When we left home for Florida to checkout the water issues, with no known time frame of our trip, Hubby worked it out with his job so he would be able to telecommute from there. Since it was a workday, Monday, Hubby had to stay at our house to phone in for meetings and had lots of work to do. Can you imagine a better work environment?? I figured I could get out to the beach at sunrise and stay a couple of hours and still get back to make (and receive calls) from contractors. So I decided to head out solo....not as much fun, but the bug had hit me and I had to go to the beach even though the tides weren't ideal!
The sand dollars were pushed up to the high tide lines, and made it difficult to walk without stepping on them!
Most of the shells were minis and were embedded in the sand, you definitely had to do a lot of bending and stooping (Sanibel Stoop) to see all the treasures. All you have to do is click each picture to enlarge it to do some cybershelling of your own!
I found so many sand dollars, and finally just quit picking them up!
Every day is always different at the beach, today it was shelling off of the surf line, to these embedded areas and the high tide line...
A piece of an Angel Wing
Almost a whole Angel Wing!
I found this guy, peeking through the grass at me, and felt like it was so appropriate since it was so close to Halloween!
I also found some beach art, someone thinks like I do! :) These were made out of red Mangrove seed pods which are called 'pencils' by us shellers.
This morning ended up a 'mini day' for me....so much fun, I love the minis!
I put a quarter in the picture below so you could see how small these all are!
A teeny tiny fighting conch and orange true tulip share this quarter!
I found some beach bling too! A sea whip and 2 sea urchins...of course they are no longer alive.
I really had a great time and I got back early, in time to continue on with contacting contractors to work on the house and work some more on my new project...
It has been pretty hectic since our trip to Florida, so I have been a little remiss on posting our trip updates, please bear with me.
First I want to do a shout out today for my Hubby. TODAY is his BIRTHDAY!
Happy, Happy Birthday to my WONDERFUL Hubby!
Now, turn the clock back to Sunday the 18th of October, only our second opportunity to go shelling this trip.
Sunday the sand dollars continued to come in. I had seen this before, but they had been all very small ones, this time it was all sizes! So Sad.
I did find a few that were no longer alive.
Although the tides weren't very low, the shelling was pretty good!!
Hubby's finds...
He got a beautiful Alphabet Cone and a very colorful pear whelk
My finds....love the mini's!
Look at the variety in the lightning whelks, very similar in size but so different in colors! I would guess that the difference is the time they were empty, the darker the color, the most recently empty. Wouldn't you agree?
After shelling, I decided to go shopping at some of my favorite Florida stores, and, as usual, found some things I couldn't do without! :) Check out these awesome dishes that will compliment my White Shell pottery beautifully!!
I just couldn't resist!! I also started another project this week while I was making phone calls, and waiting for contractors....here is a little 'sneak peek'
Due to the storms that had happened along the East coast the last few days, we already knew that we couldn't take a direct path to Ft. Myers. If you remember, South Carolina had tremendous flooding over the last few days, and they had closed over 70 miles of Interstate 95. Traffic was detoured west in SC for many miles, and there was a lot of traffic, but the detour went as smoothly as it could have so we arrived in Ft. Myers Monday afternoon. The rest of the week was spent on the phone making contacts to have the 'water leak' at our house checked out, working mostly with our management company. We still did not know what the source of the water was, rainwater or plumbing issues. Nothing was readily apparent! Finally on Friday, a roofing company got on the roof with a water hose while someone was in the attic and they found the source! The ridge vent had pulled up apparently during the storms and the water came in there, ran down the rafter to the wall behind our toilet in the upstairs bathroom, pouring water on the floor there. From there it traveled down to the kitchen ceiling!! The roofers fixed the problem and checked it out with another water check! Finally....progress!! Next step, repairs.....but first, the weekend!!! :) Since we couldn't get any more work done due to the weekend, :) Hubby and I got up early Saturday morning and headed for a little R & R at the beach!
It was a beautiful morning and very quickly we noticed it was Sand Dollar time....so many sand dollars EVERYWHERE, every size! We saw the small sand dollars washing up last year, but these were all sizes, mostly larger!
It was difficult to walk without stepping on them! The shelling was pretty good, lots of minis in small piles scattered along the shore.
I managed to get a video of one of the Sand dollars as the water washed along it.
Here is a sand dollar trail in the tidal pool! If you look closely you can see him still there!
I think we had a pretty good day, what do you think?
Hubby's finds
My finds
Both Hubby and I found pieces of Junonia, which is fairly rare!
The month of October originally started out pretty much as any other, it is Hokie (Virginia Tech) football season, and we are season ticket holders, so we had a plan. We were to have 2 games on back-to-back weekends, October 3rd and the 9th. We always tailgate and try to have at least 2 meals at the tailgate on game day.
Even Lily is a Hokie!
Joseph, our littlest Hokie
I decided I would have Hubby leave me there after the first game, I would look after Joseph and help with the cooking etc. for the week and go back home with Hubby the next week, after the game....and did I mention, the 3rd was my birthday, so I was really looking forward to having a 'birthday week' with the kids! Well Mother Nature did not cooperate, we got a blast of N'oreaster Storms that rolled in, so we had to adjust our plans! Hubby and I have spent many games in the rain, and after 12 seasons, we decided that was no longer fun for us. So we stayed home for my Birthday, watched the game on TV from the couch. Just before the game started, we got a call from Carol, the lady that looks after our house in Ft. Myers. She had some bad news. We had water in our house, upstairs AND downstairs! They too had had many storms, and Carol had found water standing in our upstairs bathroom, and 'bubble things' (she called them) over our kitchen bar. She and the neighbor were working with our HOA down there to find out what happened. They said we didn't need to come down, they were working it and would stay in touch, but they sent us some pics...
See the bubbles of water in the ceiling??
Happy Birthday to me, right?? :( So, I headed to Christiansburg on the 4th for the week, with plans to meet with Hubby on the 9th for that game. I had a great week with Joseph and he and his Mom and Dad gave me the BEST birthday gift!!...and took me out to dinner too!! Talk about feeling special!! How awesome is this, it is a canvas they had it customized with a coral background to perfectly match our Florida home!! The card was customized too!!
We had a great week, Joseph had just turned 7 months old and is such a joy, I think he learns so much everyday!
After a ride with Mommy down the steps!
I have got to learn to keep my mouth closed for these selfies!! :)
"Gammaw, come get me out of jail!!"
Such a Happy Boy! Daddy is feeding him homemade babyfood...Butternut squash!
Here is Joseph doing his 'Army crawl'. He goes back and forth between this and a crawl on 'all fours', mostly he likes to crawl to something, then stand up and walk!! Such a big boy!! <3
As the next weekend approached, so did the storms....Hubby ended up staying home, and not coming for the game....we also watched this one from the couch....and could hear the fireworks at the game outside! During the week, Hubby continued talking with the folks in Florida, and it looked like we had to head down to assess the damage, find the source, and get some repairs done! I drove home on Sunday morning (about 300 miles), unpacked, did laundry and repacked and early Monday (Oct 12) we left for Florida! I hadn't been able to go since April, and Hubby had been twice, so working or not, I was really looking forward to the trip to our second home! :) So stay tuned .... I did FiNALLY make it to the beach!!
