After our fun trip to Melbourne Beach over the summer, we decided to again rent a house for a pre-holiday getaway and spent last week in Cape Coral, FL, which is about 2 and a half hours south of us.
The day before we left, however, was Glenn's "Neighbors Unite" fundraising event for the American Cancer Society in Safety Harbor. I was very proud of Glenn because he went out, found and mobilized a team of local volunteers - a lot of our neighbors - and put together this entire event over the past several months. The volunteer team lined Huntington Drive (the road leading into our plan) with an incredible 2,000 luminaria bags that were lit to honor or memorialize someone with cancer.
The pics don't do it justice, but it was truly beautiful seeing the entire street lined on both sides with lights. Glenn befriended a team of cyclists who lit up their bikes and road through, and there was also a holiday car parade that drove through the plan - everyone honking and cheering. There were snowmen and stormtroopers and Santas and more. I got very emotional watching everyone come by the house spreading holiday cheer after such a difficult year. Faith in humanity restored.
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| Glenn set out our old large screen TV monitor outside for signage. |
Glenn also outdid himself decorating our house for Christmas this year as well. We've gotten so many compliments from neighbors.
On the same day of all these events, I finished assembling this new entryway cabinet which makes me ridiculously proud. It was a million pieces. There are drawers and doors and everything works. Very exciting.
Ok - so then we headed down to Cape Coral and left the dogs with a sitter. Our first night was more eventful than we had anticipated. Around 3:30 am the house security/fire alarm went off. We have no idea why. We had not set an alarm. There was no code or anything provided to turn it off. The security panels in the house were all dead, and the alarm was DEAFENING. Apparently it was not connected to any service because no police or firemen showed up. Eventually, it stopped, but then went off again about 15 minutes later. We ended up calling the property manager at 4 in the morning, and fortunately it stopped on its own again. The guy came the next day and disconnected everything, but we had a bad night's sleep.
But anyway. The house was a very nice place to hang out for a week. Here are a million pics...
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| You could sit here and open the slider so the whole back of the house was open to the pool area. |
There were three more bedrooms upstairs but we didn't use the upstairs at all other than one night when we played roulette. We took turns being the dealer.
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| I was winning big! |
We pretty much just hung out at the house all week and read/played games/watched movies/etc. but we did take a few jaunts outside and explored some local parks. There was a cute little park down the street from us that had a little boardwalk through some mangroves.
The next day we went to Lover's Key State Park. We walked out to the beach but it was a) under construction (there were cranes everywhere) and b) it was really windy and cold out there. So we walked a scenic trail instead.
Our rental house was located on the grounds of the Westin Cape Coral/Tarpon Marina so we walked down to the hotel the one day and took some pics. The place was like a ghost town - lots of cute shops and restaurants and no people.
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| This was a pretty house on the way that had "fairway grass". |
On Thursday, we went to Sanibel Island. I have been wanting to go there since I was a kid and heard it was a great place for seashells. Apparently, most islands are oriented North-South, but Sanibel and Captiva are oriented East-West, so they "catch" more shells along their beaches. Sanibel was so cute - it seemed like it was stuck in time in about 1957. No big condos or developments - we just saw cute little old restaurants and mom and pop shops and lots of nature. We drove through JD Ding Darling Nature Preserve and then went to Bowen Beach.
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| Pelicans! (Sorry, I did not have my super zoom camera) |
On the way out, we were walking over a bridge and saw a big ripple in the water coming straight for us, and fish were jumping out of the way. We thought it might be a dolphin, but Glenn got a pic of it under the bridge - it was a GIANT fish. Probably 4 feet long - which you can't tell from the pic. Glenn looked it up later and thinks it was a cobia.
We also came across this lovely woodpecker in the parking lot of Dairy Queen. (We ate a lot of ice cream on this trip.)
Randomly, here's a pic of Glenn with our electric fireplace which he thinks is real dumb.
And here's me. I straightened my hair today. It's getting long.
Alright guys, I guess that's about it. We had a lovely week away but it is good to be back home.
Santa came to the house last night (sirens blazin'!). Every year we think our neighbor's house is burning down or something and come outside only to realize it's Santa again....scaring the crap out of us.
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| Merry Christmas! |
And, just for tradition's sake, I'll end the blog with sleepy puppies.
Love to you all!
