school)!!!!! Too bad!Anyway, we had a nice holiday time, considering the fact that we're away from home. This week is always a little tough for us "travel orphans." But it's been great to be down here on Pine Island 
with Scott and Deb, because they are such good hosts and kind people!!!!! They were gone over Christmas, visiting their son up in the Tampa area, but we went to the Legion by ourselves and took part in the Christmas Day potluck-Yummy! Lots of great homemade foods and fabulous desserts. Dave ate so much he was in bed by about 8:00 that night-talk about self-control :-) And I had a chance to telephone almost everyone at home, which was really nice.
with Scott and Deb, because they are such good hosts and kind people!!!!! They were gone over Christmas, visiting their son up in the Tampa area, but we went to the Legion by ourselves and took part in the Christmas Day potluck-Yummy! Lots of great homemade foods and fabulous desserts. Dave ate so much he was in bed by about 8:00 that night-talk about self-control :-) And I had a chance to telephone almost everyone at home, which was really nice. This week (between Christmas and New Year's) has been kind of quiet. The KOA was pretty busy because a LOT of families came in for the one week period, but most of them are gone now. It just amazes us that families will drive from Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, even Canada, just to spend one week down here. But we have to remember that working families have only a few weeks a year for vacation, so they have to take advantage of the time they have. It was kind of fun to have kids around, riding their bikes and playing ball and stuff. All very nice kids. A lot of rigs pulled out yesterday and today, but now we're starting to see an inflow of people who are signed up for "calendar" months, i.e. all of January, January plus February, etc. These are the "serious" snowbirds.
We just did odds and ends this week-the weather wa
s beautiful (80 
most days) so we tried to find outdoor things to do. We put the kayaks in one day, and Dave went out fishing by himself in his kayak a couple of 
other afternoons. We did a little day-trip up to Punta Gorda one day, got together with Scott and Deb a couple times, went to the Legion one night, went on a bike ride together, etc., etc., etc. One thing that gets kind of weird when you travel like we do is that it really isn't five months of "vacation" activities - some days you jus
t hang out, you read, you do the laundry, you go to the store and run some errands, and so on. It seems like we did quite a bit of that over the past few days. I know-boring, right? But, on the other hand, it IS 80 degrees and sunny EVERY SINGLE DAY, so how boring can it BE?
s beautiful (80 
most days) so we tried to find outdoor things to do. We put the kayaks in one day, and Dave went out fishing by himself in his kayak a couple of 
other afternoons. We did a little day-trip up to Punta Gorda one day, got together with Scott and Deb a couple times, went to the Legion one night, went on a bike ride together, etc., etc., etc. One thing that gets kind of weird when you travel like we do is that it really isn't five months of "vacation" activities - some days you jus
t hang out, you read, you do the laundry, you go to the store and run some errands, and so on. It seems like we did quite a bit of that over the past few days. I know-boring, right? But, on the other hand, it IS 80 degrees and sunny EVERY SINGLE DAY, so how boring can it BE? We did spend one day walking around in Matlacha, which was kin
d of fun. When you come out to Pine Island, you drive through a small "island" (I guess...) that kind of hooks the Fort My
ers mainland to Pine Island. The only 
two things on this little island are a Florida scrub preserve and this little teensy town of Matlacha (pronounced mat-luh-SHAY). Matlacha is an old fishing community, with a couple of neat restaurants and bars and some funky little gift shops and stuff-very "Jimmy Buffett" looking. We parked in the tiny little community park (where we found a very nice kayak launch, which we hope to use sometime this week) and then walked past the little shops (kind of cute-I'm posting a couple pictures of some of them) and down to Bert's Bar, which is like seventy years old. It's one of those neat Florida bars that's all kind of rundown with the majority of the seating out in the open air and looking over the water. I'm posting a couple pictures I snapped when we stopped there for a couple beers and an order of "beach bread"-sort of a bruschetta made with blue cheese dressing, tomatoes, cheese and shrimp-YUMMY! (One of the pictures is of Dave and me-a terrible picture of him, but since he ALWAYS takes a good picture it's only fair to include one less-than-flattering picture of him!)
d of fun. When you come out to Pine Island, you drive through a small "island" (I guess...) that kind of hooks the Fort My
ers mainland to Pine Island. The only 
two things on this little island are a Florida scrub preserve and this little teensy town of Matlacha (pronounced mat-luh-SHAY). Matlacha is an old fishing community, with a couple of neat restaurants and bars and some funky little gift shops and stuff-very "Jimmy Buffett" looking. We parked in the tiny little community park (where we found a very nice kayak launch, which we hope to use sometime this week) and then walked past the little shops (kind of cute-I'm posting a couple pictures of some of them) and down to Bert's Bar, which is like seventy years old. It's one of those neat Florida bars that's all kind of rundown with the majority of the seating out in the open air and looking over the water. I'm posting a couple pictures I snapped when we stopped there for a couple beers and an order of "beach bread"-sort of a bruschetta made with blue cheese dressing, tomatoes, cheese and shrimp-YUMMY! (One of the pictures is of Dave and me-a terrible picture of him, but since he ALWAYS takes a good picture it's only fair to include one less-than-flattering picture of him!)We visited Matlacha on New Year's Eve day, and then went to the VFW to join Scott and Deb and about six of their friends. They had gone there for an early dinner, but we just joined them for a couple drinks. While we were there, this cute Jamaican (did I spell that right?) guy named "Clive" was singing - and he was SO good and such an entertaining performer. Scott and Deb told us that he is going to be on X-Factor this season so we should watch for him (I have NO idea how they actually know that-I know these things film way before we see them on TV, but does he actually KNOW that he's going to be on????? Hmmm, I guess we'll just have to watch and see...) After the VFW, we all moved down the road to the Legion for a while, and then the rest of them continued on to the Low Key Tiki but Dave and I headed for home. We've gotten into the habit of buying a special little dinner "treat" for New Year's Eve - steak for Dave and crab cakes for me this year - and spending the majority of the evening at home alone. It just seems like we don't really get into the whole New Year's Eve thing anymore, at least not like we both used to when we partied a little more than we do now. But it was nice to spend at least part of the evening with friends, and then finish the night by ourselves. All in all, it was a nice New Year's Eve and now we're anxious to get on the with the rest of our trip. I'm always kind of relieved when the holidays are over-these are always the hardest days for being away from my family. We're looking forward to 2012 and anxious to see what the new year brings. I hope only good things come for us, and all our friends and family!
PS-I'm sure all of you made New Year's resolutions today, so I'll share one of mine. I've been doing some walking/jogging for the past few weeks, with the intent of doing a 5K run while we're down here - so I've picked out the one I want to do. It's on February 18th in Melbourne-it should be a very low-key, family-oriented run since it's in support of dental health or some such thing and is called the "Tooth Trot" - do you LOVE it or WHAT? Anyway-I don't think I can possibly come up with a less intimidating event for my first "official" (i.e. timed) 5K run, do you? Of course, I can WALK a 5K in my sleep-I do the 10K AVA walks with no problem at all-but it's different when you try to "run" (or should I say "jog" or possibly "shuffle"....) and when you are doing it in a group. So-NOW-I have offically announced my intention of running in the Melbourne 5K Tooth Trot so now I'm committed-I'll either have to do it or face the humiliation of admitting that I backed down.... More on that LATER.
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