Merry Christmas and Happy new year

Okay I've been tardy. But it's been very busy here too.
Yes we did have a Christmas tree. Thanks Krista. Yes those are bananas. They grow here on the property. Sweet!

Christmas eve was spent here at our place with our friends Bob and Janice. Lovely.
They stayed until it was 1230 and of course, it's Christmas day so we had to open the stocking stuffers. Frank won the guessing game. Aprille tried to cheat.
It's Christmas day, I went swimming. Just because.The remainder of the day was held at our neighbours Ken and Krtista. What a feast!! All the trimmings and then some with a nice "doggie bag" for lunch and dinner the next day.
We received a nice surprise on Tuesday.  We got a call from John and Crystal. They we're coming down for 8 days and would be here for new years eve. They arrived on the 30th (scheduled for 1100 pm but they were delayed till 1140 due to bumpy air conditions that forced the plane to fly lower and therefore slower.
On Tuesday we had to stock up for new years so we went over to Total Wines(again) and went on a rampage. John and Crystal were very impressed to say the least. I think we spent over $300 between the two couples. Somebody here has a problem. then it was over to Cheeseburger in Paradise for lunch. Nice!!

New years eve was celebrated at our place with Bob, Janice, John and Crystal.  HAPPY 2014.
I think it was 230 am when we went to bed. It's new years day. I went swimming. Just because. Does that qualify for membership to the polar bears club? LOL.
Thursday we went over to Pauline and Jerry's(Crystal's boss and surrogate parents) over at Cypress Lakes.
We visited with them at there home for about an hour and then they treated us o a fabulous lunch at the Cypress Lakes Golf club. What a treat that was.

Thursday night Crystal and Aprille pulled an all nighter. Really!!! Crystal went to bed when the sun came up and Aprille stayed up!!! All day!!
Friday morning John and I went over to Lighthouse beach on Sannibel and had a good,long,very cool walk for an hour. Okay, this is ridiculous. It was only 45 degrees. (39 degrees tonight.)Really!!!
It's off  to the flea Master flea market Friday afternoon. This really is a great place to get lost in your thoughts. We were there for about 3 hours. If you can imagine it it is probably there.
Since we were going to the dog races tat evening we had to eat something before hand. To avoid back tracking we went to Pincers in Bonita Beach. Super food. Good value. We had to sit on the patio(which was covered) (thank God) if we didn't want to wait 45 minutes. We didn't. They actually brought out propane heaters for the patio.
Then it's off to to the dog track. I bet number 6 to win (I bet number every race. Saved a lot a time running back and forth) John bet number 8,Crystal bet number 2 and Aprille bet number 5.
So here are the race results(sounds like a race commentator)
John won 3 aces, Frank won 3 races, Aprille won  2 races and poor Crystal got skunked(very close a few times but no cigar). So the net result was Frank and Apriile netted a $12 profit  and John and Crystal were down a couple of dollars. But here's the nice thing. It was $1 Friday and beer, hot dogs, pop and pop corn was only one dollar!!!!

Sat it rained pretty much the whole day. So, we went shopping at the Tanger outlet mall. I think we went into every store. It was a planned even so the rain really didn't matter anyway.
Sunday we went to Sannibel and Captiva. We even found a parking spot at Turner beach( really that is amazing) and we spent a few hours sunning a shelling. How about this floating BBQ and ice cream vendor? What a great idea.

Sunday night we had a great/noisy(but fun) dinner experience at the Parrot Key. We were supposed to hear Gatlin that evening but the Packers were playing and that restaurant is Lambeau Field South. It as packed as th patrons/fans saw their beloved Packers lose to San Fran. Gatlin was pre-empted.

After dinner we went on the pirate cruise which was a one hour fun cruise into San Carlos bay with entertainment and a local history lesson supplied by the scurvy crew.

Monday we went back to Captiva to the Jungle Land art gallery(it was closed on Sunday ad it as a place that John really anted to visit as there was a personal connection with John's "Parrot Head" memorabilia and the owner of the gallery. Here had designed ( 20 years ago) the T shirt that John was wearing.
What a neat place. John bought two more magnificent T shirts and Aprille and I came away with a one of a kind work of art too.

On the way home we stopped for a great lunch at the Sannibel cafe. This was followed by a trip to Periwinkle Park to see the parrots. After we got home we took a trip with Bob and Janice ( it was time to clip their parrots toe nails,and, knowing that John and Crystal are animal lovers they asked us along)to the greatest pet store you'll ever see. It was almost like going to a mini zoo.
The rest of the time we spent by the pool  swimming,sunning and/or playing Cornhole (I'm not making this up, that's what they call it) or bean bag toss,or as John prefers, holey board, because he just couldn't bring himself to say cornhole. We had a few challenge matches and we held up well considering we are amateurs at the game. Aprille needs to practice throwing the entire(and straight) 27 feet. can you say keep it on land?
Tuesday was travel day for John and Crystal. There was an incredible winter storm that engulfed Ontario too and John and Crystal were stuck at JFK in New York till Wed night(they got lucky, if you can call it that after 2 days at an airport) they were scheduled to be there till Thurs!!