Happy Birthday Greg!

Today is Greg's 37th birthday, which doesn't seem possible.  He makes me a very proud mom!  He is a man of little words, enjoys gardening and gaming and is a loving husband and father to my beautiful grand daughter, Ella.  May he enjoy a spectacular day with all things that make him smile.

Happy Birthday honey, I love you more than you can possibly know!

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

"Cause a girls gotta see her mama!!" Day 6

Wendy's last full day today.  After a walk with the dog, a quick stop at Wal-Mart and lunch, Bill dropped us off at Charlotte Harbor Beach Park while he went to the gym.

Picture perfect day at the beach

He joined us for a little while before we packed up and headed home to clean up and go to dinner at the Icehouse Pub, one of our favorite places.

It was nice outside so we elected to sit in the outside bar/lounge/patio area.

Wendy and I had adult beverages.  I enjoyed a nice glass of Timmermans Strawberry Lambic

and Wendy had a Guinness "something or other".

We all enjoyed the fried artichoke hearts appetizer.

These are sooo good!

After dinner we headed back to the dart room and challenged one another to a game.

Our chosen board

Wendy's taking aim.  Bill's making notes of how it's done ;o)

Checking off another score

Sadly for Wendy and I, Bill was the big winner.

Yes, I'm smirking!

The winner's scoreboard

There's always next time.  Sadly, this was Wendy's last day, we will take her back to the airport tomorrow so she can return to Dan and the pups.

Thanks for stopping by...

;o)

"Cause a girls gotta see her mama!!" Day 5

After a visit to the farmer's market and Wal-mart, we stopped at the Race Track for iced coffees, then loaded our beach supplies in the car and drove north to Venice.  We had lunch outside at T.J. Carney's

did a little shopping and forced ourselves to eat some delicious gelato from Ciao Gelato.

I'll eat it if you make me

The sun was in and out but we headed to the beach anyway.  It turned out to be an awesome beach day and we stayed for a couple of hours.  

Photo by Wendy

We returned home to sit outside with the dog while Wendy & I enjoyed an adult beverage.  After dinner we celebrated Bill's birthday with giant cupcakes from Sugar Island Cupcakes. Yum!

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

"Cause a girls gotta see her mama!!" Day 4

"Happy Birthday, Bill"!

Today's is Bill's **th birthday and he deserves to have a marvelous one!

We had a nice walk again this morning, Wendy & I along the HarborWalk while Bill and Titan walked along the sidewalk with all of us meeting at the hospital and returning together. 

We are all smiles when we meet at the hospital

We ate lunch at home then asked Bill to drop the two of us off at Charlotte Harbor Beach Park while he went to the gym.  It was a beautiful day at the beach. 

It doesn't get any better than this.

We only stayed a couple of hours because we had big plans to celebrate Bill's birthday...RED SOX!

We headed south to Ft. Myers around 5:00 and arrived early along with many others.

We were early enough to grab a bite for dinner, see the sunset

so much prettier in person

and catch a little bit of the warm ups.

Wendy scored us great seats down the third base line.

While moving some of the warm up equipment off the field, a couple of balls fell onto the warning track just below us and one of the Red Sox team members returned to pick it up (we're saying it was the catcher, Ryan Lavarnway).  Wendy leaned over the railing and asked him to throw her one of the balls because it was Bill's birthday.  He graciously obliged but threw it a little short.  Thankfully, Wendy didn't lean over the railing far enough to fall.  Being the good guy, he threw it to her again and she presented it to Bill.

Happy Birthday Bill!

It wasn't a great game, the Sox lost 0-2 and we left in the 8th inning because we were getting cold but I think everyone would agree...we had a good time.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

"Cause a girls gotta see her mama!!" Day 3

Today was a slow, catch up kind of day.  Wendy and I walked along the Harborwalk while Bill and Titan walked along the road, meeting at the hospital and walking back together.  

Auntie Wendy and her favorite FL dog sporting their shades

We had lunch at home, then the three of us walked over the Peace River Bridge to Fisherman's Village.  

We did some shopping at F.V. including purchases for Bill and Wendy's birthdays and got beverages at the Good Ol' Days Coffee Shop, formerly the Ornery Attitude. 

(foursquare.com photo)

Luckily, we found one of our favorite swings to be empty and were pleased to discover that all three of us could sit there without breaking it.

View from the swing 3.8.13

Ah, very relaxing.  We walked back toward the bridge but made a very necessary stop first at Cubby's Home Made Ice Cream.

We Love Cubby's ice cream

We returned home after walking back over the bridge, where we sat outside for awhile before heading to Bocca Lupo for PIZZA! 

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

"Cause a girl's gotta see her mama!!" Day 2

It was very cool this morning, again ;o(  We dropped Bill at the gym and headed into Punta Gorda to make our feet happy with pedicures.  Wendy loved the massage chair and said it was worth the price of admission.  The technicians were very personable but as it turned out, we enjoyed some special scented gel that ended up costing us an extra $10, which came as a surprise when we paid our bill.  So...happy feet, not so happy wallets.

After lunch we drove to Pine Island to visit the little fishing village of Matlatcha (mat-la-shay).  It's a cute little village with a few different shops, all painted bright colors.

 

We came across this guy/gal way up on top of a pole having lunch.

Our favorite shop was the Love Grove, which has a very colorful, fanciful "garden" behind it.

This would make a great quilt

Mushrooms made from blue bottles with the bottoms painted white

Overlooking the canal

Look familiar?

Who's behind those Foster Grants?

We checked out the park and fishing pier and took the obligatory pictures.

We drove to the end of the island to check out the little town of Bokeelia.  There isn't much there except several vacation homes/condos and a great view of the water.

I had wanted to see the Calusa shell mounds which were down in that area.  Wendy pulled it up on her phone and we drove around until we found what we were looking for...Calusa Heritage Trail.  

We got there just as they were closing the restrooms and gift shop; however, one of the volunteers gave us a quick explanation of the site and provided us with a map.  It wasn't what I expected...I thought we would see tall mounds of seashells from hundreds of years ago.  What we did see was small hills that didn't look like much of anything, except that Florida is pretty flat everywhere.  One of the mounds overlooked the Gulf and at one time, probably had a house belonging to one of the tribal leaders.  

Nice view

difficult to take a good photo into the sun ;o(

Although Wendy wasn't feeling well, she was a trooper as we trudged along the short trail.

"Are we there yet?"

Although it was cool, it was clear and sunny and we had a good time.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

"Cause a girls gotta see her mama!!"

Wendy's here!!  WooHoo!!!  Let the fun begin (not that we haven't been havin' fun).

There's always plenty of airport art.

This funky stuff is made from plywood and other materials, then painted white.  I'm pretty sure Bill could open up a workshop and sell some airport art to an unsuspecting buyer.  Maybe it's you?

Da plane! Da plane!

We waited patiently for her appearance and appear she did, but there's no photo evidence ;o(

As you can see from the above photos, the weather was beautiful...sunny and warm, just the way we like it here in southwest Florida.

After a quick lunch at Panera Bread, just like last year, we decided to stop by Manatee Park on our way home and see if we could spot any sea cows.  Last year was a total bust but it was very cool here over the weekend so we were hoping that the manatees had headed toward the power plant to soak in some warm water.

We spotted some large fish...

Large, unidentified fishies

and searched the waters for the ever elusive manatees...

"Do you see any?"

There's one! There's one!

There's two more...

Seriously, they're manatees, not alligators

These were in the water closest to the power plant outlet, so it was nice and warm.  After walking down the path toward the Orange River we hit the jackpot!

In this section, I counted 13!  There was even an underwater microphone so we could listen to them "talking" to one another.

However, they don't chirp and click when they are sleeping ;o(

So happy to have my "baby" girl visiting and see manatees all in the same day.

Happy girls at Manatee Park

Here's my question...what is the plural for manatee?  Is it manatee or manatees?  I know, I could Google it but I want everyone to ponder it for awhile.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)