just a day in the life...

Just my boys, sleeping hard. Daddy's spoonin' the bottom half.  Aren't they cute?!



And then Daddy got up to make coffee, and Willis took over his spot. for good.

So, there's this Jersey family, about 20 of them in all, that are staying at the
resort.  They've been hanging out at Paradise Pointe during the day. The
men are fishing, the ladies are sunbathing, and there's lots of food, music,
and laughter.  I'm doing dishes in the galley and I hear this girl yell,
"Dad! There's a raccoon that just went in that sailboat- I SWEAR!!!"
No coon, just a Willis- trying to figure out how to make a great
escape on the clown bike.  The boy has received about 100 belly rubs
and had his picture taken 50 times in the last two days. He knows how to
really work a crowd....I would call him The Biebs, but that would be an insult-
to Willis.

Look who came for a visit in the afternoon :)  The sea grass has been piled
up in the marina, from three weeks of a north wind blowing it in from
across the Gulf.  It has started to ferment, and it SMELLS FOUL.
Thankfully, the wind has turned out of the south the last two days,
which is helping to blow the nasty stuff back out to sea.  And then you
have the manatees- that do their fair share of grazing on sea grass.

For the Jersey girl who thought she saw a raccoon, I went back to the boat
and got some lettuce for her to hand feed the manatee.  The look on her
face, with her momma snapping pictures; the highlight of her vacation :)

It was getting late in the day, and Donnie and I decided
to take a ride on the blue piglet out to the Seven Mile
Bridge to see the sunset.  We've been here a month, and
we haven't seen the sun set on the water yet- that's just sad.
Willis bolted to the mangroves when I tried to call
him in, he clearly had more belly rubs to squeeze
out of the resort guests. Dern cat.

As we were walking out on the bridge, the momma lobster boat was
towing the baby lobster boat....somebody was having a bad day.

The lobstermen were still sorting through the day's catch.  The next
beautiful (and calm) day, I am going to hang out at the fisheries to
see if I can hitch a ride to pull pots for a day.  It's a bucket list thing :)

There's my handsome Cap'n...and a beautiful sunset :)

I made chicken burritos for dinner and we called it a night- we didn't accomplish a whole heckuva lot on Tuesday.  As beautiful, and still as the evening was, it was a restless night of sleep.  We had three big thunderstorms roll through last night. The good news is I didn't find any leaks and it flat poured.  The bad news is that it blew more of the stinkin' sea grass back into the marina. Ugh.

So we started our Wednesday with better intentions... it's time to get some business taken care of.  I worked on the computer much of the day.  I updated the registration on our EPIRB, completed the profiles on Willis and Simon's microchip registrations, sent for our 'official' marriage certificate back in Indiana, and completed the paperwork thus far to apply for my work Visa for China, among other things.

Naturally, Willis was his usual helpful self- any time there's paperwork
involved, he's smack in the middle of it all.

While I worked down below, Cap'n kept himself busy with his own projects.
He cleaned and reinstalled the carburetor on the dinghy motor.  He
put the battery back in the piglet (it was left to supercharge at
Napa last evening). He also put some covers on the lifelines,
and worked on a fishing reel that was giving him trouble.
All in a day's work in the Florida Keys.

We enjoyed an hour of sunshine at the pool before the next front moved in this evening.  We then took the piglet to get groceries, and Donnie grilled some ribeye steaks and baked potatoes for dinner.
They tasted delicious, but within hours I was reminded that my one kidney cannot tolerate much red meat anymore :/ 

Well, once again, the wind has picked up and it's beginning to rain.  The radar looks ugly out through the Florida Straits; lots of red coming through the Keys tonight.  At least the wind is blowing out of the N/NE.  The bad news is that it will bring in even more sea grass, the good news is that the wind is blowing us OFF the dock, which should make for a more comfortable, restful night.  Time to retire with a good book.  G'nite, y'all.