July 2010

An exciting month of July is almost over. Some big things happened this past month. 
The most exciting in the family was the birth of our first granddaughter Kamryn Abigail, mother and dad Monica and Chris. Note the pix on the right side. That was really exciting. I finally get to purchase "girl" stuff after having grandsons for so long. 
The second big thing was me leaving Macy's at the Mall of Millenia. I moved to Orlando to open up that store about 9 years ago. It was very melancholy for me to depart since I always felt it was mine. I was promoted to the Operations manager for 2 Macy's locations here in Orlando, Fl Mall and Fash Sq. Totally different than Millenia. Fl Mall is about a year older than Millenia and really geared towards the tourist customer while Fash Sq is almost 40 years old and located in what Orlando is downtown and very different ethnic groups shop there. So a big change and lots of opportunities to apply what I love most about retail, Merchandising and Operations.

Finally we started out the month on our annual Captiva Vacation with Bonnie, Rob, Olivia and Alexa. It was truly an experience staying on an island with the only transportation off was by boat. No fast grocery stores, which I do believe the men missed and not any good restaurants to eat out. The house we rented was great and the stroll down the lane to the beach each day was wonderful. The only transportation on the island was by golf cart which Olivia loved. No TV in the master bedroom, no cell service, but we did have wi fi. Just relaxation, seeing the sun come up on one end of the beach and sunsets at the end of the lane. The widow's walk was a great place to view the stars and the wonderful lightening shows with the passing of evening showers several times. There is also a state park which we hiked in our flip flops and found lots of sand dollars in perfect condition. We also saw where Hurricane Charlie came in at. WOW, 5 years later and things still have not grown back to where they were prior to the storm. We saw lots of animals of the sea, sting rays, urchins, live sand dollars, dophin pods, manatees, never knew they could move so fast, crabs, they are so funny to watch, men fishing at sunrise. No jetskis, no fast motor boats, just relaxation for 6 days. Sad to see the week end, but we will be back on some beach next year and hopefully on the west coast of Florida.