Summer Nostalgia

As summer approaches and day light hours get longer the nostalgia of crickets chirping and neighbors gathering for cookouts returns. Our hope this summer is to capture that feeling and give our children that same experience. The kids have been running through sprinklers all day, enjoying ice cold popsicles, and their little faces and shoulders are starting to turn a slight shade of pink from the hot sun. But, summer seems to have a magical essence in the evening. Just as the sun is setting and everyone is finishing up their grilled hamburgers and hotdogs, there’s a peace that comes over the evening. The stars come out; the kids bring out the glow sticks, still not wanting to settle down. And so we let them enjoy this time. This time, when they don’t have to obey the strict bedtime rules and they are allowed to stay up a little later because it is summer.  The adults are sitting in lounge chairs chatting about politics, religion, recipes, children, and anything else that happens to come up. But, even with the kids still running around and all the chatter among the adults, not one person misses how great it feels to have a place to call home, people to call friends, and that magical happy feeling the summer night has brought to all of them.  THAT is what we want to bring back this summer to Cheyenne Estates. Our hope to have more cookouts with more people.  Get to know more of our neighbors.  We’d love to have a huge block party with ALL the neighbors. But we’ll need everyone’s help to spread the word. Let’s get more people involved on-line with the Facebook page that may be easier for some to join in conversation and post ideas. We have so many different things we can do as a neighborhood and it’s time we join together and get to know each other on a more personal level.  If you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions there is a form on the Facebook page you can fill out to contact us or you can leave a comment on this blog.  We can’t wait to see how this turns out and we sure hope everyone will want to join us in this venture.

Have a happy Monday!

-Jenn V.

Summer Time Refreshments!

Ahhhh, good ole summer time! August brings in the dog days of summer where the heat in Florida is just about too hot to tolerate. So hot that when you step outside your lungs feel like they have caught on fire. Thankfully, kids like Kendall remember what else summer is great for - Lemon-aid stands! This longtime tradition has stood the test of time and comes back every summer all over America, giving us adults cool beverages to sip on and teaches our kids the importance of entrepreneurship.

Ok, well at the very least it gives the kids something to do for an afternoon and a chance to earn some money for something they'd like to have. (and it gets them away from t.v and video games) In case you missed it, this past weekend, little Kendall set up shop on her parents front lawn  to raise money for a much desired scooter! I'm not sure how much she ended up earning, I believe the rain clouds got the best of her business after about an hour, but she did have plenty of customers.

 Many neighbors stopped on their way home from Sunday afternoon shopping and some stopped for a cool drink while walking the dogs. I don't know about you, but I'm hoping to see this lemon-aid stand a couple more times before school starts!
-Jenn V

My Slithering Friend

I must give kudos to Brianna Abney - my blog and Facebook admin partner. The other day after dinner, the kids and I were outside. I was watering the flowers and the kids were eating Popsicles. When I was done watering I decided to have a seat in my camping chair and relax for a few minutes. And then a bug crawled on me. Not a small bug. A medium sized bug. It was black with red, I’m not real sure on the specifics and they don’t really matter anymore, its just one of the stepping stone leading up to the event of the evening. Since I am not a fan of any bug, I decided I would not be sitting in the chair relaxing. I mean after all - I have no idea where this bug went to after I freaked out and flicked it off of me. So, I folded up the chair, picked it up, and turned to bring it back into the garage.

That's when I saw it.

Squirming around like it was confused on where to go. I froze. Was it poisonous, was the mama around? I wanted to grab the kids and run inside, but I knew if I did this creature, this SNAKE would get further into the garage and grow into an adult snake and then what would I do? This snake was still small enough that I wasn’t screaming, but it still had enough punch to render me frozen not knowing what to do. Mostly because I didn’t want to get bit by a poisonous snake while I was home alone with the kids. So, I did what any freaked out woman would do.
I called a neighbor. 

I had originally thought Brianna’s step son would be the one to come down and haul this thing off, but to my surprise Brianna came charging down the street like a She-ra Princess Warrior to my rescue. Her step son Cameron was with  her, and they quickly determined that my new friend was a white oak. Common to north Florida and wooded areas. I have also learned that they like to hide in tree’s and attack their prey by surprise. UGH. Just the thought of a snake in a tree and possibly dropping on me, freaks me out while I am sitting here typing. Anyway...back to this slithering reptile. Apparently they are not poisonous, which is good to know and they’re good at keeping rodents away. That's good to know too, but I’d like to propose to all the snakes out there- that if they could please do their ‘do-gooding’ while I am inside that would be great.
Episodes like this remind us of the precautions that we do need to take. Especially living in Florida - we do have poisonous snakes and we just need to be aware of our surroundings, teach our kids to be aware, and most important (for me especially) know what to do when we happen to come upon these creatures. After all, our She-ra Princess Warrior may not always be around when we need her. 

So, what do we do when we happen upon a poisonous one? The Florida Museum of Natural History says to just leave the snake alone. Most snakes bites occur when a person is handling them or trying to catch them. So, what if the snake is in the garage like mine? Without getting too close, try to push it out with a long handled broom or shovel. Of course if the snake is aggressive or poisonous and eliminating its existence is the only option, then do so with caution. If the snake is in an area that you can not get to, you can call Florida Wildlife Trapper at 1-866-263-WILD. They also remove other animals. Check out their website for more information. You can also find them on Facebook.  

With that -  lets all be safe and hopefully none of you happen to come across the mama or the siblings!




-Jenn V

Welcome!

And so it begins! When a couple of us got together for dinner one evening and began talking about the neighborhood and how to bring everyone closer, it was suggested that I create a blog and a Facebook page to help keep everyone informed. We thought it would be a great idea to have a place to share activities such as cookouts, yard sales, ideas anyone may have, or just have a helpful way of getting to know one another.  Since most of us work during the day, and it seems our lives become more and more busy as time goes on, it has become increasingly difficult to meet everyone and truly get to know our neighbors. Our hope is that by creating an easily accessible on-line community, we will all have a chance to learn about each other, and generally feel a little more connected to our community.  Since this blog is so brand new, please be patient with us as we get the hang of it, and if you have any suggestions, please let me know. Also, if you’d like to write a blog article, or have any news you’d like to share, feel free! You can email me the scoop, and we’ll get it posted. I’m looking forward to meeting some of you for the first time, and looking forward to getting to know some of you a little bit better.  I’m in the process of creating our Facebook page, so look for a link to that coming soon!


-Jenn V