Deep Sea Fishing off Anna Maria Island - May 2010

David, Tereza, Rick, Mary Jo, Sidney and friends came into town for a visit to Anna Maria Island late May, 2010. As always it was good to catch up with everyone. We lounged around the pool and enjoy the wonderful beaches of Florida.

The Rick and Mary Jo show took a trip to Busch Gardens which I hope to post at a later date. I got the chance to go Deep sea fishing off the shore of Anna Maria Island with David and the Czech crew and is was great fun. Even better was eating the over 50 lbs of fish we caught. Mostly Grouper and Snapper. Take a look at the two videos below. One videos is made of still shots and the other is all video. The video shows some nice Gag Grouper and a small shark. Great fun - Thanks to David and Mary Jo for visiting the Chatt's. We had a great time and we were honored you took time out of your busy schedules to visit us!

Two Families - lots of cows and strawberries

Both sets of families were here for March of 2010. Grayson was in hog heaven or more appropriate for this blog - cow heaven. For some added fun Carol and Marty V. were also in town and added to the fun. We piled up in two vehicles and made our way out to Myakka city for some outdoor fun.

Our first stop was at the Hydroponic Growers. The growers use styrofoam vertical planters that uses very little soil to grow peas, strawberries, lettuce, you name it they grow it. We all hit the farm ready to fill our baskets with plenty of strawberries. We were instructed to cut the produce from the plants to encourage further growth.

We then hit a small little restaurant in Myakka city just past the dairy farm...um um good. Great food, great service and lots of unique country meals. It was just what the doctor ordered and was a perfect lunch.

Our second stop was Dakin Dairy. We took the tour and had a great time. The first task was to make butter by shaking a small jar of cream for about 5 minutes. We then walked the grounds and saw where the cows eat and are milked. Lastly we headed over to the pet farm where we fed pigs and goats. There was a small playground that Grayson loved. Check out all the fun with the attached pictures. It was a great day!

The Chatt's have ANOTHER Foster Dog

We have another foster dog, Goober. It is much smaller which is a bit easier for Grayson since he is not getting manhandled like the last foster dog. This dog we have had a bit longer and with it brings the normal walking, potty trips, etc. So check out the photos below and if you are interested ACT NOW. Just email the Chatt's. - Larry-AT-IslandReal.com



Goober, Grayson and Blake



Goober, Blake and Grayson being silly at Robinson Preserve




Goober is a tolerant puppy


Grayson's first grade class - 2010

Florida Aquarium in Tampa Florida

So a few months ago the Chatt family visited the Florida Aquarium. If you are visiting the Sarasota, Bradenton, Longboat Key or Anna Maria Island areas the Florida aquarium is a great place to visit for adults or children. The Aquarium is located off Channel Side Tampa.

The day the Chatt's visited Home Depot was there showing children how to work with wood and tools to make productive household items. On our day children had choices of making a blackboard or a bird house. Grayson chose a blackboard.

The Florida aquarium had live penguins that they paraded around the group. They had a small touch tank for all to enjoy. The most impressive feature is a huge fish tank that is about 2 stories tall by about 50 ft wide. They perform a show in the tank with an audience watching and the clarity of the tank is very impressive. Grayson had a great time. Enjoy the pictures of our day in the Florida Aquarium.

Spring 2010 the Chatt's go out for dinner

Jennifer and Molly went out to the movies and had a girls night out. It was Larry, Mom and Dad Chatt, Grayson, Julia and Jackson that were left behind. I needed to go out and pick up a few valentine's items and wanted to go into Bradenton. The original night started out that Grayson and Dad would go out and have a bite to eat then hit Walmart for a few small Valentine's presents. Pretty quickly it was Dad Chatt, Larry and Grayson....arggg, a guys night out on the town. All right, way to go guys, we were going to show the girls how to do it right!

Sitting in my parents Holmes Beach Vacation Rental we began to weigh our options. Larry and Dad Chatt take Jackson and Grayson. No, No, take Julia, Grayson and Jackson... yah right. I wanted to have a nice night out and not worry about watching several children. Well it quickly moved into the whole gang going out for dinner and mom chatt was very skeptical that we would even be able to eat dinner let alone stop for Valentine's shopping.

We jumped in the truck and after much debate decided on Applebee's. All along the trip, can we go to Mcdonalds, Burger King, etc. We tried Applebees and the wait would have been excruciatingly long. Uh oh, what to do now. We drove down Cortez and began the continued dialogue between the children and myself. Chuckie Cheese, McDonalds, and on and on.

Finally we came up upon Cody's and Dad Chatt grabbed a menu and it had something for everyone. For Jackson, Macaroni and Cheese, Julia, Chicken Fingers and for the adults something half way decent to eat which did not require a choice of pepperoni or French Fries. So we made it through the evening without any embarrassing temper tantrums and was happy to click off a couple ACTION dinner shots with the family.

We were all worried for nothing. It was a great night out and we even stopped off at Walmart and picked up some Valentine gifts!

Discover Vacation Rental homes versus hotels

Anyone who knows me knows that I am passionate about Anna Maria Island as well as my family and friends. Everyone is passionate about family and friends. Another new found passion is Vacation rental homes. After all that is a big piece of our business on Anna Maria Island so it would only make sense. Sure, I understand there is a time and place for hotels. They are typically well suited for business travel but vacationing with friends and family is just not a good value proposition for hotels. Vacation rentals are a far better choice. Before I get up on my soapbox let me stop there. Go Colts!

Today is Superbowl day and I am excited to see some new vacation rental videos by a large vacation rental company. They have grabbed the "Griswold's," America's vacationing family to portray the benefits of staying in a vacation rental home. Very smart move! Take a look at the "teaser" they have released prior to Superbowl Sunday. Go Saints!

Miscellaneous pictures of Grayson

As I mentioned in a past post I took all of our photos and scanned them in. It was a great process that I would suggest everyone to do. Our pictures which were only 15 years old were fading, getting crimped, you name it. Digital is just so much better. Anyways going through the thousands of scanned photos I found a couple that I thought were cool just to post them.

The photo below is Grayson's first show he ever saw in Orlando. It was the pirates of Caribbean show. He was such a trooper that you can see he was very nervous of the pirate but it made for a great picture.




The following two photos are from Rhode Island. Rhode Island had a great zoo. Take a look at the great photos below. You can see Grayson is not so sure about this big white animal under the water.

Grayson earns Red Belt in Karate Ceremony

Grayson continues to go to karate three days a week. While he did take the summer of 2009 off as soon as First Grade started he began a regiment of going to karate three times per week. Grayson was excited about the red belt but even more excited that he could now wear a special Gi. Instead of the white outfit the red belt allows him to wear a blue and black Gi. He was very excited about the change.

Every once in a while he shows us some karate moves. Just today Grayson and I were messing around and he round house kicked me pretty good. He then showed me a new move where he shoves my arm into my chest then punches me with the other hand. Just on Friday he had is sparring class and mentioned a girl in his class always tries to punch him in the head. Sounds like a liberated six year old!

Grayson, the Chatt Family, Santa and Christmas 2009

The holiday season was busy for the Chatt family. We had a great Christmas tree and set up the tree earlier than ever this year. For Christmas Eve we visited the Lazy Lobster in Sarasota, FL and had a great dinner as just the Chatt Family. After our trek to Sarasota we visited a phenomenal Christmas display to music just off Bee Ridge Road in Sarasota, Fl. The display has thousands of lights which are all timed to music. Each light string has four strings of color. Red, Green, Blue, and white. The light display and phenomenal spirit of the church was a perfect reminder of what Christmas is all about.




On Christmas day we went to the Spanglers and as usual the food was fantastic. Betty and Walt Spangler are kind and have a crew of more than 30 each year. They convert there wonderful house to a large eatery for family and friends and we are very thankful that we continue to be invited.




Lastly, we visited the Tampa Zoo for Christmas with Santa. I was able to video Grayson with Santa and it was clear he was focused and move in for a quick and productive attack. See the video below as he might be the quickest six year old to meet with Santa prior to Christmas.

So the Chatt's had a great Christmas for 2009 and we are so thankful to our family and friends. If we did not see you during the holiday season we are sad but hopeful you will come visit us in Florida so we can catch up with your great fortune and aspirations for 2010 and beyond!

Grayson loses his tonsils - DEC 2009

Yes,
To say I am running late on blogging about the Chatt family is a tremendous understatement. Grayson started to become very plugged up in his nose around July 2009. Jennifer took him to the doctor in July. "Here is some liquid, take some for a week or so and he will be all fixed up." Typically Jennifer and I got excited because 3/4 of the way through the medication we saw progress. Typically within a week after finishing medication Grayson was all plugged up again. So about every month from July to November we were taking Grayson to the doctor trying to get him fixed up. No to allergies, Sinus infection, soar throats, he was never really healthy for 5 months. Slowly Grayson was turning up the tv more and more and more. He was saying "what", "huh" all the time. (By the way, the above to the right is BEFORE SURGERY)

Finally my wonderful wife said forget all these different doctors, I am taking him to a specialist! She took him to a specialist in Bradenton, Florida and the first thing they did was check his hearing. The gal came back and said his right ear is 3X worse than average. She is amazed he can hear anything at all! He must be struggling in school. He then went into the specialist doctor who looked in his mouth... first thing out of his mouth, "I need to remove his tonsils." Then he looked in Grayson's ears, "He needs tubes."

The day Jennifer and I realized there is alot more to life than on the surface stuff was Friday, DEC 4th, 2009 when we handed our baby over to the anesthesiologists for his surgery. Since Grayson was the oldest that day we were the last to go in. We arrive at 7:30 AM and Grayson went in at about 1 PM. It was absolute torture. Jennifer was starving by the time he went in so I went out to get some lunch. The doctor said it would be about a 1.5 hr surgery. I checked my watch while driving out and getting lunch and I definitely had time to pick up some stuff at Office Max and multi-task while picking up lunch. Mental note, don't mult-task while picking up lunch and your wife is sitting at the doctors office worrying sick about your son in surgery. I wont make that mistake again.

Anyways when I arrived with a big bag a food there was NO JENNIFER in the lobby. Uh oh, I got in to the recovery room where Jennifer was blowing oxygen into Grayson's mouth and he was still breathing. Grayson would open his eyes, cough and start crying then go back asleep. The doctor would say a couple things to us then have the nurse give him some more medication. After a few times of him trying to wake up the nurse said, sit him up and that woke him up. We had our Grayson back, it was a pretty good moment for Jennifer and myself. He was ok.... ahhh.

So about an hour later Grayson was ready to leave. I got the car and in the meantime Grayson started puking up a bunch of gunk. Uh oh, something to worry about? We took him home and started shoving popsicles down his throat as fast as we could. That night I skipped his second 4 hour pain medication and there was no looking back. Grayson did great. The next morning Grayson had the TV really low and I asked him if he could hear it..."yah." I turned up the TV to his normal volume and Grayson immediately said "turn it down!!"

So, Grayson has been great since surgery. Jennifer took him to the doctor for a follow up visit and the doctor said everything is great! Great news for the Chatt Family.

On a less important business note I got some help to re-do my Anna Maria Island Real Estate website. If you are at all interested in Anna Maria Island Real Estate visit my website.

The Chatt's have a "Foster" dog

So, it is official. Jennifer and Grayson have been working on me for about six months to get a dog. I was away in Las Vegas and Jennifer pounced. She found a gal who fosters dogs and had more than 5 she was currently fostering so Jennifer said she would foster a dog. This is where Bella comes into play. Bella is a part German Shepard, part Pit Bull. Bella is about 40lbs but must think she is 5 lbs because she is always getting up on Jennifer and Grayson and trying to give them hugs. As for me, I am steering clear of Bella for alot of reasons, probably the most of which is I don't really like dogs. Anyways, the Chatt's have a temporary dog. Below is a picture of Bella and Grayson. Cross your fingers that Jennifer finds a permanent home for Bella. If you live in Bradenton, Florida and would like a sweet dog that is fully house trained then please comment on this post.

Grayson goes sledding in Bradenton, Florida

I have not done well in the last few months keeping up with all the happenings of the Chatt Family. I just downloaded our video camera which took about 20 minutes. Uh oh, lots of videos and pictures to blog. I will need to kick it in high gear and get a bunch done prior to February when mom and dad Chatt come to visit.

You can never eat an elephant all in one sitting so lets take this one step at a time. Christmas supplies lots of activities and fun for kids. Bradenton is no exception to the rule. Downtown Bradenton has a Christmas party every year and they bring in snow makers and allow kids to sled down an artificial hill of snow. Forget me trying to explain the snowy fun. I think the video below will say it all. Take a look.

Thanksgiving Cruise 2009 to Cozumel

The 2009 Chatt Thanksgiving was spent on the ocean on a cruise from Tampa, Fl to Cozumel, Mexico. Jennifer was not excited about making Thanksgiving dinner nor was I. So... we decided to try out the Carnival Inspiration which left out of Tampa on Thanksgiving day.

Thanksgiving day we made the 1 hour trek to the Port of Tampa. We arrived right on time and Grayson was fascinated with how large the ship was. We checked into our "stateroom" and later that evening headed off to our Thanksgiving dinner. I had to have turkey and Jennifer probably had fish or something. It was very good and we were seated at the late seating at 8:15 PM with a great group of folks. Mike, Heather and Ben were seated at our table and Ben and Grayson hit it off. By the way, the picture to the right was the person who prepared Grayson and Jennifers make to order eggs each morning. They were enamored by his ability to flip the eggs without a spatula each morning. I told them both..."That's easy, I do that every time I make eggs." This morning I showed Grayson my best egg flip without breaking the yolk, "yah, whatever dad," he said....Where's the love?

The second day on the cruise was a day at sea on our way to Cozumel. Grayson had a blast in the aft of the boat at the water slide area. They had a BIG water slide and two smaller one's. Grayson immediately hit the small water slides and soon there after became bored since there was a huge slide right next to the smaller one's. "Dad, will you go on the big slide with me." "No way, see the tubes, they are closed up and it takes about 10 seconds to get down the slide and I won't like the slide in the dark." "Mommy, will you go down the slide with me?" "Honey, not right now, you can do it alone. Go up and have some fun." Grayson sat there for a few minutes pondering the BIG slide or the small slide and soon began the three story trek up to the top of the slide. Once he went down there was no stopping him from going over and over again. Lucky for us Grayson met up with Ben on the Big slide and the water slide marathon began. Up and down, up and down...over to the small slide, up and down, etc.


The next day we woke to ourselves being in Cozumel. We proceeded off the boat and ran into Mike, Heather and Ben. We agreed to catch a taxi together into the shopping district of Cozumel. Ben and Grayson had a blast having fun together as we all shopped. It was all fun and games until Grayson dropped a piece to a stone chess set and broke the piece. I handed our credit card over the shopkeeper reluctantly and became one of few tourists that paid full price for anything in Cozumel. I was prepared to leave the chess set behind since the thought of lugging around a heavy stone chess set around Mexico for a good portion of the day was not my idea of fun. Our new found friend, Mike, came to the rescue and said "what are you crazy? We will help you." With Mike's help we were able to hold on to the chess set throughout the entire day. Anyone need a nice stone chess set from Mexico?

The last full day was a day at sea and we continued to have fun with Mike, Heather, and Ben. It was a great cruise and thanks to our new found friends from Georgia it will be one to remember. We hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving and hope your holiday season is productive and in good health!


Thanksgiving 2009 Late night Seating

Macho, Macho.....Man

Yesterday I went to go see my doctor for a hang-nail. Yup, that's right a hang nail. I have a few fingers that I typically need to pull some pretty serious hang nails out once per month. Lets first be sure we are on the same page regarding what I am calling a hang nail. For me very often I have a hard piece of nail form in between my fingernail and the side of my finger where the nail meets the skin. If I pull straight out I can pull that hard skin/nail out so it does not grow into something much larger. No one has really told me to do this, I just do it.

Anyways I cannot remember the last time I pulled one but my ring finger on my right hand three days ago started to hurt pretty bad. I waved it off as nothing big. The next day it was hurting more, touching it, putting pressure on my finger, yikes. I showed our resident medical expert - Jennifer and she pulled out a magnifying glass as there was some grayness around the area where my nail met the skin. "That doesn't look good," was her response. Ok, I will keep an eye on it.

Yesterday I woke up and my finger was throbbing and really killing me. I mean thinking about touching it would kill me. Typing on the keyboard was killing me. Yikes, it is getting worse! The gray area looked like it got a little bigger. So, I called our doctor's office and told the nurse I was calling because a hang nail I pulled was killing me. She was very nice, no laughs, "can you come in at 10:40 AM?"

Of course the nurse that admitted me, took my blood pressure, wanted to know, "So what brings you in today?" I went through the hang nail story all over again. By the way Mom, blood pressure was 102 over 62. Stop worrying! Doctor came in, told him about my hang nail. Took one look at it and said, oh yah....you have opitmsgidjalsdur blah blah blah. He went off and came back with a scalpel. He proceeded to delicately cut into my finger and explained to me that my hang nail got infected and there is a bunch of pus building up pressure in the tip of my finger and he was going to relieve it. Before I knew it he was pushing on the tip of my finger and a milky, snotty, yellow-green puss came out of my finger. About 1/2 a teaspoon. He put some ointment on, gave me a prescription, and a SPIDER MAN band aid! (Not really it was just a normal band aid) I was all fixed up and ready for another 100,000 miles.

The Macho Man was back...ha ha. This goes to show ya, a hang nail CAN hurt!

Chatt's Halloween 2009 - Dracula & Dragons

The Chatt's had a great Halloween this year. Grayson threw on his costume three to four times. He walked around and got candy three times. Is there anything better for a six year old than halloween. Absolutely, getting your parents into the fun and trying out several different costumes. Friday Grayson and Jennifer participated in the great AMI Chamber Halloween Trail of Treats. There he was a dragon and all the great businesses that participated gave the kids candy. After about 90 minutes of the high heat of a Florida, Grayson called the day quits. One milestone, Grayson was voted the scariest costume for ages 5-6. The dragon outfit was a big hit - Roooaaar!

The next morning, Halloween day, Grayson was very anxious to get his dragon costume back on. It is pretty hot even in Air Conditioning so we told him not to. Of course any six year old doesn't here stop asking after the first time. Grayson did not have very long to wait. Around 10 AM Jennifer started make up for the Anna Maria Elementary parade - PTO fall festival. Grayson and Jennifer had fun in the parade and played plenty of games. By One PM we were moving on to get back into the air conditioning. It must have been about 85-90 degrees today.

Based on the heat of the day Grayson decided he wanted to change outfits for the big night, Halloween. Jennifer applied yet another face of makeup where he changed outfits more than a Grammy night to become Dracula. With the face painting, fake teeth, and scariest face he played a good Dracula. We walked 75th street where the great neighbors of that street participate in handing out Halloween treats. We saw lots of friends taking in Halloween and Grayson was able to have a good official trick or treat. See our great family pics - We miss you all and hope you had a great Halloween as well.

Grayson playing golf and immitating Tiger

Too much going on. It seems I keep taking pictures and videos but I continue to add them to a folder structure that makes no sense. Anyone else have too many pictures and no way to find them? I would love to hear a better way to organize photos. Wait until you add a video camera to your arsenal. Holy cow, talk about lots of time to sort through videos. Tonight I was sifting through a few videos and found Grayson acting like a tiger at Sarasota Jungle. Jennifer egged him on a little bit. Check out the video below, the video is worth 100,000 words!



The next video is of Grayson playing miniature golf in Bradenton, Florida. This video was the summer of 2009 just after Grayson turned six. The first couple holes were a little rough but with time Grayson slowly became better and better. The video below starts with his first shot which is pretty close to the hole and putted it in after two tries. Next time we go I am sure Grayson will be even better.

DisneyLand February 2007, Grayson - Jennifer - Larry

Have you ever gone through pictures and felt overwhelmed? Tonight I had some spare time while Jennifer volunteered at Bay Fest and I went through one of our many photos of digital photos that I have not organized. After I probably found 1000 digital pictures I could have picked about 200 of them for this blog. Yikes, I need to get on the ball and start organizing the pics. We are adding at least 1000 now per year and in a few years I will have to take off a 1/2 year just to organize them all!

Anyways - the overwhelmed work-a-holic found pictures of Apollo beach where the Manatees swim. That was a fun field trip. I found a bunch of Grayson pictures from his 4th birthday in New York and Ohio. Uncle Tod and Aunt Christine, Gramma and Grampa's on both sides. St. Patrick's day parade on Anna Maria Island. Wow, just too much to pick from.

So you gotta start somewhere, right? Found a bunch of great shots of us on a quick 3 day vacation to Disney Land in Orlando, FL. The timing was February 2007 so Grayson was about 3 and a half years old. We visited Magic Kingdom and he had a blast. We decided to have the special breakfast with the Disney characters and it was well worth it. The characters walked around as you had breakfast and they stopped for plenty of pictures. They also ran around and sang. It was a perfect start to the day. See below for the Magic Kingdom Pictures only. The rest of the photos will come later...don't hold your breathe!


Above is a picture of the Chatt Family at the Character Breakfast.



Grayson was pretty happy at the start of his day.



At six I don't think we would get the princess shot again. This should be good blackmail for the future!


Where the Magic happens for Mickey Mouse

Jennifer family, friends...Oooolddd Photos

After moving five times in the last six years it can be tough to catch up with projects that you need to keep up on. The project I just took on was organizing all of our photos. This all began with finally hooking up a scanner that has been sitting in a closet. I began the tedious process of scanning our photos. About 20 photos in I quickly realized the process of scanning more than 1000 photos would take a 1/4 of my lifetime or quit my job.

Since neither of those were viable options I decided to send our photos to a scanning service. For $100 I filled up a box and sent them out to get scanned. A week later, miraculously the photos arrived back in a nice neat box and whala....a disc full of our photos all digitized.

Since the ChittChatt blog has plenty of older photos of Larry I figured this entry would focus a little more on Jennifer. Take a look at the great photos of Jennifer below...




















Jennifer used to love to color!



Sexy outfit for Jennifer when feeding the dogs.


Jennifer and Jenn having a blast.



Jennifer's high School graduation