Bradenton / last week at Peace River 2010

HAPPY EASTER

Don't forget to thank God for the incredible sacrifice He made for us.

1 Cross

3 Nails

4 Given 4 Ever

Then celebrate the victories that are now ours through our Lord Jesus Christ!!!

Bird watching in Florida is awesome!!!

You can tell by Nicky's tongue that the weather has warmed up.

Above is Bradenton Beach, we just finished a nice 6 days there. We stayed at an Encore park and though the park was nice enough sleeping with the traffic from 75 is not something we would repeat.
The 2 weeks prior to Bradenton were spent at Peace River. We had a great time with Carol and Lou, Will and Ella, Jim and Tracy, Ed and Janie, and Jim and Jane. Friends we've been meeting up with for the last 6 years. We had several good nights of cards with Lou and Carol and a lovely dinner at Giovanti's on Main Street in Wauchula. These two are very special to us and we look forward to meeting up with them again next year.

The last time we saw Will and Ella was on our trip West last year. We met up with them in Palm Springs and had a great time. We look forward to meeting up with them again later this summer. We had two lovely dinners with them and the afternoon at Highland Hammock State Park.

While in Bradenton we were directed to a place called Robinson's Preserve by a local resident who said it's a really nice place to take your dog on a walk.

About 8 miles of trail are in the preserve and it had beautiful boardwalks and lots of birds to observe.

Isn't this a neat trunk?

Woodpeckers were everywhere.

If you are in the Bradenton area this is a nice place to hike of ride bike.

We also spent time at Fort Desota National Museum and had a lovely walk through the trails there.

Saying good-bye to Jim and Jane was very difficult for us because they are going home to England so it's not like we know we'll see them again next winter. I have already asked Lee for a trip to England for my 70th birthday.

Something I know Jim and Jane will remember for years to come is the play, "The Boarding House", which they saw with us at the City Hall Building in Wauchula. What an experience!!!
If you see them be sure to ask them about it.

I have a bond with Jane that distance cannot break. We have become the best of friends and I look forward to continuing the friendship via e-mail, telephone etc. Lee and I also look forward to hosting their entire family for a holiday some time in the future. Jane and I have one of those kind of friendships that are very rare -- we never really worked at developing our friendship we seemed to think so much alike that we were like two sisters getting together after being separated for a while. I love her dearly and look forward to my visit to England in a couple of years.

Judy and Jane forever buddies

Jane and Janie

Jim and Lee

Jane and Judy's respective hunks

Jane holding Miss Molly (Ed and Janie's dog)

I took Jane to get a pedicure for her cruise home. We also went out for coffee and did some shopping ---now that's a surprise!!

Jane and I happen to be in Bealls when they were marking down some dishes. It was a 95% mark down. I got two complete sets of 4 place settings and a decorative box to put them in for $11.20

Can you tell Jane was excited??

I had Jim and Jane over for BBQ pulled pork and then we played some cards and watched a movie. Jane and I decided we should be comfortable so we set up the dinette bed.

While at Peace River we took a trip over to Highland Hammock State park and took a bike ride with Jim and Tracy and Will and Ella. A nice time was had by all.
The picture above was taken on the Cypress swamp trail.

Jim, Lee, Judy, Ella, and Will Tracy is taking the picture.

Jim and Tracy, Ella and Will, Lee and Nicky.


This has been the most fragmented post I've ever done. I get very emotional this time of year when we have to say good bye to our friends and many acquaintances till the next winter. It's especially hard this year because Jim and Jane are going back home and I know it will be a couple of years before we see them again.

Goodbye to all of you, take care of each other and know that we look forward to meeting up again with you next year.

Love to all Judy

This is Nicky giving our next door neighbor at Venice, Pat, some sugar.
Nicky really enjoyed Pat and Rob and so did we. Next year we are going to try to get in this same spot so we can visit more with all the lovely people we met in this park.

Each morning Nicky got to play with his friends Liam and Sadie. Jack and Mike and Lee had fun together too.

We are now in Peace River again and back to playing Pickle Ball with the group here.

The collage below is made up of pictures taken at the Pickle Ball Mixer at Dean and Margie's. What fun, good food, good conversation, music and line dancing.

Over the years as we've wintered in Florida we have made some really good friends--these are just a few of them.

We have not seen Will and Ella since Palm Springs last year. It is so good to see them again. We were invited over to their place and Ella had made a Pecan pie that is just out of this year!!! They introduced us to Steve and Lauree friends they have made along the way.

Venice, FL 2010

Here we are in Venice, FL. at the Rambler's Rest. We had been here a week when Jim and Tracy Tull arrived. We were able to get side by side sites. It's remained cooler but we have had several nice beach days.
This is one of the beach accesses we go to and as you can see we have it pretty much to ourselves.

Lee and I drove to Lemon Bay Park which was quite nice.

Nice places to sit and relax and nice trails to walk.

Nicky has had some really nice dogs to play with here. Liam, Sadie and Goldie. I don't have pictures of Sadie and Liam yet but Goldie a 2 year old Golden doodle is below and she is gorgeous.

Nicky loves her because she likes to play ball as much as he does.

Tracy fell in love with her too. She feels like silk.

One of the things I like about this park is this development which is close by. I take my 5 mile walk here with Nicky. Tracy is with us today.

Today we went to the Venice Area bird sanctuary. Lots and lots of birds.

This time of year they all have their babies.

This is where we play Pickle Ball while we are here. We have had some really good games with Jim and Tracy. The courts have a really nice finish on them.

As you can see, there is shade and a nice place to sit in between games.