Family, Friends, Hurricane Shutters

We have been very busy since getting back from Mexico. We got home on Thursday and Mark and Renita come over on Saturday for a weekend visit. They are renting a condo on the West coast near their daughter. We wanted to get caught up on all our travels and show them around our new hometown. 

On Saturday afternoon we went to Hutchinson Island to check out the beach. The water was very calm and great for collecting shells. 

With the recent rain and high waves there were many shells on the beach. 

The first picture is what was in the foreground. Nanc and Renita are searching a huge pile closer to the water. We have never seen so many in one spot. On Saturday night we went to dinner at Shrimpers in Port Salerno. George and Nan joined us and we had great time talking about jewelry making and rocks, a passion for Mark, Renita and Nan. 

If you are in Stuart on Sunday, going to Rock n Riverwalk is a must do. We walked the boardwalk enjoying the water and sunshine. 

As we always do, we saw a couple beautiful birds feeding right along the boardwalk. Here is a little blue heron looking for fish and insects among the rocks.

This is an immature egret. Mark turned me on to a neat bird identification app, Merlin Bird ID from Cornell University. 

As always there is music on Sunday on the Riverwalk. That evening we watched the Steelers-Bills game. As the Steelers lost, I was not happy with the results and I also had to listen to Renita cheer for the Bills because their quarterback is the only NFL player from Wyoming. Despite that, we had a great visit and look forward to doing it again. 

This is what the storm shutters that came with the condo looked like. Each window had several individual pieces of metal that had to be screwed into place, a long difficult process. 

Nick, who looks after our place when we are gone, made a contact to have accordion shutters installed. We got a good price since several other people in Lexington Lakes also got them. 

So here is Nanc’s Christmas gift, new accordion shutters for our windows and the sliding glass door. This will make it much easier to cover the widows if a storm is threatening. They were installed the day before we left so I did not have a chance to get a picture with them closed. 

On the Friday before Christmas we flew to DC to spend the holiday with Nanc’s sister Michelle and her husband Keith. 

Merry Christmas at Keith and Michelle’s beautiful home.

Nanc doing some cooking. I know it looks like meat, but it is a vegan thing that Keith's nieces cooked for us when we were there in October. It really wasn't too bad after I covered it with beans, guacamole and salsa. 

Michelle has been battling cancer for nearly three years. Her prognosis at this point is not very good so we wanted to spend as much time as possible with her and Keith. The day before we left her doctors told her she should contact Hospice. While this is very sad news, our experience with Hospice has been very positive and we know they will do everything necessary to make her comfortable. Here is a nice picture of them a couple years ago.

Their dog Spartacus all dressed up for Christmas complete with reindeer antlers. He is a great dog.

We were up very early the day after Christmas to fly back to Florida. I got a great look at Washington, DC at sunrise.

Looking down the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol.

Looking the other way from the stadium to the Lincoln Memorial. We have always loved DC and have been there many times, but this is the first time we got to see the city from this point of view.

Getting ready to land in Florida. Most of the buildings you see are in Palm Beach County. Where there are fewer buildings is in Martin County and also where we bought our condo. This sure shows how  much less densely populated it is where we now live and we hope it can stay that way.

Guess who is in Palm Beach for the holidays? This is the first time we have seen Air Force One. 

We are only going to be in Stuart until January 1st and then we are taking Opus and going to the Florida Keys Elks for the month. Our plans for the winter are up in the air as we are going to try and get back to DC to see Michelle again.