A Florida Christmas

Since we'll be leaving later this week for our Christmas vacation in Texas we decided to have our own Christmas celebration here in Florida. This gave us some relaxing time together before all the travel headaches begin. There is something that scares us about going to the airport two days before Christmas.

We spent the day (once it started after sleeping in) cooking up a great meal, then exchanging our presents. For dinner, we tried making up some new stuff including a cornish game hen, corn soup (thanks Kari), and scalloped potatoes. It all turned out great and left us very full...

Here's the healthy ending...

Next up... exchanging presents. That was a blast, and thanks to Dana we'll be going to see George Strait in January! Finally after all these years we get to go to one of his concerts.

Lastly, I wanted to show an update on Tex. Since our last post months ago he has grown a ton... he begs more than Rusty, so its not surprising. A quick picture and video-

-Grant

Sand Castles

A few weekends back we were able to head down to Treasure Island for their annual sand castle contest. There was a great variety of sculptures from sand castle builders from all across the US (even South Padre). Some really interesting designs, and some really weird ones. Lets get to the pictures...

I just liked this next shot of a older hotel...

And finally, Dana being a pirate.

-Grant

Sawgrass Lake

Looks like we have been slacking off in the posting of our pictures again; we'll try to get a few updates up soon. This set of pictures I took a while back at a park down the road from our apartment. It has a small lake with a lot of swampy area surrounding it that was full of wildlife. Seemed like everywhere you looked there was a new animal ready for a picture.

Lets start off with a few random shots I liked, then we will get to the animals.

The fish seemed to spend most of their day waiting to be fed by people passing by. Made for a good picture anyways.

The next few shots are of a momma gator and her little ones. In all there were six baby alligators sitting around while their mom sat back in the bushes. I'm sure she wouldn't of minded if I took one...

The remaining shots are of some different birds, gators, fish, and turtles. To put that last picture in perspective, the turtle was probably a good 3 feet long. Interesting fish it was with... no clue what it was.

-Grant

Meet Tex

Time to introduce our new kitten... Tex. He is a ball of energy, and a bottomless pit for food. That guy can eat, honestly it's just impressive.

Unfortunately, he is also beginning to discover his claws... and teeth. Not cool. However, when you look past the injuries he dishes out, he is a great loving kitten that can't get enough attention. Here are a few pictures from a few weeks back...

-Grant

Fishing... Again

Alright, it looks like we have a lot of catching up to do. We have totally been slacking in the blog posting area, and for that we apologize. Turns out, when we arent having to work all the time we get to leave the apartment a bit more and the computer stuff hits the back burner. It's kinda nice actually...

I will try to put up a few new posts here shortly to catch up for whats been going on. To begin, lets take a look at our newest adventure: fishing (not from the shore this time).

We made the decision to not purchase a small boat since our time here is limited. To counter balance that, we went ahead and bought ourselves some small pontoon floats. We considered kayaks, but having previously owned them back in Texas, we knew that storage would be an issue. After some research, we decided to go with these inflatable pontoons.

After a weekend on the water we are overall pleased with their performance. They are no boat, and heck, they aren't even as fast as kayaks; but they get the job done. In fact, they are considerable more stable than our last kayaks which makes you able to stay out on the water longer (with even more beverages of your choice).

Although we didn't exactly slam them, I did catch one flounder. Also, we both got to see a manatee come up for air. They are kinda ugly...

-Grant

Clearwater Offshore Races

Over this past weekend I made my way out to Clearwater Beach to watch some offshore boat races while Dana was hard at work. While they were pretty far off the beach it was still real entertaining to watch. The boats were impressively fast, and equally as entertaining, very loud. Here are a few good action shots-

There were a number of helicopters following the action from above, which in themselves were entertaining to watch. The photos below show the number of people that turned out to watch the action. Considering this isn't the busiest beach time of year there were a ton of people that showed up. You can also see the mass number of boats anchored offshore watching- they were solid on the horizon- I'm pretty sure everyone with a boat in the area showed up.

-Grant

The East Coast

Last weekend we finally began to explore the rest of the state of Florida- beginning with Miami. We didn't reserve anything ahead of time, which worked out great for us as we got a great deal just off the beach in an old hotel that was built back in 1939. We spent Saturday walking around South Beach, enjoying the clear water, and getting our fill of Cuban food.

This is the hotel we stayed inn- (get it?)

The view of the beach from our room-

The entire area kept is original architecture, which made all the street scenes very uniqe and colorful.

So far, this is the best Florida beach we have seen yet. The water was clear and clean, the waves were larger than in the gulf, and the characters on the beach really kept us entertained.

Saturday night after dinner we sat outside our hotel enjoying some mixed drinks and desserts.

Sunday morning we spent a little while out on the beach before check-out time, then headed into Miami to see the Bayside Marketplace, which my Dad worked on back during construction. He tells me I saw it back when I was 9 months, and as far as I can tell, it hasn't changes a bit.

Following another great Cuban meal, we headed on back to St. Pete via Alligator Alley. Not much to see on this drive...

-Grant