Beach Angel turns 12

We Today is our oldest Beach Angel "Lexi's" birthday.  They grow up so fast.  we looked back on some pictures and videos from vacations past they are filled with many great memories of our time on Sanibel/Captiva.

We made a little video to celebrate Lexi's special day.     

We also made up a little display box to safely store Taylor's rare shell find she has told everybody about her shell.  I have no doubt she will have this shell for years to come.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

American Icon (Part 2)

Image
 If you read part 1 of American Icon, have you figured out who, or what, is the American Icon?  I gave you some hints. I started off with a picture of my 66.  There were other hints as well. Like the flag video when they passed by it on the highway. Maybe the comment about eight generations of Styling, Engineering, Technology and Muscle.    I'm talking about the Corvette.  Bowling Green is where Corvettes are born. We were fortunate enough to get to tour the Corvette Assembly plant. Stingray ZO6 The corvette is now in its eighth generation with the C8.  This car is radically different from other corvettes because of the redesign placement of the engine and advancements in handling.  GM closed the assembly plant to tours back in 2024, but recently have opened it back up for limited visits. I'm of course a car guy, so a trip like this is right up my alley.  I wasn't too sure how much my co-pilot would enjoy it.   The assembly plant wa...
Read more

In the Blink of an Eye

Image
It's been a rough week this week.  While I generally keep my blog on the lighter side.  My words come from my head, but my desire to write comes from my heart.  My heart this week has felt both pain and Joy some of which I'll share with you today. On Monday Nov. 20th I'm on the mends from a rough couple of days on what looks like could be a precursory strike from a future Kidney Stone.  Spent a couple of days on pain meds, telling myself I'm not going to the ER.  Carol's been battling the crud and been coughing a lot for the past week.  We get a visit from Kristine, our daughter (technically Daughter-in law) but we adopted here years ago when she moved down here from Oregon to carve out a life with our son Ryan.  In her selfless manner, she's here to deliver a spare nebulizer to her Missouri mom, who's been fighting the crud.  Why? Because that's just who she is. She didn't visit for long, and we shared a few passing comments about her not wanting...
Read more

A Special Shell

Image
Yesterday evening we had one on the lowest tide we were able to catch this week.   I walked the surf at the shoreline to see if there were any shells. I was able to find a few but the shells have not been plentiful this week.  We actually collected more at Barefoot Beach the other day than we have here all week. As I was walking along I began remembering some of the times on the beach with the Beach Angels.  The younger one "Taylor" taught me a life's lesson that I would like to share with you. Taylor especially when she was smaller was always amazed with collecting rocks.  It was nothing to dump out a pocketful of rocks that she had collected from around PaPa's Koi pond or in NaNa's garden.  They were nothing special they were just rocks. Naturally when we began bringing Taylor to Captiva where the beach is full of shells as far as the eye can see. She did what most of us do down here she began collecting shells. Taylor's shells were crac...
Read more

Butt Cheek Beach

Image
We are staying on Grassy Key, it's one of 13 islands that make up Marathon.  The house is right on the water on the Gulf side.   The view from our house  The water in this area is relatively shallow, and the pier on the right is part of the property.  Looking forward to some stunning sunsets.  I hope to see plenty of wildlife as the waters here are very clear, and it's easy to see the bottom.                                                                                 The house on Marathon The street we are located on is very quiet and the houses next to us are vacant. It makes it feel like our own little personal paradise. After getting things unloaded, we go out to check out the pier and about halfway down the pier, we ge...
Read more

Finding your "Happy Place"

So it's been two years since I've been to my "Happy Place".  Now don't get me wrong it's not that I'm an unhappy guy.  I have a good life and a great family.  There are many things that make me happy.  Anything from a giggle to a hug from any of my five granddaughters makes me happy.  A cruise in my 66 with the top down and the deep rumble coming from the side-pipes makes me happy.  Sitting on the porch and hearing nothing but the call of a mourning dove in the morning or a bull frog breaking the evening quiet these all make me happy. However; when it comes to going to my "Happy Place" there really only one place that does it for me and that place is Captiva/Sanibel.  It's been two years since we've been here so this trip will be like catching up with an old friend. For those of you that know what it's like to find your "Happy Place" congratulations.  For those of you who don't the best way I can describe it is like ...
Read more

Welcome to Marathon

Image
The adventure continues as we head further south, down to the keys.  Home base this week will be Marathon.  On Monday, we have a trip planned to Dry Tortuga National Park.  That is pretty much the only thing that has a time commitment to it.  We're just going to let the week play out and see what each day brings us. We drove through Fort Myers Beach on our way to an overnight stop in Bonita Springs.  I think due to the higher concentration of houses and businesses on FMB the devastation was extreme.  We stayed in a house on the south end FMB back in 2019.  Below is a picture of that house taken in March of this year.  Bottom floor blown out, and what you don't see in this picture is the whole back of the house is gone. Beach house FMB March 2023 When we drove by, all that is left is an empty lot.  Property on FMB is selling for the same dollar evaluation post hurricane Ian as it was before hurricane Ian, house or no house.  There's no do...
Read more

Dry Tortuga National Park

Image
Life's Highway can lead us down many paths.  Concrete, blacktop, gravel, dirt roads and sometimes no road at all. That's the case for our adventure today.  We take a Two and one quarter-hour boat ride 70 miles west of Key West to Dry Tortuga National Park. I wouldn't consider myself a history buff, but this place had me in total awe.  We recently bought the Senior Lifetime National Park Pass and this is officially our first stop using the pass.  It did not disappoint.   There is no way the pictures I will post here can really reveal the true beauty of this area.  The blues and turquoise water were breathtaking and sitting in the middle of this natural beauty 70 miles off the coast from Key West sits Fort Jefferson on Garden Key.  Fort Jefferson is the largest brick and mortar building in the Americas.  Some 16 million bricks were used to build the fort.  The bricks came from Maine and Pensacola.  Can you imagine the challenge of getting ...
Read more

A special Find

Image
One of our Beach Angels "Taylor" had a rare find while on Captiva this year.  She found an Imperial Venus shell!  Thanks to "Shellady" for confirming the find.                                       "Taylor" A.K.A Beach Angel                                                                        Imperial Venus 2015 You might remember the story I told you all awhile back about Taylor's fascination at a younge age with collecting rocks.  To most of us just plain old rocks.  She would collect them from around my Koi pond, NaNa's garden or sometimes maybe in the middle of a gravel parking lot.                              ...
Read more

SH**t Doesn't Always Roll Downhill

Image
So I really didn't think I would write much in the blog during this trip.  Normally, the Beach Angels and other guests supply the comic relief while they are here, and while Rachelle and Beach Angel "Skylar" are here for a few days, it has been realtively quiet, and we have just been chillin. You know, during my working career, I spent time as a line worker,  A mechanic, a Supervisor, a  Middle Manager, and a Packaging Engineer. I was also a Director f or Lean Manufacturing.  During those years, I learned a lot about how the progression of things worked. We were always aware of the fact that SH**t rolls down hill and you had to always be ready to adapt and overcome the adversities of said Sh**t that were sometimes made by upper-level management that really had no idea what was happening on the shop floor. I learned today that sometimes Sh**T travels uphill; in fact, it sometimes backs up.  Case in point, the house we are spending the lovely month of June here o...
Read more

Time Out Tuesday

Image
S0 I have been up around 6 all week.  This morning was no different except I needed to be extra quiet because sometime during the night I got room visitors.  There were two Beach Angels sleeping on my floor!  Why they would give up their bed for the floor beats me.       Looks Comfy doesn't It So with camera in hand I headed down to the dock to capture some shots of the Sunrise.  I would normally have my photographer in tow but due to her bum ankle I'm on this mission alone.  I wanted to also head over to the Beach and walk down to Blind Pass. Another First this year capturing more Sunrises than Sunsets For some reason when it comes to the ocean I'm like that kid you tell to stay out of the water puddle.  If I'm near it I'm gonna get in in it.  What usually starts out as ankle deep ends up being knee deep in no time.  Just me and the relaxing sound of the waves to serenade me as I put on my best "Shell Whisperer" impressio...
Read more