The Wild and Crazy Life on Sanibel Island

I'm still living it up with my girls on Sanibel Island - looking for sea shells and soaking up some vitamin D!  The shelling hasn't been all that good, but there have been plenty of birds and wildlife to enjoy and photograph, including nightly sunsets in glorious technicolor!  This is where Jean, Linda and I are staying:

 and this is the beach just yards from our condo:

One afternoon we were visited by dolphins, another day a turtle, one day a snake,and the birds are always entertaining.

Sometimes we watch the fisherman.

This guy spotted the fisherman

and immediately called in his friends:

This itchy pelican was comical to watch:

and of course there is the hunt for the shells....

Here's Linda, walking the shore line...

This is Jean, using her shell scooper seeing if she'll have better luck in the water...

We're hoping for some good strong winds from the west to blow some shells up onto the shore....

Noel's heading over here on Friday, after the Bengals/Dolphins game with Jason.  Stay safe friends and family in Ohio, I hear there are some dangerous storms heading your way!

More Fun in the Sun

We continue to soak up the sunshine and enjoy spending time with Jason when we can.  The good news is that Jason found himself a new job!  He will be leaving Tijuana Flats and will start a supervisory position with the James Royal Palm hotel on south beach in Miami!  He's very excited and there will be much more growth potential for him.  We are so proud of him!

It being the small world that it is, another friend of mine from 20+ years ago (thanks to Facebook we've reconnected) is now an attorney in Ft. Lauderdale.  They took us out for a lovely lunch at the Broward Country Club, and then we visited her office. 

She told us about a local Hungarian store, so after we left them, we headed over to DettCris Hungarian store.  There we found a bounty of Hungarian sausages, pastries, mixes and imports  Yum!!

My friends Jean and Linda came down to visit me, so I've been hanging out with them in Sanibel!!  Noel is staying in Miami until the end of the week so that he and Jason can go to a Bengals/Dolphins game on Thursday.  Then he will bring the trailer over here to the gulf side, (Ft. Myers), where we will stay through the end of December.  We will take some day trips back over to Miami to see Jason for the upcoming holidays, and hopefully he and Katie will be able to come see us.  In the meantime, though, I'm getting to stay with Jean and Linda in a condo.  You know what that means?  I can take a shower without my shoes on!!

Here are some of the pics I've taken of the beautiful sunsets here on the gulf coast of Florida....

Be well all - and keep in touch!!

Los Olas Art Fair

Hi again!  This week has been pretty laid back.  Neither of us is feeling very well, so there has been a lot of laying around, tv and reading.  We did help Jason move (well we provided the truck) some things in and out of a storage unit, and had a good time having breakfast with he and Katie, and their friends Bo, Mary and Isabelle.

 

Jason's apartment building

 

By Saturday we were getting a little stir crazy, so we went to the Los Olas Art Fair.  Los Olas is a street here in Ft. Lauderdale, near the river walk we visited a few weeks ago.  It was another hot and sunny day and we really enjoyed seeing all the various artists and shops.  It was a juried show and the artwork did not disappoint.

Our first stop was a little shop called Flowers and Found Objects.  I wish I could have purchased one of everything!  I did buy some cute sea shell Christmas ornaments, but if I could have I would have purchased one of the gorgeous wreaths crafted from vintage jewelry.  It's on my list of things to make when I get home! (along with the other 3,000 things that are on my "make it yourself" craft list!)

 

 

Are these not AMAZING???

I then fell in love with a multi-colored bracelet in the shop of Ann Marie of Details in Time.  I've seen other jewelry made from watch parts and "steampunk" jewelry, but none this elegant.  Noel agreed it was perfect for me, so into my shopping basket it went!

While I didn't purchase anything at these other booths, I certainly marveled at their talent and creations, especially the cylindrical jewelry (www.cylindricals.com), and I guy that calls himself Squirrelywood. 

This booth didn't have a website, but was such a fun explosion of color I had to take a pic!

The last booth was jewelry that were absolute works of art!  14kt gold, diamonds and gemstones made into miniature sculptures to wear.  No wonder they had armed security there!  Stunning! - www.trisko2.com is his website - I didn't ask to take pictures, I was too busy drooling!

We had lunch at this tavern, where I had a wonderful quinoa and shrimp salad, then headed back to the truck.

  I'm glad I took the walker, (sometimes I'm too stubborn), because even with it, my back was killing me by the time we got home.  Plus it helped carry my new treasures!

 

Today its all football and rain.

 

Second Saturday Art Walk in Miami are nothing like First Friday in Dayton!

I'm not the same girl I was last week.  I've seen things.  Things I cannot un-see.  Saturday night Jason and Katie took us to Miami's Second Saturday Art Walk.  The crowds were crushing.  The art was amazing.  And weird.  And downright creepy.  There were scantily clad women.  There were babies, and old people, every color of the rainbow people.  Street performers.  Midget wrestling.  Strippers in a big glass box.  And traffic....oh the traffic!

 

Jason and Katie being silly

 

This is made from pill capsules!

 

Click on this picture to make it bigger - the skin is so real it is freaky!

 

A short video clip of the stripper in a box!

 

It took some time to recover from all that excitement, so the following days we stayed close to home, spent an hour or two on the beach and went to the movies with Jason.  We saw the movie "Gravity" with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.  It was a real dud!

 

Tonight we went to dinner with an old friend of mine from high school that now lives here in south Florida.  We haven't seen each other in years, but he's one of those friends that you can just pick up a conversation as if we had just seen each other last week.  What fun it was to see him.  He and I used to go dancing together every weekend - disco!  That gives you a clue how old I am! LOL

 

 

Tomorrow we are heading to Jason's apartment to help him move some things we brought him from home into storage.  Stay tuned....