Christmas & New Years

Lots of pictures in this blog! I will start where I left off. While in AZ I got to see lots of my closest friends. Ursula and Shannon and I went to grade school together. The 3 of us met up at a restaurant and closed the place. We spent the entire time giggling and talking like we were 12 again. Our friend Tim Johnston (more on him later in the blog) was supposed to meet us, but I accidentally gave him the wrong date, and he showed up the day before. Sorry Tim! I also got to see my high school bud, Brian, and my former coworkers, Andrea and Leti. Leti cut my hair, and I am sooo happy with it. I guess I am just going to have to keep flying back to AZ just to get my hair done! Oh, and to see family! Zachary had a cub scout meeting just before the holiday break. I'm glad I didn't have to be the one to clean this mess up! They had lots and lots of wadded up paper that they threw at each other as 'snowballs'. It sure looks like a lot of fun!

While I was gone, Mike did such a good job taking care of the kids that Christina made him this sign, and hung it on the kitchen cabinet.

My 3 Santa's.

The boys got to write letters to Santa for their wish lists. Can you believe Santa brought them everything, but 1 item on it? (Caleb said Santa didn't bring him ET toys because he must not make them. Only ET makes ET toys.) I think Santa spoiled them! Its a good thing they didn't write a long list!

No wonder Santa brought them so much. With faces like that he probably couldn't resist.

Time to mail them to the North Pole!

Since I got home so late on Christmas, I wasn't about to spend the time cooking, so Mikey had bought ham, potato salad, macaroni salad, mashed potatoes, carrots, and corn from the deli. Maybe not homemade, but still good.

This is Zachary's Christmas present to Caleb. I think I will frame it. Then when they argue I can pull it down and remind them of the love they share! What a wonderful special relationship these two have.

This was Christmas morning. They got to see their Santa presents, but waited until I got home before opening any more.

But once I got home, it was a free for all!!!

I got Christina these shoes. She really liked all her stuff. Most all of it was Zebra striped stuff. Her favorite fad right now. Her favorite is the Zebra purse, and wallet.

As usual the post opening mess!! I had one suitcase that was filled with gifts from me, and all the grandparents. Good thing Southwest doesn't charge for extra luggage!

Mikey had a little bit of work to do in Naples, so we all joined him for a week long vacation that we all really needed. With everything that had happened in AZ, (dads surgery, my grandpas stroke and brain surgery, (my dads dad, the day before dads surgery, he is recovering well) and all the running around I did, it was an emotional week and a half.) So I was really looking forward to some much needed R & R. Mike found a beach house on a private island in the Port Charlotte area, which is about an hour north of Naples. The only way across was to drive your vehicle on a small ferry. At a cost of $40 round trip, you don't take it back and forth unless you really need to! This picture looks like we are driving in the water.

We were the first ones on the ferry. Of course this was after we drove past the waiting cars the first time, to be told to go to the back of the line. oops! Driving back to the end of the line the people in their cars were laughing at us.

This was taken while we were driving back to the end of the line. We missed that ferry. It only holds about 8 vehicles.

This is our beach house. Its called the WAHOO house. Its fun to say, so we said "WAHHOOO" all week long.

This is the view from the family room looking out over our own private dock. Its on a inlet waterway. The other side of the island faces the gulf. The island is a "U" shape.

Our porch was completely screened in, and the sliding glass doors opened up all the way across the entire room. For indoor outdoor living.

These stairs led to a bedroom upstairs, that had almost no walls, but 10 windows instead, giving a 360 degree view. This room we gave to Christina and her friend Katelyn. But that didn't stop the boys from constantly running up and down the stairs.

We took this picture on the canoe. This was the dock we caught all our fish on.

The first fish we caught our first night there. It was a walking catfish. The boys were down at the dock with us, and then Christina came running down when she heard we had a fish. Mike had just reeled it in, and was trying to take the hook out when the boys asked what were we going to do with it. When we said "Eat it", they freaked out! They started crying and begging us to just throw it back. Then while Mikey was removing the hook the fish started crying! It was making these awful whimpering noises. Even Christina was close to hysterical. "you have to throw it back, its crying." At this point it was such a pathetic situation, we tossed it back into the water. But we later had a talk with the kids... "we are here to FISH, which means hopefully we will CATCH fish. That means we will be EATING fish. No more crying!" They were pretty much fine the rest of the trip.

Zachary lost his right front tooth while we were there. Good thing that ToothFairy is so smart and all knowing. She found his pillow and put a $5 bill under there. I guess she must not of had anything smaller in her pocket.

Christina and Katelyn had a lot of fun relaxing and going out on the canoe. Katelyn had never fished before, so when I had one on my line, I let her reel it in. She thought it was pretty cool, but she didn't want to do it again.

We were a little nervous letting them take the canoe out by themselves. But they rowed around a short way and said it was easy, so we let them out of our sights. 2 & 1/2 hrs later they came back! They had seen some dolphins. Although they thought they were sharks, and were so freaked out they were shaking, until they asked a passing boat, who told them they were just dolphins. Then they thought it was cool.

Look at them go! It was actually pretty easy to row. (Mikey and I took it out one early morning before anyone else was awake and rowed out about a mile. When we got back the boys were up and eating cereal. The girls of course were still sleeping.)

When the girls got back Mikey had caught a little fish. The girls unknowingly rowed their boat right under where he was reeling it in at. The fish was hanging by Katelyn's head. She started screaming and was trying to stand up, then Christina was yelling "Stop your going to tip over the boat!" See her oar in the water? This fish is so small, you almost can't even make it out in the picture!! After a minute she calmed down, and since the fish had wiggled itself off the hook and landed in the canoe she actually 'finally!' was able to grab it and throw it back in the water!

One evening, Mike and I took the canoe out just after dusk. Just the two of us. If you have ever been on The Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney, or eaten at the Blue Bayou, you will know the way it looked and felt. The sky was a midnight blue color with lots of stars, the crickets were singing in the trees, the water was lapping at the canoe and shoreline. We had a small lantern, which we had on low sitting on the bottom. All that was missing was the old guy sitting on his porch rocking away in his rocking chair, with his dog at his side. It was soo romantic. We think it was probably one of the most romantic things we have ever done. The weather was so warm, we just had on T-shirts and shorts. It couldn't of been any better. One afternoon we went to beach. The kids collected a ton of seashells, and I even found a sharks tooth!

There were boats out there that had huge nets and they were full of fish. Up to this point we had only caught a few little ones. Not even big enough to make eating them worth it. But they inspired us that there were fish big enough to be caught! And catching them is what we started doing! Calebs little SpongeBob pole caught most of the fish. He caught 4! We were using shrimp. The Snappers and the Porgy fish liked it very much. Zachary didn't care much about the whole fishing experience. He did reel one fish in. Caleb tho, really thought it was alot of fun. But unless he caught one within 5 minutes of throwing his line in, he wasn't happy.

Here is the fish that Zachary caught. See, they are little guys. We tossed more back than we kept.

Caleb and I caught most of the fish. One day, I was catching them left and right. As soon as I would put the shrimp on the pole, I would have a fish on it. Poor Mikey is standing right next to me, using the same bait, and not catching a thing. At one point I had run out of bait, so I reeled his line, pulled his bait off, put it on mine, tossed it in the water, and had a fish on it. Just like that. I caught 12, he caught 1. Mike went down to the tiny store on the island to get more bait, and before he left he cut up one of the small fish. I finished slicing it up and used it, but the little ones did not like eating one of their own.

These were most of the fish we were catching. They are good to eat, but many small bones, so the boys got other food. They are Porgy fish. Or Pin fish.

This is a gray snapper. He is very good eats.

Earlier in the afternoon Mikey took the head of the small fish and put it on a hook. While he was gone, I had to reel in his pole a couple of times because the bigger boats travel close to the dock since the middle of the waterway is actually pretty shallow. The last time I had to do this, one of the fishermen in the boat saw the fish head and said "You need to cut it up smaller, you will never catch anything with that." Oh yeh?? I made sure it was on the hook really good, then I tossed it back in the water, but over to the side a little bit, since I heard Mikey come back, and I wanted to go back to the house for a few minutes. While I went up, Mikey came down to check out all the fish I had caught. Then I hear him screaming for me. "Sweetie??!! Get DOWN here...NOW!!!"

Oh yeh, there was a fish on it all right. It had pulled the line completely to the end of the reel, and was on the opposite side of where I had cast it. Our fishing poles and lines are only really for lake fishing, and this guy was pulling very hard. Mikey did the whole release and reel thing, back and forth for quite a few minutes. The fish finally started getting tired. Mikey knew his line wasnt strong enough to bring it in all the way, so I hopped in the water with a net and got the fish face first as he was swimming. Luckily for me, the water was warm.

I was soaked from the waist down, but it was definitely worth it to catch this big guy!

This is a Common Snook. Its a very fleshy fish. Lots of good meat especially in the shoulder area. If you look closely, you can see the fish head that we used. It was still completly intact.

Mike measured him in at 31 inches. We didnt have a scale, but Mikey estimated he was about a 12 lb fish. The book gave us ideas on weight and sizes.

Yummy..... Dinner!

We are sending this picture to a local Fishing Magazine.

After calling my brother Frank the Chef, to find out exactly how to cut this big boy, Mikey filleted it, and we grilled one side of it in lemon, dill, butter, and garlic. YUMMMMY! The other side we wrapped in newspaper and foil and froze it so we could bring it home. We ate it last night. I baked it, and also cut up smaller pieces, breaded them, and baked those. We told the boys they were Chicken Nuggets because Zachary will not touch fish. Well he really liked his chicken nuggets. sssshhhh..... One day I will tell him how often he really ate fish, and he will probably be mad. But maybe by then, he will develop more of a taste for fish.

We still had the intact fish head we used to catch the Snook, so Mikey hooked it again to see if we could catch another big fish. Well.....Catch something we did.....

We caught a Sting Ray. Who catches Sting Rays??? Sheesh. Mikey had cast the fish head out, and we got in the canoe for another row around the waterway. He called his parents and was in the middle of a conversation when we heard the ZZZZZTTTT of the reel. Only big fish make it go like that. So we quickly rowed back to dock to find our pole bent like crazy again. He started the dance of reel, release, reel, release, but this one was different. It wasnt fighting to swim away. But it was very heavy, and couldn' be reeled in. It was out far across the waterway, so Christina and I jumped in the canoe and followed the line out. Its pretty shallow in the middle, so we could easily see where the line ended. It was starting to get dark tho, so it was a little difficult to see what we were looking at. I tugged on the line and saw something long and skinny move. What the heck? Christina had the net so while I was slowly pulling the line up, she was trying to net it. At first we were trying from the skinny end, but then all of a sudden it came up just enough for us to see that it was big and flat. So she scooped it up from the other direction. We flipped out when we realized what it was. Mike thought we were joking. Then all of a sudden we remember that the Crocodile Guy, Steve Erwin (?) was killed from a sting rays spiked tail going thru his heart. We both grabbed our big seat cushions and put them over our chests while we rowed back to the dock. I called my brother Frank the Chef again, (I like how that sounds!) (although he will call himself Bret the Chef) and he suggested we take a picture and send him back home. So we did. What an adventure we had fishing!! At this point, I told Mikey, no more fish heads!!! We are done! We had a hot tub that was downstairs on the patio. While we cooked the fish, the boys hung out in there. It was fun having that. The 4 of us stayed awake until Midnight New Years Eve, by playing Pictionary, and Cranium. In between all of us texting that is. I was texting my family, Christina was texting Chase. (yes that one. He is coming to visit in March) and Katelyn was texting her friend. We woke the boys up a few minutes before midnight so they could watch the ball drop. We celebrated with a little bit of Champagne. Then went to bed. It was such a wonderful week. So relaxing. My favorite thing in the world, getting up just before the sun comes up, getting my coffee, and heading to the dock and setting up the fishing lines. A book in one hand, coffee in the other, and a fishing line in front of me. It doesnt get much better than that! I know you all are anxious to see my new tattoo that I got from my long time friend Tim Johnston. I met him in 8th grade. He was a wonderful artist even back then, so when I heard he owned his own tattoo parlor, I was excited for him to do my next one. So here it is! The vine says Mikey Christina Zachary Caleb I wish Mikes camara took better pics. There is a lady bug on the leaf by the M and the Y. On the C is a tiny inch worm. Zachary has a bee and a spider. Caleb has a ladybug on his vine. Mikey loves loves LOVES my tat! He rubs lotion on it twice a day for me. And tells me everytime he looks at it how happy he is with it. Now the kids are back in school, and we are back at work. But we are already counting down the days to our next vacation. (Infield camping at the Daytona 500! 5 more weeks!)