Still Florida dreamin'

The weather was still spectacular for February in my mind. The funny thing is that people there think 75 degrees is cold and run around in sweaters. Me, I am enjoying it in my short sleeved t-shirt. My friend told me that it might be chilly and I must have looked at her like she had 3 eyes or something. Too me it was great. I think I acclimated so quickly that I came back home and my normal house temperature is freezing and I had to turn the thermostat up. Welcome back to the Arctic and reality.
On Sunday I attended her church. That certainly was a little different experience than I was used to. The worship music was awesome, and the message was okay. I missed my own church and the depth of the sermons.
Then we went to the Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. Forgetting that it was Chinese New Year, we were amazed to see a dancing dragon and the restaurant was unusually crowded. While we were waiting for our food, we were able to catch a glimpse of the dragon dance. After our meal, we watched a drum performance in front of the market. It was truly a unique experience. I got to thinking that the only New Year traditions that Americans have is to get drunk and make noise. It was neat to see another country's traditions. We were able to capture pictures, so I will try to post those later.
On Sunday afternoon, my friend was really tired (I tired her out at Disney) so her husband took me to pick oranges while she took a nap. That is one thing that most tourists don't get to do, pick real oranges from an orange tree. It was an abandoned orange grove in the Orlando suburb that they live in and no one cares for it, so the oranges are free for the takers. It was one of those only in Florida experiences. When we were done, we went to check out a tree that had pecans on it (It was a pecan tree growing in an orange tree). At the bottom of the tree was a snake. We then decided to leave that tree alone. On Sunday night we all decided not to go to church as time was so short (I know, church skippers) and we went out to dinner and a lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of an alligator. We didn't.
On Monday, we got a little later start as we both decided to sleep in a little bit. We went to a botanical garden and it was a perfect day to do this. We could not ask for a more perfect day, weather wise. The bonus to the day was we got into the garden for free because it was right at the daily deadline for free admission. There were so many types of gardens that you would only find in the tropical regions of the world, such as the palm and cycad gardens, the bamboo garden, and a tropical water garden which had a viewing platform to observe the lake and NOT feed the alligators (which we still did not see). I had a wonderful time relaxing and enjoying the warm weather for a nice change. Then I woke up and it was snowing AGAIN!!