Our House

Well, its not really "our" house, but we live here for now. We were able to get a great deal on a furnished rental here in Sarasota, so I thought I would share some pictures so you could see it too. Because the peak season in Florida is the winter, and it is a prime location for vacationers and snowbirds, there are lots of furnished rentals in general, and even more (for even lower prices) in the summer. After living in an area where rents are very high, and renters have almost no power to negotiate rental terms, we are so happy to be here where we feel we are getting a great deal for the money.

Our living room.
Our spectacular master bathroom. If you have seen our one bathroom in Massachusetts, you would realize what a huge upgrade this is.

The master bedroom with a king size bed. We decided we're big fans of big beds.

The beautiful kitchen. I will miss this so much when we leave.

The outside. We actually have a garage!

We'll be sad to leave this place in a few weeks. Our new place in MA is a little nicer than our old apartment up there. We will have a one-car detached garage. This will be very important in the winter. Its a little bigger than our old apartment, but is still two bedroom one bath. Its a condo in a nice woodsy area. The big plus to the new apartment is that we were able to get a nine month lease because the professor we are renting it from is going on sabbatical for the school year. Only nine more months in MA and then who knows where we will be!

Dolphins!

This weekend Suzy and I went down to Captiva Island and went on a dolphin cruise. It was really fun, who doesn't love dolphins?! They are very playful and curious animals, and apparently the more noise the people on the boat make the more the dolphins jump and play around. Here is the video that Suzy shot...

While down in that area we also went to the Thomas Edison & Henry Ford Winter Estates, here are more pictures of the rest of the day.

I love Florida sunsets, Suzy and I took a walk the other night and this is the sunset that we enjoyed.

The Edison Home, Suzy listening to the audio tour.

Their nice porch that goes all the way around the house.

Sitting on a bench in the shade listening to the audio tour while looking out over the river.

A huge mansion under construction on Captiva Island.

Suzy in front of the Henry Ford house.

Dolphins!!!

more...

A baby dolphin and the mom...

It was hard to get a nice picture with 80 other people leaning over the edge of the boat getting their hands in the way.

Bird Thieves

Yesterday we went to the beach after Casey got off work. I brought us some sandwiches and chips since it was dinner time. We ate and then we were swimming and enjoying the beautiful water. All the sudden we noticed that our towels were COVERED with seagulls. We ran up to see what they were after, and they had attacked our bag of chips. It was rolled up and secured with a clip, but the went at it and ripped through the bag. There were chip pieces all over the towel, so we had to clean it all and throw the chips away and scatter the birds about 3 times before they finally left us alone. Next time we will hide all food a lot better. I had no idea they would be so aggressive.

As a side note, the seagulls here are different than the seagulls I'm used to in California. I pulled this picture off the internet.

4th of July

Yesterday we went to the Tampa Bay game. The Devil Rays played the Royals. The Rays are the #1 baseball team in the country right now. They just swept the Red Sox. It was a fun game and they won 11-2. It was also $1 hot dog night. :) That always makes the game a little more fun. It kind of evened out the $5 soda we bought.

On the way home there was a really nice almost sunset on the bridge. It was a beautiful day and we really liked the clouds on one side.

This picture is from the other day when it rained a lot. We found a tree frog on our back sliding glass door. We see toads a lot, but the frogs usually stay in the water.

This is a turtle that we saw at the gator river. He was right up by the dock where we look for gators. He was just eating away.

On my birthday we went miniature golfing at a place I like to call Gator Golf, although that's not the real name. They had a pit with probably 20 gators stuffed in it. They didn't look all that comfortable. This one had a turtle on its back and didn't really even seem to notice.

This is a bird that we see a lot around here. It likes to stand like this to dry off its wings.

Thats all the random things we've been up to. Hope you're having a fun summer too!

Cold Stone

I signed up a little while ago for the Cold Stone birthday club. Since it was just my birthday, I got to test it out. They sent me an email for a free medium ice cream. We went last night and redeemed it with no problem. It was yummy and free, a great combination. You will get a few other emails from them, so I would send it it your "junk" email account if you have one, but its not a lot, maybe one every few months. Just thought I would pass the info along so you can enjoy free ice cream too!