As you can see below, Lacey is now a patient at Dr. Hart's orthodontist office too.
So, when Dr. Hart and his staff announced the summer T-shirt contest, Lacey and I decided that we could compete together. We were excited, thinking of all the places where we could pose wearing our Dr. Hart t-shirts. There were endless photo possibilites. . . us drinking butter beer at Universal Studios, us feeding the dolphins at Sea World, us at Cirque du Soleil in Orlando. Then, life took an unexpected twist. Our beloved great-Uncle Al was diagnosed with terminal cancer and we traveled to Sun City Center, Florida, to be with him. Our Mom told us to have our shirts handy in the car because she wanted to take a photo of us at South of the Border. You have to admit, Pedro is pretty cool.
We stopped overnight in Georgia and our Mom said, "Come on, let's see those t-shirts!" So, us on a luggage cart is a little original . . .
Uncle Al lived in a retirment community. While he loved us dearly, many of the residents in his community are not so fond of kids. They really got annoyed when we decided to have wheelchair races! You haven't lived until you've tried this on a cobblestone driveway. My Mom made us stop when Lacey rolled right in front of an oncoming car.
The days were getting kind of long. One morning I was almost out of wax for my braces. My Mom was distraught because the nearest orthodontist office was over 25 miles away. It seems that orthodontists are not very popular in retirement communities. Suddenly, we could almost see the lightbulb go off over our Mom's head. I guess she was thinking too much about orthodontists. "I've got a great idea," she said. "Why don't you put on your Dr. Hart t-shirts and we'll try to capture the essence of this community."
You see, that's the problem with our Mom. She's always a glass half full kind of person. But, she was so convincing that we decided to give it a try. Here's what happened.
First, we decided to make friends in the neighborhood by retrieving trashcans from the street.
Then, we went for a walk. The community is filled with beautiful palm trees. The best ones are on the golf course. We couldn't tell if the golfers were more surprised to see us or our t-shirts.
One day, we chased the elusive sand cranes. You can almost see them in the photo.
We met some very wonderful people who loved our uncle dearly. Here we are having an
off-season Mardi Gras with our new friend Char.
We also got to spend a lot of time with our little cousin, Bodhi.
We swam almost every day. The pool was beautiful. Here are a few of the rules that seem to apply only to kids: No running. No jumping. No splashing. No yelling. No food or drink in the pool area unless you buy it from the clubhouse. But, guess what, you have to be dry and fully clothed to enter the clubhouse. What fun is that? No hanging on the railing. No sitting on the steps. No loud music. Lacey's not very good at following rules so our Mom got to meet a lot of people at the pool.
Our Uncle Al was a supporter of the Southeastern Guide Dog school. This is a campus that raises and trains guide dogs. To honor our Uncle Al, we volunteered to help walk the trainees. It was an incredible experience.
Here we are with Zelda.
And, here we are walking Joy.
At the end of the day, we stopped for a cool, refreshing drink. #starbucks
My Mom said she was really grateful for those Dr. Hart t-shirts. They kept us busy and she didn't have to do as much laundry.
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