Back on the Harbor

We are back on Sanibel in Charlotte Harbor.

This is the East dress we bought for Aubree

We went out to dinner and special music.

And here is a sweet picture of our granddaughter, Aubree. isn't she beautiful!

Stationary in Port Charlotte

Well, unlike normal sailing years, so far we are still in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda. It doesn't appear there will be any sailing for us this year.

With our trip to Spain in November, Sanibel didn't splash until December and then we decided to stay in Charlotte Harbor for the Holidays. I really enjoyed baking and decorating sugar cookies and then delivering them, along with a Christmas card to all the boats in the harbor. There's really something about the Christmas spirit when doing that. 

After Christmas I had to fly to Texas for a week for work and then friends of our asked us if we would be willing to house sit for them for the month of February. We docked Sanibel right in their back yard on their private dock and moved in the house.

It would appear we were spoiled and yes, we were.

While we were there they were having a pool installed. Here are a few beginning photos of the work.

Jimi worked on building a telescope, repairs and some other projects he had.

I, however, went nuts learning how to make soap. I was in crafter's heaven. Even with limited resources, I managed to make well over 100 bars of homemade soap and bath bombs. I sewed Aubree and I matching aprons, snap bags, burp cloths, bowl cozys and Easter bunny bags.

 

 

 

Of course we had Valentines Day too!

And lets not forget coffee!!

Happy New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR

For this blog I decided to show the distance between our family during the winter months. 

While you all know that Jimi and I spend the winters in Florida on our beloved Sanibel, Jennifer and Aubree are half way across the country in Kansas/Nebraska and Daniel is even further away in Alaska.

Here is a picture of our daughter, Jennifer and granddaughter, Aubree will be two in March and I am counting the days until we head back to Nebraska and I can spend the summer with her.

They say "Happy New Year"

Meanwhile in Alaska, this our son, Daniel. He loves it up there. We've tried over and over to get him to move to the lower 48, but so far no go. However, a mother never gives up.

 Daniel's four-wheeling buddies.

For the first week in January I had to fly to McAllen, Texas for work. This is my looong time co-worker, Keith and I on the airplane.

Spain

Hello there,

Get comfy - we have a whole lot of pictures to share with you. 

This is our 2018 trip to Spain.

These first five pictures are of our first Air BnB; a cozy little apartment for two located on the 4th floor (3rd floor according the European traditions) with a small balcony overlooking the street.

This is in Madrid

These are some pictures I took as we were walking around downtown Madrid. 

The town is bustling and the architecture is gorgeous.

 This area reminded me of New York.

 And here we found a little slice of Nebraska. The restaurant was closed, so we weren't able to ckeck it out.

 Fountains and statues are around every corner.

 This restaurant turned out to be a lifesaving favorite. Sandwiches are between 1 and 2 Euros each (plus many other things on the menu); there are 100 sandwiches to choose from. We ordered several to try them out and were pleased. In addition, a cappichino was only 1 Euro.

 Street vendors were selling all kinds of things. I almost bought a purse, but decided against it after inspecting the quality. They were ready to pick up on a moments notice whenever the police came around.

 Mmmmm...another cappichno. Actually we stopped two to three times per day for a cafe.

 Now that's a candy store.

This set of pictures are from a museum we toured.

As we were walking around town we came accross several U.S. restaurants. At first I was intrigued and began taking photos of them, but then I realized there were too many and stopped. 

We probably found fifteen+ U.S. restaurants in Spain.

This is another museum we toured. It took nearly all day. We stopped between each floor for a long rest; there were 3 1/2 floors.

 School field trip.

 Lunch - unfortionately, it wasn't very good.

 Jimi doing a virtual tour.

 No museum is complete without a real life dead guy. Here you can read why he's special.

 We found this coin interesting. It appears to be identical to the mite, I wear around my neck, from 2,000 years ago.

 Jimi asking for a beard comparison.

It's a new day and we are off to Toledo, Spain. This was just a day trip on the bus from Madrid.

 Toledo was a walled city at one time.

 A pryamid of chocolate with our cappachinos.

 "Roasting chestnuts on an open fire"

 This pond is art. It's bronze and fills with water then slowly drains out. We spent alot of time admiring it.

 Art in the park.

 This is a montessori we toured, but really all we could see were the gardens from the first and second levels.

 We love the pebbled streets.

Here's the pond art afain - this time filled up.

Back in Madrid, we walked down the street for the Sunday farmers/flea market. Vendors lined dozens of streets selling everything you can think of. We bought a couple of antique door knobs.

Even some street entertainment.

We stumbled upon another type of market too and just had to check it out.

This is one of the many Cathedrals we toured.

 Who doesn't love a carousal in the park?

Then we came across a very modern mall. I had to chuckle at a few things I saw.

 It's not Dunkin' Donuts...it's Dunkin' Coffee.

 It's not Victoria's Secret...it's Women's Secret.

And they have black friday (actually we saw it everywhere we went)

This is the palace where the Royal families lived. I'm not sure that the current royal family actually occupies is, but they do have rights to it and their larger than life family portrait was displayed explaining who they are. We toured it but I was reprimanded for trying to take a photo inside. Apparently no photos are allowed inside.

 We turned the corned and what do we see?

 We stopped for supper before the Jazz concert.

 We were excited to get tickets to Cory Harris. He's an American Blues/Jazz artist.

After a week it was time to leave Madrid. We picked up our rental car and were on our way to Cordoba. 

I forgot to take pictures of our room on Cordoba, but it was also through Air BnB. We had an entire three bedroom apartment to ourselves. We'd reserved three nights and two days there.

Our first day we drove to surrounding towns to take in the sights.

This first stop is my alltime favorite: Almodovar Del Rio.

This is a castle that sits high on the hill of the town. It was restored in the early 1900s. It was my favorite because it is also known as Highgarden from Game of Thrones. Between 8 and 11 scenes from season 7 were filmed here.

Cappichino time at our next stop - Ecija.

And then on the Estepa ( I just like the sound of it). It was raining - I was wet and cold and remained in the car most of the time. Jimi got out a few times to investigate. I simply enjoyed watching from my warm seat.

The following day we walked all around Cordoba. The town is made up of orange trees...like everywhere and they are all full.

 This is a very interesting Cathedral we toured with a lot of history. It's been fought over between the Muslims and Christians over the years. Each owning it from time to time.
The architecture shows the different religions.

 Walking along the river we came across this peninsula full of feral cats. 

 Would ya look at the size of that tomatoe?

 Nicolas?

And then we were off again to the town of Sevilla. On our way there we saw a really bright light in the sky. Just had to get off the motorway to investigate. It is the first solar hydro energy plant every made. It uses the sun to heat water into steam and power turbines. An incredible and ingenious sight.

For our Thanksgiving we decided to go for tapas. Up to this point we hadn't been very impressed with our selections; however, this place out did itself. We had the BEST tapas! 

 Jimi's favorite was this piece of steak - so tender that it literally just melted when eaten.

 My favorite was this goat cheese with raspberry sauce and walnuts - Yum.

And for desert was ice cream wrappedina crepe and covered of chocolate.

These photos are from walking the streets of Seville.

And then we bought tickets to tour another kingdom from the Game of Thrones.
In the TV series this place is known as Dorne.

Our final town was Cuenca. This tunred out to be our shortest stay, but our abbsolute most favorite city. The Air BnB was fabulous, as was the host. Again, we had a full size three bedroom apartment to ourselves, but it was more than that. It was warm and comfortable and homey...it felt like home! And I forgot to snap any photos of it.

Due to time restrains, weather and other things we didn't get to do much here. We ventured out and walked to the original city on the hill for the afternoon. It was surreal.

Then we flew home!