Happy St. Patrick's Day

It's St. Patrick's Day, we're in FL and it means Wendy & Dan are here!  They arrived late yesterday and are staying in a rental house in Pt. Charlotte, with a pool.  We picked up some groceries for them and dropped them off so they would have some supplies when they arrived.

Wendy called to let us know they would arrive at our place by noon.  I took some time to wrap her birthday present.  We celebrate early when they visit.  Sat on the deck and read for awhile, they arrived around 12:30.  We visited before taking our traditional St. Patrick's Day photos.  Since we didn't have Titan, I didn't bring the bag with all the dress up things in it and the Dollar Store didn't have anything.  Boring pictures this year.

Boring, maybe, but there were plenty of them because instead of using the button for a 10 second timer, I was using the button for a 10 picture burst, which someone thought was pretty funny ;o)

We always take a funny one, this year we took 10 funny ones...

However, I won't bore you with all ten.

For some strange reason, we took another good one, or as it turned out, 10 good ones.  Be sure to keep an eye on Dan's face.

After the picture fiasco, we all headed to the Celtic Ray for their SPD celebration.  Bill and Dan went to get our food (only took 15 minutes) and Wendy and I scored a table, so eating was easy but it was HOT!  84* and plenty of sun. We stayed till 3:45, while we visited.

They headed back to their rental, we returned home and sat on the porch in the shade.  

Our boy has been gone 5 months already. 

 He was such a good sport, we miss him terribly! ;o(

Thanks for stopping by...

;o)

Happy Valentines Day

Our tradition continues as we travel north to Venice to enjoy the sunset at the jetty.  We started this tradition when Greg came to visit in 2015, which you can read about here.

We started the day with a walk from the hospital to Gilchrist Park, along the Harborwalk and back, 3.2 miles.  It was humid!  We enjoyed a coffee at Bayshore Park, along the Peace River.  Not only was it humid, it was windy, so we sat in the truck.

We ate lunch at home, then at 3:30 we headed to Venice.  It was raining when we arrived but it didn't last too long.  We got our traditional gelatos at Ciao Gelato and ate them under the cover of a nearby Italian restaurant.  Bill had strawberry, Italian chocolate chip and butter crunch.  My choice was chocolate and sea salted caramel.  It's always soooo good!

We drove to the Venice jetty and found a parking space in the front row.  The rocks were wet from the earlier rain as well as the waves washing over them, so we sat in the truck and did some reading while we waited for the sunset at 6:21.  

There was a big cloud bank, so once the sun dipped below that, it was the end of any good sunset but it was a very nice evening.

5:14 pm

5:45 pm

5:48 pm

5:58 pm

Once at home, we had the dinner of champions...popcorn!

Thanks for stopping by...

;o)

Our Valentine's Day Tradition

Ever since the year Greg visited and we spent Valentines Day in Venice, Bill and I have traveled north to carry on this tradition.  Bill had a chiropractor appointment early, then we took Titan for a walk.  We spent some time at home reading and skipped lunch so we could eat in Venice.

We left home around 2:00 and arrived in Venice right around 3:00.  We parked along the street a block from "downtown" and walked back to The Soda Fountain and Vinnie's Pizzeria, where they serve great New York Style pizza.  We ordered the Venice Avenue pizza (pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms and onions) and beverages.  The pizza is super good!

When we finished, Bill walked back to the truck with the leftover pizza and I wandered through the quilt shop.  I always wonder through the Quilt Basket because it's a nice little shop with lots of quality fabric, books and notions.  Sadly, I hardly ever buy anything, which makes me feel a little guilty.  

When we got to Venice it was about 83* and very humid but when I came out of the quilt shop and met Bill, the temp had dropped to about 73* and it was chilly.  haha, hard to believe I would actually say that!

He tried to lead me into the gelato shop but I thought we should walk a little before having more to eat.  We wandered down the street, looking in the windows, like we do every year, until we came to one of the shops we always enter, just to browse.  I did find a key chain I wanted to attach to the house keys, making it easier to find them when I toss them into the glove box.  We hardly ever walk down the other side of the street.  Plus, Ciao Gelato is on our side of the street o)

Surprisingly, it wasn't super busy.  Bill had half chocolate chip and half chocolate, I had half strawberry and half chocolate.  It is so darn good!  

After I ordered mine, Bill noticed they have some made with alcohol!  One is a chocolate made with Bailey's and neither of us can remember the other one but I'm definitely going to try them next time.  We might even make a special trip just for gelato.

We sat on one of the benches that line the street, ate our sweets and people watched.  

From there we walked back to the truck and drove to Venice Beach, where we parked and used the restroom.  We didn't stay there tho, our tradition is to watch the sunset from the jetty, so we headed that way, hoping to get a parking spot.  It was only 5:00 with sunset not until 6:20; we found one right in the front row.

The sunset turned out to be nothing special thanks to a big cloud bank low in the sky.  It didn't really matter because it was warm enough and nice to sit on the rocks, with the waves crashing in front of us, in the middle of February!  We stayed for 15 minutes after the appointed sunset time, in the event there was an after show.

5:18 pm

The perfectly placed cloud bank ;o(  5:41 pm

5:46 pm

5:57 pm 

6:08 pm

Looking toward Venice Beach 6:19 pm 

The less than spectacular "after show" 6:25 pm

We did enjoy watching the pelicans glide by and dive into the water.  I think this photo might have turned out fairly well if there had been more sunlight.

We left about 6:35 and were home by 7:30.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)