Our Week in Bradenton (Palmetto)

 We took a week off from Thousand Trails and went to Terra Ceia Encore Park in Palmetto. The price was right and we were only there to sleep. Jan and Marshal kept us very busy (and we enjoyed every minute of it)!

We went to see the Royal Lippizan Stallions who are housed and trained out in the country 30 minutes away. They were amazing and beautiful.

And of course we had to eat. Mitch and Marshal at work in the kitchen.

The first day we went to spring training and saw the Pirates play the Tigers. It was a beautiful day for a ballgame and we had a great time.

Henry Higgins (Higgins for short), the new member of the J and M family, the cutest little Yorkie you ever saw at play in one of his favorite spots, right under your feet!!

 One day we went to the Manatee Historical Park, a collection of many of the old buildings and things of times past. They had a great display and I even got to meet a "cracker", an old Florida cowboy!

 Mitch and Marshal had a great time! ("Two peas in a pod" if you ask me!)

 The weather was absolutely perfect for the whole week and we made the most of it. One day we took our friends' catamaran out for lunch. The boat is just the greatest--plenty of room for all eleven of us. The trip was great, we played with a dolphin,  waited for the drawbridge to open, had a great lunch in Bradenton, and saw the sights. Can't ask for more than that!

 Here's Emily and Steve with their "Catalyst" in the background. They live in Jan and Marshal's neighborhood and we had met them when we all spent a week together during Fantasy Fest in Key West.

 And here's Jan and Marshal, great tour guides and a great time!!

 A view from the boat going past the house. We spent a bit of time on the back porch during Happy Hour!

 Yes, it was pretty much party time the whole week. The last night we went to a wine tasting at the Yacht Club, the nicest wine tasting we've had. Here's the crew: Marshal and Jan, our hosts, Steve and Emily (holding Higgins), Cliff and Debbie (friends from Toronto that J and M met a couple of years earlier at Key West who will be joining us on our Albuquerque trip), and me and Mitch.

Because it was a blind tasting (no, we could see what we were drinking), we didn't know what we were drinking it became a discussion group to decide what wine it was and what food we were eating paired best with it. We tasted seven wines at five ounces per glass. I didn't drink it all or I wouldn't have been able to see. We also had some very nice food.

Sitting on the porch finishing our discussion of the wine tasting. What a way to end a really good week!

Peace River and Caryn's BD celebration

 We are at Thousand Trails Peace River in Wauchula, Fl enjoying the lazy days playing pickleball in the morning, playing Fast Track in the evening and in between Mitch is making some nice meals. This beet salad accompanied the just seared ahi tuna and both were scrumptious!

 Happy Birthday, Caryn! We did celebrate early since she and the boys came up to visit last weekend. The plan was to come up Friday night, play a little Saturday morning, then she would leave the boys with us and she would take the fixings for her birthday dinner to her friends, Ruthie and Luke, who have a lake house about 30 minutes from her. She and Ruth would then make the Peking Duck, Hot and Sour Soup, Potstickers, and Spring Rolls dinner for Sunday afternoon.

 Brayden was excited to go shark's tooth hunting in the river. Sometimes you have to dig a hole to get to the good stuff! Then swish the diggings around in the water and look for the sharks teeth.

 Everybody had a great time and Brayden took home about 50 good pieces and a great find, a one and a half inch tall goblin shark tooth--at least that's what Brayden said it was!

Rylan liked it all until he got caught in the moss and it sat him down in the river, but he got over the scare quickly.

 We had a lot of fun with the boys, they sure kept us busy. We will miss them as we go north, but are looking forward to some good times with the granddaughters when we get to Minnesota.

 Caryn's dinner at the "lake house". What a lot of fun! Ruth, Rylan, Mitch, Brayden, Luke, friend Teresa, and Caryn.

 While we sat on the lanai, Luke took Brayden out kayaking. Brayden did a pretty good job for being on the lake by himself.

This picture is for Brayden. He insisted on the 1500 piece puzzle for he and Grampa to put together--of course the subject matter is one of his favorites--orcas and underwater life, so the little kitty puzzle I found was not very interesting. He did a great job of putting together the fish at the bottom of the picture and we finally got the rest of it done yesterday.

The Rest of February

 We (and friends Lynette and Bob) had a special dinner at Steak 954 (Jason's restaurant) where Jason had planned a wonderful ten course dinner each accompanied by the appropriate wine. It was very difficult to pick out a picture to represent the dinner, it was all beautiful and wonderful!

 We took a cool little "Sunset Cruise" out of Tavernier Key. Besides being very informative, we had this friendly dolphin follow our boat for awhile.

The sunset was beautiful! 

 Usually our Saturdays are busy because Caryn and the boys come out to spend the day. One week Mitch and Brayden made a paper mache volcano. Brayden and I usually made a trip to the library and this week the theme was volcanoes and whales.

 The next weekend (after drying for a week) the volcano was ready to erupt. Just mix some baking soda with vinegar and watch the volcano erupt. The boys thought it was great!

We are going to miss our weekends with the boys as we are packing up and heading to Wauchula, FL for three weeks.

 A typical end to our Saturday was getting the pjs on, brushing the teeth, and reading a good book--Killer Whales sounds like a good bedtime story!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

 We just got back from Alliance Coach in Wildwood Florida where we ended the year long saga of our Norcold refrigerator--a new stainless steel Samsung French Door Residential refrigerator!! Yea!!! It's 18 cu. ft. and cold and the freezer is big enough to hold all the food Mitch needs to store and cold enough to keep the Blue Bell ice cream frozen! The debut was storing 32 pounds of steak for the Indonesian Steak Kabobs he's grilling for the Valentine's Dinner here at the RV Park.


The guys at Alliance did a great job, we lost a little of the drawer below the fridge, but the woodwork is beautiful. The Samsung works with our inverter so it works just great going down the highway--all high efficency electric, no propane. I think we are going to love this new appliance!

Our February has been as busy as the rest of the winter but we still get to see the boys as often as possible. Rylan likes to come to Grampa and Gramma's house. After an afternoon at the fair, he enjoyed just sitting and coloring for awhile. (Notice the bottom of the fridge.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy 5th Birthday, Brayden

 After the cruise, the rest of January flew by.

Of course we had to spend time with the boys, and we had a great day visiting the alligators at Everglades National Park.

It's great fun to listen to Rylan talk and he says "alligator" so cute!

 One night Caryn and Jason collected on their Christmas present, dinner out at their choice but not Jason's restaraunt. We dined on Ft. Lauderdale beach at 3030 Ocean Drive, a divine place!

I loved the beet salad with goat cheese sorbet and a beet crisp. Gorgeous and delicious!

 Brayden loves to help Grampa cook and he does a very good job--and he has the patience to complete any project Mitch sets him up with.

Brayden had his birthday party at the park and all the day care school kids came. There was lots to do and one of the teacher aides painted faces. "Spiderman" enjoyed pizza for lunch and his "Under the Ocean with the Whales" cake. It's hard to believe he's five already--where does the time go?

Tahiti

 The view coming into Tahiti was amazing, the mountains are rugged, the water so blue, the sky full of clouds.

We decided to tour the perimeter of the large part of Tahiti--nobody lives in the interior, but I bet there are crazy cool places to visit--next time!!

 The tour lasted about four hours and we could see the ocean the whole time. The city wasn't impressive--a lot of graffiti, old run down buildings, and garbage. But we stopped at some interesting places like the fine black sand beaches,

and a very tall waterfall,

and the Paul Gauguin museum,

and a fern grotto, very cool. Inside is a great pool of water "where the mermaids swim".

And of course, you can't leave Tahiti without checking out the Tahitian pearls. Not all of them are black, however. We had a little pearl inservice at one of the jewelry stores. I liked this piece (it didn't have a price tag), but the opening didn't fit my omega so I had to leave it in the store. One of our traveling companions did buy a single pearl necklace for the bargain price of $500.00.

We had a wonderful time! Princess Cruises did a great job (we didn't crash). We enjoyed the sights, the food, and the people!

Moorea, French Polynesia

 We ported in Moorea the next day.  Again the interior was lush tropical forest and the perimeter was beautiful beaches and blue water and we decided to take a land trip.

 We took a four wheel drive vehicle and did some good climbing on some not so good roads, stopping to visit a pineapple field.

 At the overlook point (not the top of the mountain) was a spectacular picture of the bay where the ship was moored.

On the way down the mountain we stopped at a vanilla bean garden. It takes about a year to get a mature vanilla bean, and they are grown in a mesh enclosed area to soften the rainfall and keep the bugs out.


Most of the people we talked to thought Moorea was a lot cleaner and more tropical than Bora Bora.