Lunch with Linda........Then Rich and I watch the STORM come in

Don and Linda Bass are very good friends of ours and we really miss their company when we're not at home. Over the past several years they have not only been our neighbors but very close friends. We had them over for dinner right after we came back from Sebring, but today Linda and I had a 'girls day out'. While we were in Sebring this winter a new shopping center opened about a half mile from home called The Shopps of Wiregrass. A very quaint setting, cobblestone walks. Dillards, Macy's........lots of shoe stores, lots of real expensive shops and lots of places to eat.
Linda and I stopped at the Cosi Cafe. Great little delicatesson type place for lunch where we enjoyed a cold drink ( tea and lemonad!!!) and a Chicken Ceaser Sandwich on an excellent homemade flatbread. Great soup and 1/2 sandwich or salad specials. Pizza looked great! We must have sat and talked for over an hour......The we headed out to walk around and do a little window shopping.
This fountain is located in the middle of the shopping center and in this area they have live music every Thursday night. We also stopped at Macy's Department Store. The last time I was in Macy's when I was a junior in HighSchool and my mom and I were in NYC. We brough my prom dress there!! We ended our tour at Barnes and Noble........but Linda decided to get some slow cooker recipes off the website instead of buying a new cookbook.

It was a beautiful day..........warm and sunny and Linda and I had a great time catching up

Rich and I had just finished dinner. It was about 6:30 and we were just sitting out on the lanai relaxing. The sun was shining brightly but you could hear the thunder in the background. It started to sprinkle, and if you looked off in the distance you could see the clouds coming in. Then we saw the rainbow and I grabbed the camera. Now I don't take pictures like Mark Jones...... but I think they came out pretty good with my cheap camera!! The pictures below were taken in a span of maybe 15 minutes.

The first glimpse of the rainbow

If only I had a better camera. The rainbow was so pretty, and you could actually see the reflection on the water, and if you looked just to the right of it......a second rainbow, very faint, was beginning to form.

You can see in the backyard, that the sun was still out, but off in the distance the sky was getting a little darker. Look how calm the water is...............and the clouds are really coming together now.

The wind was really beginning to blow...The is a small queen palm in Brad and Teresa's yard next door. ..... And the rain was hitting the screens.

And then the wind was whipping across the water, and the sky opened up!!!

But we stayed DRY!! It's days like this when we really appreciate the beauty in our own backyard.