A Great Week

The weeks events started on Tuesday with the Venture Out Boat Club's fishing tournament.  I was able to go out with Blane and compete in my very first fishing competition.  What a day it was.  We came home with 27 fish.  The days catch included two Cerro Mackeral which won 1st and 2nd place in that category.  Wow!  It was great.

Wednesday brought a visit from a great friend and his wife.  John Jelinek has been a friend on mine since our days in high school.  Now that's a long time ago, for sure, and yet there are times when it seems like yesterday.  What great times we had remembering the  events and conquests of so long ago.  Yes, we still can remember that far back.  Mary even said that we are like two peas in a pod.

John and his lovely wife Mary came for a short power packed three day visit.  They arrived here on Wednesday just as I arrived home from a day out fishing.  It was a great welcoming.  We caught 20 yellow tail snapper and Jon's eyes got bright at the prospect of him being able to go out and catch some himself.  The rest of the night was spent getting settled, planning the three day visit and attending the boating club's dinner.  He and I bought some 50 /50 raffle tickets with the hopes of hitting it big.  Low and behold we did win the 1st place pot.  With our winnings, we decided that we'd stimulate the local economy the next day during our tour of Key West.  Nothing like a free days outing.

So Thursday was spent seeing the sites of Key West.  There were some places that Mary wanted to definitely see.  First there was lunch and Sloppy Joe's Bar.  As usual, the food was really good and the music and crowd lots of fun.



The second stop was Hemingway's House for a tour.  That entailed a great 10 block walk which helped get rid of a little of the lunch.  The tour of the house was a fantastic literary history lesson.  They even have the famous 6 toed cats.  They are currently numbered at 42 free roaming cats. That man sure lived life to the fullest but had a tragic ending for sure.

From there is was an 8 block walk back to the famous, yes you guessed it, Matheson's for the frozen chocolate covered Key Lime Pie on a stick.  Mary and I had ice cream and Rose shared some of mine.  John ate the pie with gusto.  We also had to stop for our picture at Mile Marker 0.

It was then time for a walk through the shopping area and then on to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Cafe.  Crazy busy with the cruise ship being in port.  Then again this is a tourist party town and everyone is here for the winter time.

Now it was time to start heading to Alonzo's on the wharf for the tarpon feeding at 5 PM.  Today was a little different though.  The tarpon were there but so were a mass of pelicans.  It was a fight for the food and for the most part the pelicans won.  So much for seeing the ferocity of the tarpon.

I said it was time for our feeding at Alonzo's also.  They have a great deal on their menu each day.  All of their appetizers are 1/2 price along with ALL the drinks from the bar from 4 PM till 6:30 PM and we were here at 5:10 PM.  We wound up having more food on the table than we could eat.  Oh well, that just means leftovers.  We ended the day spending just a little over our winnings of the previous night.

Then there was Friday, a day for the women and a day for the guys.  Mary and Rose started with Yoga and then time at the pool catching the warmth or the sun's rays.  It was a great day for just being quite and sharing good time together.

Tim & John joined Virgil on his boat for a day trying to bring home dinner.  Well, they sure did bring dinner home.  After about 6 hours, they came back with 29 Yellow Tail Snapper and 2 Grunts.  That turned out to be about 10#'s of fish fillets.  Virgil & Jo joined us for a great supper of fish, biscuits, steamed vegetables, salad and ice cream for dessert.  What a bountiful feast it was.

As far as the fishing went, John turned out to be the winner of the day by catching the most fish.  It was really a lot of fun seeing the look on his face as he pulled in the first three fish before anyone else caught anything.  What a fantastic time with great friends.

Saturday morning came way too quick for us.  Rose and I had our work cut out for us as we volunteer to serve at the pancake breakfast every other week and this was our day to help out.  John & Mary slept in and then joined us for breakfast before coming back to pack up for their trip back to Ft Meyers to catch their plane to the cold up north.  It was a sad time for us all.  However we are so fortunate to have been able to share this precious time with John & Mary.  We thank them both from the bottom of our hearts.

Mom's Visit

Time sure does go quickly when you're having fun. Our grandson, William, left us after a wonderful two week visit on January 4th and here it is February 6th.  A lot has happened sine then for sure.  The fun part is we're smiling the majority of the time.

After William left, we had a few days to go through the rig and get everything put back to normal.  We moved some things around so that he would have places to tore his things while he was here.  Now we had to get ourselves setup for Tim's mom's upcoming visit.  She was with us for 15 days starting on January 10th.  It was wonderful being able to spend this precious time with her.  We are very thankful and greatly appreciate it.

After picking mom up from the airport, we immediately introduced her to The Gieger Key Grill and their great dinner fair and a fantastic sunset.  It brought back memories for her of her and dad"s visit to us in Spain and watching the sun set over the ocean there.  Great memories for us, for sure.

The next day was set for mom and Roseann to compete in a Mah Jongg tournament.  Well mom won at her table as was rewarded with her trophy pen.   That was just the start of many days of her and Rose enjoying Dominoes and Mah Jongg game times.

Then on the 12th, we were able to celebrate her 91st birthday.  What a great treat for us and special to us all.  Her phone was buzzing all day as family called to wish her well.

There were football game parties, game nights, quite times, hot tub soaks and good sharing times.  There was also the morning exercise Yoga class on Tuesday and Friday that we attended.  The Friday TGIF gathering gave us good food, entertainment and meeting friends.

There was site seeing around Key West starting up at the southern most point in the U.S. picture.  There was food at Sloppy Joe's Bar and frozen Key lime pie on a stick at Matheson's.

We were also able to attend a seafood festival at the park in Key West and sample great food and, of course, ice cream.  Mom was able to do some shopping too.  It was a fun day for all.


Most of all, there was our time to go fishing.  Mom fished from the dock that was 5 ft behind our rig and from the nearby bridge.  She did really good fishing from the dock but she kept complaining that they were all small.  So it was to the bridge we went.  There she did extremely well at feeding the fish.  It's a little difficult for her to feel the fish biting.  I briefly thought about going out on a boat but quickly gave it up because of the current weather condition making it a little rough.






Before we knew it, her time with us was over and it was time to take her to the airport.  It was a special day.  We know our time of having her with us on this earth is getting shorter and we will cherish these moments forever.

After mom left, we just sat back, took a deep breath and got the rig back to normal.  Well almost normal.  There was something left behind that needed to be mailed to her.  Oh well, we were happy that is wasn't anything really big and heavy and we were able to include a little gift from the Keys.

Now we are fully back to normal and waiting for the fishing tournament coming up on Tuesday.  The weather has really been bad lately giving rough seas so this will be an interesting time.  No one has been able to go out and scope out the good fishing spots.  I've joined the boat club and was able to get a ride with one of the members.  This will be a fun time for sure.  They will be giving only two very small prizes for each category but the more important thing will be bragging rights for the winners.