The Birds of Captiva

No matter where you go on the island, there are birds everywhere. Some very cool to watch and gawk at due to their beauty, but some just plain old annoying. I didn't take pictures of the annoying ones (such as seagulls, blackbirds, and SEAGULLS!)

This blue heron was always on the rocks next to the main pool watching the fishing boats. We think he was waiting for them to pull up a snack for him. Lazy bird ;) At the same time, we noticed he had fishing lure around his legs. It was not endangering him in anyway, but made us feel bad.

This little guy was only cute because of his tricks he was doing with a water bottle cap. He'd push it around, pick it up, toss it in the air and let it fall back to the ground. He'd do this over and over.

And this crazy bird is the best of all. The pink flamingo!!!!
Ok, there aren't any real flamingos in Captiva, at least from what we saw, but the Lazy Flamingo is a great place to get some bar food and cold pitchers of beer. They even have a ring toss game where a hook is on the corner of one wall with a long string and ring on the other end. The game is to try and get the ring on the hook. You stand a good 6 feet or more away from the hook and try and swing the ring on the hook. It took me at least 25 tries to get it.

Big Early Evening Storm

The weather during the day in Captiva was fantastic. Not one drop of rain.... until Wednesday night at 8pm. And then a big storm moved across the sky drowing the pavement and creating puddles on the golf course. Needless to say, once it was over, all the rain dried up within an hour.



Do you see anything in the clouds? A face maybe?

More Boat Pictures

Arriving at Cayo Costa


Nate Self Pic while speeding on boat


And here is the crew!!!! Dick, Jason, Donna, and Patti


Sign for Gas out in the middle of nowhere


Docking back at Captiva - see the bird?

Cabbage Key - Boat Trip

Our 2nd stop on the boat trip was to another island called Cabbage Key. The island is about 100 acres and has a marina, restaraunt and bar, an inn with many small cottages, all owned by one family. All that work on the island, are paid by this family. If you want to stay at the inn, you pay the family. If you eat on the island, you pay the family. The only way to reach Cabbage Key is by boat. You can even rent the entire island if you want, for weddings or a party. Its crazy!!!!

Cayo Costa - Boat Trip

We left Captiva and made our way to Cayo Costa, an island just north of Captiva. It has beautiful white sandy beaches and very few homes. It is only accessible by boat. The homes on the islands are only powered by solar panels, they have their own above ground sewage systems, and water has to be filtered by the homeowners using their own filtration systems. After Hurricane Charlie ripped through in 2005, alot of the trees were destroyed which you can see in some of the pictures. It will take a while to get it plush with palm trees once again. This island is a great place to go shelling. I could have spent all day there on the beach.

All Day Boat Party

Jason & Brenda had a great idea to rent party boats for a day and found some great deals on the island. We had 20 of us on 2 boats which left at 10am and returned at 4pm. The best part is that we were the ones who would be driving, controlling our own island tour!!! It was a great sunny day out on the water.

Poolside Relaxation

Our main part of vacation, just like any other, is sitting at the pools. Our friends are a great group of people that enjoy the same relaxation of just laying around, soaking up the sun, enjoying a few cocktails to hydrate. Maybe starting at 11am, ending at 6pm, just in time to catch a sunset and head off to dinner. The first few days was nothing but this. There are 2 pools for us to enjoy. These photos are taken at the South Seas Club pool, which is a private pool just for the rooms in which we all stayed in. The other pool is the main resort pool, which was pictured in my first post. The main pool has gorgeous views out into the bay.

Return from Paradise

We are back in CT. We safely arrived back to Concrete Jungle in NYC at 8pm last night, getting us home around 10pm. All is well and once I find some more time, I will share our trip details and pictures. Hope everyone is well!!!

Leaving on a Jet Blue Plane

Hello everyone.
Well, by the time this is posted, we will be on a Jet Blue plane heading to Captiva. YEAH!!!! Flight left JFK at 6:45am and we should arrive in Fort Myers at 9:00am.
From there, we will get the rental mini-van and make a few stops at Costco, grocery store and specialty stores. To explain... once we get on the island, we usually don't leave. So we try to stock up on any food and drinks before driving the 45 minutes to the resort. Not to mention, there is a $7 toll to get on the island so paying that over and over again isn't a great idea.
Anyway, we'll be gone till Sunday, 9/21. Maybe if you are lucky, I'll do some posts while on vacation using our friends laptop, as I am barely even taking my cell phone with me. Zero connection to the real world. :)
Talk to you soon!

Patriot Day

We pray for all the family, friends, and loved ones who are no longer with us today. We pray for the safety of our troops domestic and overseas and their safe return to their homes. Remembering 9/11. We will never forget.

New Favorite Dessert

The other day shopping at the grocery store, Jay went to grab some OJ and yogurts, and I remembered we needed more ice cream. Ok, ok.. I needed more ice cream. LOVE THE STUFF. 4 or 5 nights a week I have a bowl. Ok, ok... 4 or 5 scoops of it. Its Mom's fault.
Anyway, looking up and down the freezers for the best ice cream, ya know, the Breyer's, Hood, Friendly's... normally looking for plain old Vanilla bean, since I like to add chocolate syrup and peanuts to it. Its the perfect dessert.... UNTIL.... I came upon the Edy's section of the freezer and spotted a Buy 2 for $5 deal. CHA CHING. But... there was only 1 Vanilla Bean. NOOOOO! So hestintely, I grabbed a Edy's Vanilla Sandwiches mixture which looked okay, but who cares, its ice cream!

Low and behold... its the best ice cream EVER! ( until I run out and try something else ). So take it from me, and ice cream expert... BUY IT, TRY IT, LIKE IT!

View from Captiva

Its amazing we can get a sneek-peek of our vacation.
Check out the Mucky Duck's webcam.
The Mucky Duck sits on the Gulf of Mexico and is a neighborhood pub.

Updated : Ike's Path

We continue to watch Ike as the countdown to Captiva is down to 4 days.
He's actually picking up speed and will be in the Gulf by Wednesday. This is a good thing. But again, the projected path can always change. Mother Nature could be having that time of the month ;)

TS Hannah : Who knew?

There are two words to describe Tropical Storm Hannah's effects in Danbury. HOLY SH*T! We were lucky on the Rocks, since the house sits on stilts and is 2+ feet above the ground. But poor Bunny!!! Her home has a walk-out basement, which is used as storage, 3rd bedroom, and bar room. Her sump pump decided to quit last night out of all the nights. As we sat upstairs talking about the hard rain, and watching the weather on TV, Jason's mom ,Sheila, gave us a call to warn us of the Tornado Watch. Yeah.. TORNADO! Bunny turned to me and said "I wonder how the basement looks."
So I got up and stepped down the stairs to find at least 3 inches of water washing her carpets. UNBELIEVABLE! Out of the 30+ years she has lived there, she has never seen anything this bad. I ended up having to go to Home Depot at 8:30pm to buy a new sump pump. After installing it, the water started to receed, as we pushed water out the door with brooms, and sucking it up with a wet-vac. Lets just say, it was like p*ssing in the wind! I don't know how many gallons of water we got out of the basement but if we took a break for 5 minutes, it would come right back in. Even her pool is about ready to overflow!!!! The rain gauge had at least 6 inches of water in it. That is about 1.25 inches of water an hour. Being from Buffalo, that would have been a foot of snow an hour, if not more!!! Finally by 11pm, the rain started to taper off, but it didn't mean the water was going to stop coming in. Finally, we gave up. Jason called a business partner that cleans carpets and removes water, and he'll be at Bunny's in the morning. When we left, the sump pump was still kicking and pushing water outside. Bunny has always said, water will be the death of her. Lets hope not. More details to come....

Say no to Ike

This is NOT looking good. Hurricane Ike's projected path seems to have maneuvered himself into the Gulf of Mexico. As you can see on the map, he's coming very VERY close to Captiva around Thursday morning. We are supposed to arrive at Ft Myers airport at 9am Friday morning. Stay tuned to COTR, your Hurricane Ike Vacation Tracker :).

Bye Bye Rue McCadillac

We had to say 'Goodbye' to Jason's 2006 Cadillac CTS today. Rue was her name, and speed and style was her game :) She was a great car and for the 3 years we drove her, and she never gave us an issue. We made sure to give her a proper send-off with her last touchless carwash, deep-cleaning vaccuum, and armour oil on every leather surface she had. She looked sharp when we handed over the keys. But waiting for us back home was good ol' Betty... and the best part, she didn't come with a monthly payment. We will miss Rue, but not writing that check!

We're Back

Hi everyone. Sorry for any confusion we caused if you tried accessing our blog. While playing around in the settings of the blog, and trying to create another one for a project I am doing at Pepsi, I deleted it. Silly me. Google was unable to restore the original blog, and all my past archived posts, but at least I still have the ability to use the same title and address.

So, to play catch up, here's what's been going on this week.

1. September has turned out to be HOTTER than August. Who knew? We have had temps in the high 80's, and it looks to continue. So much for keeping the windows open and having cool nights. But that's okay. It extends the summer out.

2. Days are getting shorter. Has anyone else noticed here in the Northeast that its getting darker sooner, much sooner than I expected. 7:30pm comes around and the outside lights need to go on. This is depressing.

3. We are still closely watching the hurricanes in the Atlantic. Only a Week until we jet-set to Captiva. It looks like Ike may cause an issue prior to our arrival, but hopefully its just some rain. Keep praying!

Again, thanks for checking in and hopefully this blog will not have the same fate as the other one :)

Enjoy your weekend everyone!!!
Love you all.