Easter Eagles, Thunderbirds and More!

Hi Everyone and Happy Easter!

Hope you are all having a relaxing holiday.

For this post, I'll start by covering last weekend, which was busy for us. Plus, Glenn went to Miami twice that week.

Saturday, we went to the wedding of Ashley and her fiancée Ragen. Some of you may recall that Ashley worked with me at Bongo / FedEx. She had a morning wedding at a restaurant called Ulele in Tampa, which also sits on a waterfront park of sorts. Here we are, goofing around prior to the ceremony.

The ceremony itself was only 10 minutes long, which was awesome, especially because it started pouring rain about 5 minutes after we left.

There is a statue of an Indian princess in the background, holding up her hand to stop someone, which Glenn and I found kinda amusing.

Much later that day, we drove to Lutz, where the reception was being held at a relative's backyard. It was a pretty setting.

We also met up with my former boss, Jennean, and a former coworker, Danielle.

Jennean, who is about 5 months pregnant, Danielle, and myself.

Photo booth fun

On Sunday, Glenn and I went over to Chad and Lisha's apartment. They are on the top floor of the Westshore Yacht Club, so they have a great view of the airshow from their balconies. Chad's parents and Lisha's mom were there as well, and we had a really fun day.

There were lots of things to see, from paratroopers and B-52 bombers to prop planes. Our favorites, though, were the Thunderbirds, who were amazingly fast and performed some jaw-dropping maneuvers. Glenn took the pics - about a million - so I have whittled them down to a more reasonable number. He used the super zoom and did an awesome job - especially as he had to keep running from one balcony to another and try to keep the planes in the frame.

Please prepare for take-off.

I wish you could hear the sound of these things - it really got your heart-pumping. Sadly, we once again neglected to get pics of any humans, but here is the view from Chad and Lisha's balcony, when one is not looking up at the sky.

That brings me back to this weekend. Saturday, we did a lot of work planting new flowerbeds, mulching, doing landscaping and the like, so I figured I'd show some pics from around the homestead. Also, our orchids are in bloom.

Today, Glenn started my morning with a fun Easter egg hunt as well as a basket full of candy. I think he just does this stuff to make me look bad. ;-) (I did make us a nice lamb dinner!)  At any rate, we also took the dogs on a long walk along Bayshore.

I believe in my last post I told you about my unsuccessful quest to find and photograph some bald eagles I keep seeing during my drive to work. Last week, one flew directly over my car on the way home. They are just taunting me now!

So then, a couple nights ago, I saw one and, even better, I saw what I believed to be it's nest on top of a giant tower.  After our walk today, I had Glenn drive me over there with the superzoom. The bad news is that I did not get the majestic picture of the typical bald eagle with the white head. However, I did get these.

I posted these photos on Facebook and one of my friends says she is pretty sure these are juvenile Bald Eagles, so perhaps their parents were out hunting, or maybe the brown one is the mom and the black one is an adolescent male. I am not sure, but if so, I consider my quest being partially successful.

But these actually weren't my favorite bird photos of the day. My favorites were of an osprey that landed in a tree right above us and looked a bit like he just got out from under a hair dryer.

Plus, this indignant look is just the best. When I saw this, I just started laughing.

So anyway, that's it for this week's post. Hope you are all well. Love you!

Catching Up

Hey Everyone!

Hope you are all doing well. Our multi-part Tucson posts put us a bit behind in the blogging, so I have some catching up to do.

After we returned from Tucson, Glenn and I flew to Ft. Lauderdale to attend an ACS gala in West Palm Beach. As the gala was only on Saturday evening, the rest of the time was ours to just relax and be tourists.

We spent most of one day just lying by the hotel pool and reading our books. Not too shabby!

We also went to a fun place that was kind of a cross between a botanical garden, aviary and a zoo, called the Flamingo Gardens. We took a little tram ride through the park, and since we were there during the day on a Friday, we didn't have to deal with any crowds. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun. Most of the pics are pretty self-explanatory, so here we go.

Awww!

There were peacocks roaming freely everywhere ...in the trees, under bushes, everywhere. They have a very distinctive (loud!) cry. We were told they were very aggressive and not to get too close. (Thanks, superzoom!) More peacocks to come...

This is one of my favorite pics of the day.

Crested something.

Storks

BABY DUCK!

Anhinga

Me stalking ducks

Night herons

Bobcat

Glenncat

The otters seem very territorial over their house.

This made us laugh. Looked like the Night Heron was standing guard while the Ibis ate out of a bucket of bird food.

Soft-shelled turtle. I recognize them now because they have little pig noses.

"Get off my lawn, you damn whippersnappers!"

BOOM!

So that Saturday night we went to the gala, which was held at a very ritzy yacht club in West Palm Beach. It was fun, but we did not get a lot of pictures - it was mostly standing around and schmoozing with strangers. My feet hurt. But Glenn managed to get a few pics from the harbor.

We got to tour a $5 million yacht, which was probably among the smallest ones there. Sunday, on the way back to the airport, we stopped at the actual beach at West Palm Beach, but it was a cold, grey day and our visit was brief. Said hi to these fellows and left.

So from here, I'll skip ahead and quickly update you on last weekend. Last Saturday, we met up with Chad and Lisha and went to the Gasparilla Arts Festival. We had a great time walking around with them and had lunch, and then met up with a friend of theirs named Christian. We took a long walk and ended up at the patio of a cool restaurant called Ulele. Here we are.

Last Sunday was another gorgeous day and Glenn and I decided to go fishing off the Dunedin Causeway. We caught 9 fish - about half of them were those damn grunts, but the other half was an interesting mix.

Sea trout

Sheepshead. It has like human teeth - really weird looking fish.

Glenn also caught a small sea trout, and then, this weird fish. Not sure what it is. It's fins are like wings, but it also had little legs. (eeek!)

Ok - its not quite as big as it looks in that first pic.

Glenn was away from Wednesday through late last night. This Saturday, I set out on a quest. For three days in a row last week, I saw two bald eagles flying around over Safety Harbor on my drive to work. Apparently, they have moved in somewhere near Bayshore.

So Saturday, I grabbed my camera and went down there. I walked for 2 HOURS and saw every form of wildlife known to man, except for those bald eagles. (Glenn and I walked another hour down there this morning and still nothing.)

Anyway, I did see two old friends at Cooper's Hawk Park. This guy (who today we decided to name Merlin):

And Gary the Gator:

I think Gary would really like this pic, because it makes him look big and ferocious, but he's actually a little fella - probably only 3 feet long.

So anyway, that about gets us all caught up. Hope you are all doing well. Glenn sent me this picture of himself one day when he was working from home, and I think it's a good sign off.

Love you!!