My Backyard

Chris and Steph at the Dog Beach

As we were making plans for Chris and Steph's visit I informed them that I only wanted to do 2 things for sure. One was to decorate the Christmas tree... check! The other was to go to the dog beach on Lover's Key. Unfortunately, Mike had to go to work that day.

The Gulf is cold this time of year but the weather really warmed up and we enjoyed a bit of sunshine.

This big dog snuck up on Dusty. Overall though she had a great time romping around with the other dogs.

We were lucky to go at low tide. Nice view.

The backwaters are a bit warmer.

Dusty Kitty

Me and Steph

Steph throwing the ball.

Dusty is pretty good about bringing it right back. There are about 12 million abandoned tennis balls lying around. Somehow these dogs know which one is theirs.

Chris really didn't want to wade in the cold water.

Toes in the sand.

Chris, our wildlife eagle eye, spotted this crab trying to make a getaway.

We didn't stay but for a couple hours, just long enough to get our feet wet, witness a dog fight, and give Dusty some exercise. A good day...

ThankBirthMas

I was so happy to have Steph and Chris here for Thanksgiving. And just by coincidence my birthday happened to fall on the same day. Also we knew Christmas was right around the corner and there was no way we would be together for that, so what to do? Why, let's just cram them all together in one shot. We called it ThankBirthMas.

THANKsgiving

Here's Steph helping with the deviled eggs. She just jumped right in there and whipped them up for us. Delicious!

Do I see a green bean (gasp) casserole? Yep, Steph did that for me, too. We also had dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, fruit salad, and cranberry sauce straight from the can.

Here's the turkey. Mike did an exceptional job this year. It was juicy and fell right off the bone.

A little after dinner shenanigans. Naughty snowman!

Chris snapped this picture of Mike. I don't remember what he thought he was doing but it sure was funny.

BIRTHday

I baked a cake and Steph decorated it for me. Beautiful! I was really unhappy about this birthday. 50 years old? How the hell did that happen? Not something I wanted to dwell on. There was an off key, out of sync rendition of Happy Birthday to You, one single candle, and we ate cake. Chris and Steph got me a stuffed Pirate Scrat toy. He's sitting atop my monitor now.

ChristMAS

We were busy decorating throughout the day. I managed to get only one decent shot of Chris trying to fluff up these little trees.

There's our Christmas tree. Is it the angle of the picture or is that tree leaning seriously to the left?

Yep, a serious lean to the left...

We had decided to give each other a gift of $5 or less just so that we could have presents under the tree. The idea was to get something silly and fun. Here's Chris arranging them nicely for us.

He's trying to figure out what it is.

Here is my real gift to Chris and Steph, a photo book all about the two of them. I know Chris really liked it, he teared up. Score!

So we tore open the presents and started to play. Steph and I got lottery scratchers. We won $5.

There was Play-Doh, lots of it. I'm going to figure out a way to preserve these for ornaments. Yes, there is some R rated material in there. I wonder who did that?

I went to the dollar store and loaded up on kids cheap toys for my gifts. I wanted it to be just like we were kids again. As you can see, it worked.

There were balloons and bubbles and kazoos and all kinds of fun non adult things.

Oddly enough I have more than one picture of Mike in this same exact pose.

Yes, they are busy taking turns whacking each other in the balls with the balloons. Sheesh!

I'm so proud!

We pretty much trashed the place.

So there you have it. The very first ThankBirthMas.

Saltwater Fishing Trip

Chris had a bright idea. He really wanted to do some saltwater fishing. So, through text and messaging and email we went to work. We weighed the pros and cons of hiring a charter to take us out or to just get on one of the cattle boats and do elbow to elbow fishing. We decided, for us, to rent our own boat and give it a try. Unfortunately the day we picked was not ideal. The wind was gusting at 25 miles an hour (or more), we were fighting 2 to 3 foot swells and none us had ever navigated a boat out into open water.

Mike at the helm and Chris as navigator we decided to make the best of it. We wouldn't get another chance.

I don't remember much of the trip out of the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River. I was bundled up, cold, being whipped around by the wind and assaulted by waves and cold saltwater spray. Steph was busy on the phone getting our fishing licences and Mike and Chris were thoroughly concentrating on the map, green buoys on the right and red buoys on the left, manatee zones and so on. We went slow... we made it.

Here's that look of sheer terror!

We ended up at the tip of Chino Island. We found a nice little cove out of the wind, the sun came out and we didn't waste anytime. Let's get to fishing.

I caught the first fish, a sting ray. Well, it's not really a fish but it counts.

Mike and Chris carefully remove the hook.

I caught the next and biggest fish, too. A bonnet head shark. Now that was fun to reel in. Chris has video of it on his phone.

Oh, wait, I actually caught 2 sharks!

Here's Chris getting this guy off the hook for me.

Here's Mike hamming it up with the shark.

(Now if you look closely at this picture you can see what looks like a tongue hanging out of the sharks mouth. Actually when we landed this shark Mike got a good firm grip on it and it proceeded to spew out all kinds of nastiness. The shark had obviously just eaten something else. I think it was Steve. Steve was delicious!)

Fishing is hard work.

Mike caught the only fish we thought was edible. We're still not sure exactly what it is. Poor Chris was busy on the phone trying to identify it. We decided it was a red drum although it's not actually red. Too small either way, we had to throw him back. Does anyone knows what fish this is?

We caught several puffers, really cool fish.

Look at his teeth!

Now this man looks like a fisherman.

Steph caught this one. It's a Spanish Mackerel. It wasn't within the slot limit either so back he goes. Pretty fish and some seriously sharp teeth, baracuda like.