A friend who just started teaching locally was over last night, and the kids had to show off their new pet mice. She was asking about how their care, because she’d like to get a class pet for her new classroom of elementary school students. I told her to forget the live animals, and go with the online version, like Matthew’s teacher has done. Instead of a live class pet, his class has 2 Webkinz, and the students earn points for good behavior and can use those points to go online and care for the class pets.

If your child has outgrown the virtual pet, you can turn them on to cartoon dolls instead, at sites like CartoonDollEmporium.com - it’s one of the largest and fastest growing websites for young girls, the kind of girls who grew up with Webkinz, but have outgrown them recently. For any Hannah Montana fans you may have in your house, there’s even a doll for her at the site that children can dress up and play with.

The site is kid friendly, and kid safe. It’s nice knowing there’s a place for tweens who are too old for some websites, but too young for others!

Lighting hockey starts training camp on September 13th, and the first regular season game will be October 4th against the New Jersey Devils. That means it’s only a matter of time before my husband will be using his season tickets again - in fact, I think he’ll be at that game! He’s so excited about seeing the team on the ice again. No word on if he’ll be taking our son to any games yet. The little guy doesn’t like the nosebleed seats we have - they’re too high up for him!

Every week, when I drive Matthew to hockey, we pass a dog training facility. Sometimes there are classes going on when we pass by, and I see the proud dog owners outside, leading their dogs by the leash, desperately trying to heel. I can sympathize, as we are puppy training dropouts. We took a class years ago when we got our lab and just quit going. It wasn’t a legit class - just a group meeting informally, but had we gone to a real dog trainer, with real dog training equipment, we probably would have had better results. Signature K9 is a site that sells dog training equipment to people and groups serious about training dogs. They even have equipment for training police, military, and search and rescue dogs, like dog harnesses.

I don’t need Bailey to sniff out drugs or find a lost kid in the woods. I just want her to stop eating food off the kitchen counter.

Football is back! It was about this time of year, 10 years ago, when my husband and I attended a pre-season game at Raymond James. I was pregnant, and it was MISERABLE outside. I heard rumors of it being 115 on the field. Sitting in the bleachers at the game with the sun beating down on us (it was a 1pm game) made for an awful day.

Since then, I’ve made sure that the football games I attend are:

• At night
• Or take place in the winter

With the real estate market being what it is right now, lots of people are looking for deals, figuring that a buyers market is the best time to invest in real estate. South Miami Beach condos are typically the type of thing that investors love to pick up for a song, because South Beach is always hot, and will always bounce back from a real estate slump. SBIRealty.com offers pre-construction pricing on condos, which is a great way to get extra incentives and options from the builder without anymore out of your pocket. Condos may have cooled off here in Tampa, but I think they’re remain hot in the South Beach and Miami area.

My sister and I enjoyed a free lunch today with my office at Crazy Buffet on Dale Mabry, by Raymond James Stadium. It was my first trip there, and I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t go on my own and pay full price, since I never eat enough at buffets to get a good deal, but it was a nice spread. There was a large sushi area (which I steered clear off) as well as another area where you could have fresh stir fry made. Another section had a huge salad bar and plenty of hot dishes, and there was a dessert bar too. Not bad for free!

Some of the best beaches in the area are just about an hour south of Tampa, off Sarasota. A few years back, we went to the Anna Maria Island and Siesta Key area, and stayed in a lovely house on the beach overnight. Siesta Key is small - just 8 miles long, and it’s remained a quaint, quiet area. There’s not much traffic or noise, the homes are well cared for, and you can walk to restaurants and shops. This Siesta Key Vacation & Accommodations Guide gives you a hint of what you can expect from the area, but you’ll still be amazed when you see it in person. It’s truly off the beaten path and quite different from the beaches around Tampa. The sand is soft, like walking in flour, and it’s a great place to go shelling.

The Siesta Key guide has tons of information on local events, things to do, and places to see. Whether you want to swing in a hammock for your entire vacation, or see some action, you can find it all with this handy dandy guide. I really enjoyed the section showing what movies have been filmed in Siesta Key and the surrounding areas. It would be neat to watch a few after a trip to see if you can recognize any palm trees!

Along with new owners, the Tampa Bay Lightning have a new look! Actually, it doesn’t look that new. Color me unimpressed! I was happy with the look of the old jerseys, and don’t see why they needed to be updated. The old Lightning logo looked like this:

And the new jersey looks like this:

So, a different font, they removed the word “Lighting” from the bottom of the logo, they changed the shading on the lightning bolt. The font was changed to make it more readable from the ice, but if you’re AT the game, do you really read the logo font? Chances are, you already know the team you’re there to cheer for. The team is calling this a “modernization” of the old logo, but it looks like amateur hour to me.

I need something light hearted after writing my previous post. Eye of the Dolphin is just the thing - it’s a new movie about love, family, and and friendship that opens today! You can check out the movie website to learn more about the stars of the film, but the main character, Alyssa, is played by Carly Schroeder, who most recently started in “Gracie”.

You’ve got 2 days left to enter to win free tickets to see this new family friendly blockbuster, but I’ll bet you’ll see it even if you don’t win. It’s rare that a movie comes along that’s truly family friendly! I’ll bet the local aquariums and animal parks see a big surge in visitors coming to see dolphins after this movie.

I don’t think we’ll be able to see it until next week, but I’m looking forward to it.

At 2pm today, the sentencing hearing for John Couey will commence. If you’re living under a rock, John Couey is the animal who took 9 year old Jessica Lunsford out of her bed in rural Citrus County, violated her, and buried her alive. His family members assisted him in covering it up. Death is too good for this man. I want to see him go to jail, because I know what ‘regular’ prisoners think of people who prey on children. A little jail house justice would be the best thing in this case.

Couey’s lawyer attempted to portray him as a childlike oaf during his trial by having John color in a coloring book, but the ploy didn’t work.

A 15 year old living in Germany (which explains the grammar) made this video about Jessica and 2 other little girls who were killed. Mark Lunsford, Jessica’s father, is the man pictured with long hair, crying. I can’t say enough about the strength he’s shown though all of this. Many people in Florida have asked him to run for public office and he turned them down. He’s an amazing person.

Real estate has always been a passion of mine. One of the most exciting times in my life (aside from getting married and giving birth) were the times we’ve shopped for and purchased a new home. It’s so fun to look and plan and shop for real estate. I would LOVE to learn how to get started investing in real estate, and flipping houses, as soon as the Florida real estate market picks back up. (With the current prices, it’s a great time to buy, but not a good time to sell!)

PEI University has been teaching people like me how to invest in real estate for the past 25 years. Best of all, they teach you how to invest without using any cash out of your pocket. That’s just the kind of thing for my budget, LOL! The best thing about what PEI offers is that you can learn what they know online, for FREE. That REALLY fits my budget, and online learning is the way to go. Who wants to waste time in a classroom listening to someone drone on about what worked for him, when you can access all of the tool and information you need on the internet?

They must be doing something right too - their students bought and sold over $242 million in real estate last year. Holy cow!

A recent post I made on my travel blog about visiting the concentration camps (would you, or wouldn’t you?) reminded me about The Florida Holocaust Museum located in downtown St. Petersburg. When I was in college a few years ago, I spent an afternoon there by myself as part of an assignment, and now that my children are a bit older, I’d like to take them to experience the museum. There’s a new Anne Frank exhibit starting on September 29th, and running through December 23rd, and I think it’s an excellent way to show my children a bit of history. My girls have read books about Anne Frank, and my son understands a bit about World War II, so this will be a little more knowledge for them.

A History For Today will show the history of Anne Frank and the family’s story before and after the Nazi reign. The exhibit will feature photographs taken by family patriarch Otto Frank of his young daughters, Anne and Margaret. Many of the 70 photographs in the collection have never been seen before. This exhibit will be located on the 2nd floor.

Downstairs, you’ll find the regular exhibit, which at the time I visited, included a real boxcar used to transport Holocaust victims to the concentration camps. The main exhibits include pictures and artifacts from the time, and it’s a very sobering experience. The museum is a place for quiet reflection and reverence, and I urge you NOT to take children who can’t act appropriately.

The Florida Holocaust Museum is located at 55 Fifth Street in St. Petersburg, FL. The museum is open from 10am til 5pm every day, but they are closed on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors and college students, and $4 for students under 18. Children under 16 must be with an adult. Cell phone use, photography, video, and audio recordings are not permitted. Parking is free.

Speaking of back to school, some Algebra tutoring may be in our future. My daughter is in a super advanced math class that will be teaching her pre-Algebra skills - in the 6th grade! I didn’t take pre-Algebra until the 8th grade, and even then I didn’t do so hot, and ended up taking it again in 9th grade. I’m sure my daughter will fare better, but I let her know if she needs help, all she has to do is ask. I had a tutor who came to my house, but today there are tutoring services all over the place. One is Club Z! It’s the world’s largest one-on-one tutoring program, serving over 100,000 students. Definitely easier than trying to find a tutor for your child on your own, or trying to help your child with that new math!

And so it begins - another school year is upon us! I have a daughter entering middle school this year. I do not remember those years fondly, at all! I was telling her today how I had to walk to and from school when I was a bit older than she is now, in the heat. No sympathy from the kid. But it’s true - I walked to school, and home again, in the summer heat, and usually in long pants. Despite going to school in Florida and attending during the summer months, we weren’t allowed to wear shorts until I was in the 10th or 11th grade. It was miserable! My daughter is wearing jeans today, but she went from my air conditioned car into an air conditioned school. She’ll survive!

It’s only August, but Christmas will be here soon enough. Now is the time to plan your special Christmas events - be it booking travel to go to Grandma’s house, making kennel reservations for your pets, or buying Nutcracker tickets! I went to see the Nutcracker every year as a child, and now my own daughters go to see it. The Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker will be touring the US this winter, bringing the classic tale of the Nutcracker right to you! The two locations closest to Tampa that will have the ballet this year are:

St. Petersburg - Mahaffey Theater at Progress Energy
December 21st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
December 22nd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
December 22nd, 2007 at 7:30 pm

Lakeland - Lakeland Center
December 28th, 2007 at 7:30 pm

You can buy Nutcracker tickets online for these locations, as well as the other tour dates for the Moscow ballet. Larger cities are already selling out, so call now to ensure you can get your seats! It’s such a lovely ballet. I love the music, the costumes, the sets - and the story is easy enough for a child to follow, so it’s a great introduction to ballet for your little ballerina.

It’s back to school for some of the counties surrounding Tampa tomorrow, which typically means more traffic on the roads. My commute was so incredibly easy during the summer, and that’s going to end now. Watch out for children crossing the street on your morning drive, be aware of children waiting at bus stops, and watch out for those school zones! With so many new routines starting, there’s a potential for disaster if all drivers aren’t alert. Don’t expect the kids to be alert and watching out for you - YOU need to watch out for the kids!

Unfortunately, foreclosures are a fact of live now in Florida. So many investors bought when the market was heating up, and now that they can’t sell or rent those homes, foreclosure is the only option. Even more unfortunate is that real homeowners are being hurt by the sad state of the Florida real estate market. Due to SO many homes being on the market, people who really need to sell their homes to move out of state, or for other reasons are stuck.

It’s really hard to find information on foreclosures - Google it and you’ll find plenty of instruction on buying them, but not a lot of advice on living through one. If you’re going through a foreclosure, GotTrouble.com can offer free advice on dealing with your lender, state specific laws, and the foreclosure process from beginning to end. It certainly can’t hurt to ease your anxiety and the stress of going through such a life changing process.

This Sundar, comic book and anime fans will descend on Tampa for the Tampa Comic Book and Toy Convention. Cartoonists and writers will be on hand, including writer Gary Friedrich, and authors Glenda Finkelstein and Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc. There will be 10,000 square feet of comics, anime, and even Star Wars items at the convention.

Hey, if the guys who are behind the Archie comics are there, I’m in!

Since we built our new home last year, I don’t plan on moving again for a while. It’s a big hassle! Adding to the hassle last year was that we did 3 moves in the span of 6 months. In November of 2005, Jim and I moved out of our home that we sold into a rental. Then we moved my mother into her new home in April 2006. And then, in May 2006, we moved into our new home. Never again, will I try to make that many moves in such a short time frame. And doing it yourself? Forget it. We busted our humps for weeks to get all of those moves done. The next time I have to move, I’m hiring professional movers. Oh sure, you hear horror stories about so called professionals who charge sky high rates and hold your stuff hostage. Before hiring a mover, use a website like HomeBulletin.net to find licensed movers. Different companies specialize in different things - some do great with coast to coast moves in the USA, others do in town moves. Find the best one for your specific needs and let someone else deal with the headaches and hassles - you can even request a quote online to compare different companies in your area.

There’s a new shopping center being near me that’s rumored to have either a Target or a Kohl’s in it. Do you know how DANGEROUS that would be for me? My husband better lock down the debit card! Either store would be a great addition to our area, and much more welcome than the Wal-Mart that tried to build by the grocery store I frequent. When I was growing up in the small town of Tarpon Springs, our “big store” was the local K-Mart. Yes, I had a deprived childhood!