Click "Start Slide Show" to watch highlights from the Florida mini-reunion in 2008 when Don & Julie visited. While they were here, we met up with Ted, Loretta & Doris, Jane, Shirley, Don, Penni, Debbie and Wayne, Don's son, Casey and his girlfriend, Lisa. My brother Jim and I also joined in and we had great time.

Mini Reunion 2008 - Click "Start Slide Show" on slide  (Music: Beach Boys - Kokomo)

Don and Julie Lyon decided to spend their 2008 vacation in Florida. Don is an avid sports fan and has enjoyed the Detroit Tigers since he was a kid, so he was primarily interested in spring training. Since this was his first trip to Florida, he and Julie were also interested in taking in as many of the Florida sights as they could, and they wanted to spend time with other family members that were vacationing here or live here.

We all had a lot of fun playing tourists and getting to know one another better. Here’s a partial list of what we did:

• Don went to at least four baseball games.
• We visited Shirley Whitmore in Leesburg, Florida. Jane Perkins was also there visiting from Michigan.
• Seven of us spent the day at Busch Gardens (Jane, Don, Julie, Don & Penni Tietsma, Jim and myself (Bill).
• Don and Julie made two trips to Kennedy Space Center with Don’s niece Debbie (Ted's daughter) and her husband Wayne who live in Oviedo, Florida.
• We visited Ringling Brothers in Sarasota, Florida for the day. I only live 45 minutes away, but that was my first time to visit the attraction.
• Don and Julie Spent one day with Don’s son Casey, who was also visiting from California with his girlfriend, Lisa. They went to Red Sox game in Ft. Myers and they spent another day in the Siesta key area enjoying the beaches and the wildlife.
• Don, Julie and I spent about half a day at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg and the rest of the day around the downtown area and at the Pier where we had a real nice meal and spent quite a bit of time watching the Pelicans. One other day, we took in some of the local sites, including St. Petersburg Beach at Pass-A-Grill, the fishing docks and picture taking. During the three weeks Don and Julie were here, I took almost 500 pictures. Some of them are in various locations on this website and in the collage that can be downloaded in the Docs area.