... he had gathered up all of those socks and his toy(the yellow things...it's a duck)and a treat...which you can't see but believe me it's in there too and brought them all back out. He is SO cute!!!!

I know it has been forever since I have wrote on here. I just can't seem to find the time between facebook, email, going to the gym, work, etc, etc, etc. So since July let's see....what have we been doing??? Well, for our 11 year anniversary James took me to St. Augustine on the Atlantic side of Florida just south of Jacksonville. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast which I've always wanted to do but have always been hesitant about. I LOVED IT!!! It was amazing. The city is very old and has lot's of little streets with shops and restaurants tucked away everywhere. The B&B was just amazing. I'll post a few pictures. The innkeepers were so friendly and we sat on the porch overlooking the water every morning for breakfast and it was just wonderful.
August so far has been busy but pretty uneventful. We had a water leak in our new house which is always fun. It spread into another bedroom and surrounding closets, so they had to come and repair a bunch of stuff this whole month. But, finally after A LOT of headache, that is fixed as of yesterday and everything is back together.
The most exciting thing this month is that as of this Wednesday I'm off for about 9-10 days and my dad is coming to visit from WV. I pick him up from the airport this Thursday. I'm SO excited. We have lived down here for 2 1/2 years and this will be his first visit. My mom came in May so it will be nice to take my dad around and do some things. He will be here for about a week. The only bad thing is my mom had great weather in May and my dad...well this time of year from July until September is just HOT!!!!!
That is all that is going on with the Fike's :) We are looking forward to going home in October. My brother Matt is getting married. This is the first time since we have been married that we haven't been home since Christmas. That is the only hard thing about living in Flordia. I wish we were closer to family. When we were in Baltimore we at least went home 4-5 maybe 6 times a year. Now it's seems 2 maybe 3 if there are weddings. Last year we went home for Jason's wedding and this year Matt's. I can't believe we are all married...well soon to be, and we all have been married in birth order. First me , then Jason and now Matt. I thought that was interesting. How time flies!!!

Our Baltimore trip

We just flew back this morning from visiting friends and family in Baltimore for the past several days. We had a great time. It was nice to go back to where we lived for 6 years and see our friends and see how things have changed. We haven't been back for 2 years since we sold our house there so it was nice to see everyone. We got to stay with my best friend Michelle and her husband at their house on the Eastern Shore for a couple days. They live right on the water and James was able to go out and get crabs. We miss Maryland crabs so they took us to a great place to eat and we got crabs and ate at their house. We always wanted to go to St. Michaels so we went there for the day and went to the cute shops around that town. It was fun. We also went back to Ocean City with them which was a lot of fun. We got Fishers popcorn to take home and all the good food we miss from Ocean City. Including UTZ chips...I brought a bag home...YUM!! We had a great time sitting outside on their deck by the water and just hanging out. The weather was PERFECT!!! We miss them a ton!! We also got to eat lunch with my brother and his wife at our favorite crab place in Baltimore.Then went up to Pennsylvania to stay with our other friends. We had a great time there too. We got to go to see our old house that we lived in which was kinda sad. We had the house built and didn't live their very long. It looks really nice though. We also got to go to my favorite orchard market there and get "treats" They set off fireworks the night of the 4th and it was a lot of fun. We had a great time hanging out with them and their kids. We miss them a lot!! And last we got to see my other brother and his soon to be wife our last night there. We stayed with them to be close to the airport this morning to fly home. It was great going back and reliving memories and visiting with everyone. We miss everyone and had a great time. We got to pick up Toby today from "Doggie Camp" He did well and had fun. It's nice to have him home!!

Baltimore Trip July 2009