Georgia Peaches Roll into Florida

We had a very nice surprise this past week when our friends from Georgia, Ken and Debora, decided to drive down for the long weekend.  We had last seen them at their house in Georgia on our first trip down to Florida three years ago and after lots of invitations, they finally ran out of excuses. 

It takes about seven hours to drive down but its a pretty straight shot thru Florida.  The weather was great, we had lots of time to catch up.  Of course, we had to show them some of the local sights.  Edison and Ford Estates and the trees...

 Fort Myers Beach, Nervous Nellies...

and a boat ride into the Gulf of Mexico for dolphin watching.  At first we saw zip but as we got closer to Sanibel Island, we saw pods of dolphins jumping thru the water for about half hour.  It was awesome.

There was lots of sitting in the pool, eating good food, talking and lots of laughs too.

And Ken even scored a free pair of shorts at one of our favorite dives, Bonita Bill's.  Apparently the bar set up a table with free clothes and since Ken came to Florida in long jeans, he really needed some shorts.  They had Ken's name written all over them.  And the price was right too.

They are headed back yonder.  I'm fixin to invite them back again real soon.  Y'all.  Margaret

Gary's Latest Project

Well now that Gary is not employed, we decided it was time for him to take on another house project.  Work just got in the way so once that was over for good, he started looking for another property to tackle.  The internet makes looking pretty easy, in fact we received daily updates from several realtors meeting our criteria.  Some looked promising but were in a bad location, some were beyond hope, and others we just didn't like.  Gary does a lot of homework when he is looking for property and he almost gave up.  But we finally found this new project about 2 miles from our house in a nice neighborhood at a decent price.    

The previous owner obviously had ADD, he would start tiling and stop, start painting and stop, rip out a wall and stop.  Its kind of a puzzle.

Our Welcoming Committee

So game on, we closed on Thursday and Gary was hard at it Friday.  Expect lots of house updates here. 

Master bedroom/bath

The back looks as good as the front

Big Red, Ted Nugent and Company

Gary is no longer using a company van because apparently they have some rule that he has to work for them in order to use their van.  He is free and easy so the van had to go and we picked up Big Red so he has a new ride. 

Of course that whole ordeal made me and the girls very hot so we jumped in the pool when we got home and went for a little ride.

Later that week we met some friends and took the Pure Naples boat tour.  Very informative and depressing kinda too.  They take you into canals where all the homes are well over $1,000,000.  In fact, those are the shacks or "tear downs."  So it can be alittle depressing walking into a 1,200 square foot house after that.  Most garages are bigger than our house.  We were told the house below is a Hershey's vacation home.  Since I work for Hershey's it would only seem right that Gary and I could stay there as much as we want.  My boss says the invitation is in the mail.   He says that alot.

Gary and I had tickets this week for one of our favorite bands, REO Speedwagon.  We consider ourselves "groupies" since this is our third concert with them.  First came Ted Nugent who wanted to make sure that any hearing we may have would be totally lost.  After that, Styx came on and gave a great show and last but not least REO.  We actually were able to stay up past our usual bedtime.  We had no idea so many other people stayed up so late.

Been a busy couple of weeks here and the weather is definitely heating up.  The pool pictures will keep coming, maybe I'll even be able to get the girls into the water.  Margaret