Thanksgiving day with friends in Miami

Koryn with her bunny Benny. The star of the show! It was a delicious turkey and Tina gave me the remains to make a great turkey soup.

Tina and Tina in the kitchen.

Me with Karell Marie and Stephanie.

Russell with Louis and Karell.

Koryn and Louie.

The older "kids"

Paul teaches Zander to play pool.

Russell and Koryn by the pool.

Koryn eating whipped cream. MMMMM.

Early Thanksgiving with the "kids"

We went to Kim and Brandon's for an early Thanksgiving celebration. They live in Largo Florida, near St. Petersburg. It is about a 5 hour drive for us but we enjoyed driving through sugar and farm country.We had a nice visit. Having a delicious ham dinner.

Brandon gives a Thanksgiving toast!

Kim and Brandon with thier tree all decorated.

Brandon is happy to watch and relax.

Kim and I decorated the Christmas tree. A cool bridge we spotted on the drive. Russell wanted to check out the fishermen to see what they were catching.

The Clewiston Inn. We had lunch here on our way to Kim and Brandon's. It is in the heart of sugar country. A neat old place. There is a lot of history in this town.

Nice trees around a pond.

We stopped at a reststop along the way and saw part of Lake Okeechobee.

A day at the Fruit and Spice Park

I went to the Fruit and Spice Park for the day with two friends from the Island. They were having a green festival. Lots of cool plants. It was fun!

Some interesting trees. This is a mammy fruit.

Lot's of plants for sale.

Lots of interesting fruits and vegetables.

A visit to Everglades National Park

We helped a turtle get across the road so he wouldn't get hit. There was very little traffic that day.

We saw a few alligators. But I know there were many more that we didn't see. A big beautiful grasshopper.

Russell and I decided to go to Everglades National Park for the first time. We got a one year pass because we live so close and hope to come here often. It is about time that we came here and I'm glad that we did. It is a beautiful peaceful place. It is only about a half hour from where we are in the Keys. It is amazing that such a wilderness can exist so close to the husstle and bustle of Miami.

It was a beautiful day. We stopped at a few of the turnouts and walked some short trails. Then we drove all the way to the end of the road, to Flamingo. A few flamingos were spotted here recently.

Rattlesnakes in the neighborhood!

A couple of weeks ago when Russell went outside he heard some commotion across the canal. He called over to a neighbor, Tony to see what was going on. Tony said they had caught a snake. Of course Russell had to go over and investigate! They had a 6' diamond back rattlesnake in a container.

We had heard that there could be rattlesnakes around but had never seen one until now. Wow! We will be more careful!

A knock in the middle of the night

October 15, 2007....2:00 AM

Suddenly a knock on the door! Russell woke me up. My first thought was that I must be snoring. He said " someone is knocking at the door! ". He got up and asked who was there? It was George, a local fisherman. He told Russell he had been fishing in his small boat near a bridge and his boat got stuck under it. The currents are strong here and if your boat falters it can get pulled under the bridge very quickly. He was lucky to get to shore. He wanted a ride out to his houseboat to get his other boat. Russell got dressed and took him out there in our 19' angler. He wasn't gone long and I kept watch till he got home. I didn't like him being out there alone in the dark. It was windy too. All went well and we finally got back to sleep.

George and his wife Anna and thier two children live on thier houseboat out here in the cove in Manatee Bay. They fish and crab for a living. They bring the kids in every morning to get the schoolbus. The kids seem to enjoy thier life on the water.

Morning seemed to come too soon. We started out a little crabby from lack of sleep, but soon got on track with our job for the day. We are working on replacing clear vinyl on some large enclosure panels. There's a lot to it but we got a lot accomplished today. We have a small canvas shop here in Key Largo. It is just the two of us and we get enough work to keep us busy. We like working for ourselves and living in this beautiful location. We rent a space on the 2nd floor at a marina. There are large windows on 3 sides that overlook the marina and canal out to Manatee Bay. We see beautiful sunrises and sunsets, rainbows and all kinds of weather. We sometimes go out fishing in our Angler but most of our time is spent working. We enjoy it though.

Tonight Russell got his reward for last nights rescue. Anna came by with a generous bag of stone crab claws. This was the first day for getting stone crabs. They wre cooked too! We had them for dinner and they were delicious!

Oh my aching back!

We've been going back and forth and round and round about what to do about our sailboat. We have a 32' Endeavour sloop that we absolutely love. However, we're both getting a little tired of living aboard. We threw around a few ideas ranging from staying on the boat to moving into a real apartment in town. The bottom line is, we can't afford to rent a boat slip for the sailboat, pay the rent for our canvas shop, and pay for an apartment too. So here's what we decided to do. We cleaned out the back room of our shop, patched the holes in the walls, gave it a fresh coat of paint and moved in. We hooked up an old sink, dragged in refrigerator, threw a full sheet of foam on the floor and are calling it home for now. We have a couple of chairs and a folding table to eat at and watch T.V. from. We still get only one channel, NBC. We don't have a toilet so we are still having to go downstairs whenever nature calls. We both agree that it's okay for now and kind of fun. Sort of like camping in. My back has been killing me since we made the move (all in one day). Should have had more help with that fridge I guess. I had a back operation about twenty years ago. I'm hoping that ample portions of Motrin and rum will eventually take care of things! The real kicker is that our landlord doesn't know we're living in the back room of our shop yet. Not because we're trying to hide from him, but because we haven't seen him since we decided to move. We're hoping he's okay with the idea. Time will tell! I sure hope we don't end up moving that damned refrigerator again!