Yes, we are still alive.  We spent the holidays in Minnesota, luckily the snow and bad weather Gods took pity on us and it barely snowed at all while we were there.  We had a great time visiting family and friends.

Our van was getting used to the warm weather and didn’t like this at all!

Brrr, poor van

Once we got back down here, we found this young man on the beach….

Florida Snowman

Don’t you wish you could build one of these?

The weather down here has been unusually wet and cold for this time of year.  Of course we all know cold is a relative term.  Cold for here, meaning Super Duper Wonderful if you live up North :).  We have had a few storms that blew in right at high tide, it caused the water in our canal to raise quite a bit

The cement pad to our docks

This is what it looked like before the storm

Dock at normal water levels

Our neighbors across the canal almost had water in their yard

Start building the Ark!

And then someone took this picture in Tampa

Water spout in Tampa Bay

That is really cool, I would have loved to see that up close ;).

Of course after the storm comes the clear night and the full moon

Shine on Moon

While we wait out the storms, we are doing a little spiffing up of the condo.  While we were up in Minnesota we decided to get the pipes replaced, a suggestion of our home inspector.  It is kind of weird, down here the water is so soft that it eats away the copper piping causing it to pit and then leak.  All of the condos in our 4 condo unit had their pipes replaced within the past few months. Of course, after they replaced our pipes, there were lots of patches we had to paint over.  The way they find the pipes is they cut a hole in the wall, if the pipes are not there, they cut another hole in the wall, if they are not there, they cut another hole in the wall.  So when I say there are lots of patches, I’m not kidding :).

Hallway

In the dining room

Master Bedroom

Behind fridge

I’ve been cracking the whip and making Gary paint.  We started with the VIP bedroom as we will be having family visit soon.  Here it is before

That table is made out of cardboard!

Love the pictures

And after

Ooooh, pretty 😉

We have been able to get out and about when I am not whip cracking and we found our old Pearson at Snookbite Marina

Stern

Starboard

Bow

Port

I don’t think she does much traveling anymore :(.

But while we were out Gary found a new friend

Cubby the Bear

Gary’s new friend.  We think he would look really nice at BearTrax, Cubby not Gary ;).  Next we found this PODS in the parking lot of a strip mall

Whoops!

I can hear the conversation. “Where’s my POD?”  “Well, we delivered it to the address on the shipping label”  “Harry, where did you deliver the Jones POD?”  “We dropped it at the address on the shipping label”  Two weeks later they finally find the POD.  Whoops!  Sorry!

So, that is what we have been up to for the past month or so.  We are both starting to have boating withdrawals.  As Gary searches the internet, we’ll keep you updated on our search for the new Touch of Class.

Stay warm!