THE Strawberry Festival

For those of your who are unaware, Plant City, FL (Jake's hometown) annually holds THE Florida Strawberry Festival. I grew up 10 miles west of Plant City and was surprised while watching the Food Network one day to learn that the Strawberry Festival is one of the biggest food festivals in the Nation! Obviously, I've been taking it for granted.

Besides all of the delicious foods (strawberry shortcake, strawberry shakes, chocolate covered strawberries, Philly cheese steaks, corn dogs, burgers, hot dogs, sausages, popcorn, cotton candy, french fries, etc.) they have constant entertainment all day and night with mostly Country Artists and Bands, some of them are big names. LeAnne Rhimes, Travis Tritt, Alan Jackson and Alabama have all played at the festival in previous years. Taylor Swift is playing there this year.

They have all sorts of contests each year, from a Strawberry Festival beauty pageant to 4H contests, Float Contests, Clogging Contests and an Art Show.

Strawberries are a big part of our cuisine this time of year. Especially since Jake and I grew up around strawberry fields and have picked some for ourselves. There is nothing like a Plant City Strawberry. California has nothin' on Plant City.

So, this year, was Kaitlyn's first year at the Strawberry Festival!
I have to say, she seemed to really enjoy herself.

Above is pictured my new love, Fiske Fries. At first, I thought, "$7 for a bucket of fries?! Are they nuts?!" No, they're geniuses. BEST FRENCH FRIES EVER!

Kaitlyn gettin' some of Grammie's Kettle Korn.

Cowboy hat anyone?

Kaitlyn loves animals, especially animals that make noises! She got to see chickens, bunnies, hogs and cows! Fun, fun, fun!

Anyone feelin' lucky and want to take a chance riding the bucking bronco?

We were there within the first hour that the festival had officially started. That's why the midway was a little empty.

If you ever have a chance to go, I highly recommend it! Just go there and eat your way around the festival!

"M" is for Munchie Mouth.

All Kaitlyn did was eat for the 20 days we were down in Tampa. She developed a very bad habit of always needing some kind of snack if she was inside the house. Here are a couple pics of the Messy Munching Monster!

That girl loves her mashed potatoes! I think she had 8 heaping spoofuls!

Yea for Surprises!

Katie and I had been missing Jake. He was still up studying in Tally and Katie and I were down with the grandparents chillin'. But he surprised us by driving down a few days early and just walking in my parent's back door! Yea for us!

We went and spent a little time at the park together before Jake had to go peel off and do more studying at his parent's house.

We were so excited to see him! Best surprise ever!

Trip to Tennessee

Kaitlyn and I traveled down to Tampa to give Jake some breathing room to study for the Bar Exam with no distractions. A couple of days after we traveled down, my family took us up to Tennessee for a short vacation in Gatlinburg, TN.

Shocking as it may be, Katie was an excellent car traveler for the 12 hours we spent in the car the first day! She had her puppies to keep her company.

We stayed over in Cherokee, NC and went tubing in Maggie Valley the next morning.

My Mom was the last to admit she was done tubing for the day.

We also upheld our family tradition of making pizzas on Valentine's Day.
We're big on traditions in the Riebow Fam. Not to mention, we just love pizza.

We also spent the afternoon the next day walking around Gatlinburg. We made our annual visit to the Smokey Mountain Candy Store to buy taffy and watch it being made. We love that. I love the Donut Friar. They had the most delicious coconut doughnut that I totally find myself craving from time to time. We also made a trip Mr. Tablecloth to drool at the Vera Bradley bags. Ellen was the only one to walk away with a new purse.

First Baking Lesson

Kaitlyn has become extremely interested in cooking! She helped me make sugar cookies the other day. Below, she is eating her very own cookie that she pounded out and helped bake.

"Mmmmmmm."

Drooly McDroolerson

No, that is not a weird dye job on that shirt. It's not a spill.

It's all of the drool that my 19 month old has leaked all over herself! Will the drooling ever end?!

Dancin' in Mama's Shoes

This morning, while I was out and about, Jacob captured this extremely cute moment that I hate I missed. Thank Heaven for recording devices.

Our Walls and Furniture Will Never Be Safe Again!

Well, it's happened.
I've always known this day would come....
Kaitlyn has realized that crayons not only work in her coloring books, but on the refrigerator too!

She was quite proud of herself.

A Change of Heart?

My daughter has worn hair accessories successfully probably twice in her wee little life. She has always been interested in them, she carries them around, she wants to pull them out of my hair, she pulls them out of her hair and then wants me to put them back in, then pulls them out again and wants me to put them back in, so and so forth.

Then, this morning, she brings me a bag full of hair accessories and demands that I start putting them in her hair. Here is what we ended up with:

Thankfully, I Have a Pro Active Husband.

I am completely oblivious when it comes to what is going on with the government. I rarely watch the news and almost always listen to CDs in my car. Thankfully, I married a man who is very interested in staying up on everything that is going on with our elected and appointed officials.

For those of you who don't know, because I didn't, yesterday State Farm announced that they would pretty much be pulling out of every area of the Florida Insurance Market besides auto, life and health insurance. That means for every one who has their homeowners insurance policies with them, we will have to go to Citizens Property Insurance (a company governed by the State of Florida) or another sub-standard company. State Farm is the #1 insurance provider in the state. Recently, they have been paying out $1.20 for every $1 they get. When they requested a rate increase from Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation, they were denied. So now, they are pulling out. Jake informed me it would take a couple years for the decision to fully work itself out, and that it could still be possible for Tallahassee to make things right. We in the Crosby household, are hoping this is the case.

Last night, when Jake finally got home from work, he put his frustration into words:

Dear Gov. Crist,

I was extremely upset and disappointed by your response to State Farm's announcement that they will be pulling out of the state's property insurance market. The St. Pete Times quoted you as saying, "They probably charge the highest rates in the state, anyway. Floridians will be much better off without them." I cannot believe that you chose to respond to the planned pullout of the state's largest private insurer in such an uncharacteristically flippant manner. Have you not considered the direct ramifications this pullout will have on "Floridians" employed by State Farm and its agents? Have you not considered the indirect ramifications on the state's insurance market as a whole that is, metaphorically speaking, currently held together with chewing gum and bailing wire? Will Citizens and the various sub-standard insurance carriers that have been brought in to help stabilize the state's property insurance market be able to weather another hurricane season like the one we experienced in 2004? At some point, Tallahassee lawmakers are going to run out of insurance companies to publicly flog and will have to actually come up with some solutions that resemble the free market principles our Party supposedly champions.

I guess I am sensitive to this topic because my father has been a State Farm agent for over 25 years and is probably 8-10 years from retirement. He is an honest, hard-working man who started his agency by selling life insurance door-to-door. Today he employs 4 people, 2 of whom are the sole wage earners in their family. If State Farm makes good on its announcement today, he will watch his business crumble and his retirement along with it. He will also be in the unenviable position of laying off members of his staff and/or drastically cutting their salaries. Try telling their families that Floridians will be "better off."

I hope your statement today was not an indication of how you plan to address the property insurance crisis in our state. The Charlie Crist I know and volunteered for in 2006 can do better.

Sincerely,

Jacob Crosby

For those of you as flabbergasted as we are, feel free to contact the Governor. Hopefully, this catastrophe can still be averted.