Hey Paul, my father-in-law lives off Brickell by the Rickenbacher causeway, so we take a few trips a year down to Miami to visit. A couple of my favorite places to eat are an Italian place called Cafe Vialetto (Italian with a Latin flair), another Italian place called Casa Tua (a bit pricey), and Michael's Genuine Food & Drink is probably one of my absolute favorite places to go. There are a lot of good Cuban restaurants, and I love Cuban food, but I have yet to find anyone doing anything adventurous with it down there. For reference: Michael's: http://www.michaelsgenuine.com/ Vialetto: http://hosting.mandica.com/vialetto/Caffe_Vialetto/Caffe_Vialetto.html Casa Tua: http://www.casatualifestyle.com/ My wife grew up in Miami, I'll email over some other suggestions after talking to her. We are both huge foodies that love to cook at home and dine out.

Jay, We've seen random geese flying north but not big flocks....just a dozen or two here or there. This week, mallard ducks showed up and have been staying on our big pond. Since March is a mere three weeks away, I expect the purple martins are making their way up through Texas too but I haven't checked the Martin Watch website lately to see. Some years we see the scout birds here as early as mid-February. I am seeing more song birds daily but am not sure if the migration is on or if they are just coming for the bird feeders. The American Goldfinches haven't left yet and they usually leave our house between mid- and late-Feb. so we'll know soon if they are going to head north 'on time' or not. It is cold and it is raining, but I still think this will be a little wimp of a storm compared to what we had in Dec. and Jan. The bird activity in the yard on the native berry bushes and at the feeders and birdbaths was higher than normal today, but not the huge numbers of birds we had in December. I'm hoping the worst of the winter weather is behind us. I am so ready to get out into the yard and do somsething---but even the wildflowers that normally bloom in January and February have barely begun to show themselves. I haven't seen a single hatching grasshopper yet and that's a good sign. When they are hatching in Jan. and Feb. that means we'll have a lot of damage from them so not seeing any hatching early can only be good news. On the other hand, there's so many birds here that maybe they are eating the grasshoppers as they hatch. Dawn

Last week Tuesday, Trouble (one of my dogs) and I were walking around sundown when we heard lots of racket. Looking up I was thrilled to see a wave of about 1000 geese overhead, all headed north. A few minutes later, a second wave, just as large or larger, passed by. Being a "northerner" until last fall, I assumed they were Canadian Geese - about all we ever saw. The next day I read in the local press that they were Snow Geese. What brave birds they are. They winter on the western coast of the Gulf of Mexico but breed in the summer north of the tree line in Alaska and in the arctic regions of Canada. Now that's what I call a comute!!

When our kids were at home, we celebrated the 12 days of Christmas. We did do gifts, although only the one given on 12th Night/Epiphany/Feast of the Three Kings was a big one. The others were small, sometimes shared (such as a family movie), and for years they involved a treasure hunt each day to find them. They loved the treasure hunts so much that it didn't matter if the treasure was nothing more than a colorful pen or a candy bar. We kept up our tree and lights through Jan. 6th (even got a nastygram from the HOA in one neighborhood for not taking down the outside decorations fast enough.) At least once, but more often on the 26th and again on the 2nd, we had "backwards day" for which we ate pizza for breakfast and french toast for supper and stayed in our pajamas all day. Since we homeschooled, we scheduled a break from Christmas Eve until Jan. 7th. Our kids were into Legos, K'Nex, Puzz3D, and all sorts of building toys, so we spent a lot of our time working together to assemble new sets. We also watched the movies (VHS back then) they received, as well as old favorites. We took turns choosing the menu for each day so that everyone had favorite foods (even when that meant PBJs for supper.) On Epiphany, we enjoyed our first King Cake of the season (which runs until Mardi Gras.) Whoever got the "baby" (we used a plastic baby hidden from the bottom, but some people use a large nut) was the King (or Queen) of the Feast. These days, we're not together for most of the 12 days of Christmas (if at all.) I order King Cakes for each of us from a bakery in New Orleans that delivers them on (or the day before) Epiphany, but that's all we do now.