Christmas in Florida - happy hour and lights!

Some pictures and videos from Sundays wonderful and coooold evening! (Weather man said around 40 F - but he was wrong (thank you) - only in the mid 50s) But that is cool to!

First we went to Benedetto's Steakhouse for a great meal and Happy Hour drinks! 2 for one... so how many people and how many glasses?? (too many glasses and so little time...)


Then over to Fisherman's Village, to go enjoy the boatride in the canal's of Punta Gorda. The homeowners decorate their homes - some are wild, some are awsome! (and a few are totally left in the dark)

First we had to take some pictures outside. And then put in a few minutes of quality shopping-time to buy some fun things in the giftshop. Only the gift-shop is open on Sundays, but I managed to get rid of a few $$.

What is wrong with these pictures?

We are in Florida! Look at the heavy winter-coats!!

On the boat (Good times Too) it war hard to get any good pictures. We could not open the windows because of the cool weahter so I just took a lot of small video-clips. Enjoy!






This was "best-in-show" this year in the local competition....

Happy Holidays!

A beautiful day in the pool..

When the temp is around 82F (27.7 C) calculator here - the best place to be is here....

Christmasdecorations...

Ok - I am not the most christmassy person, but a few things - (actually more than last year) has been put out....this Santa Claus has been back and forth over the Atlantic ocean 3 times, so he is a really travelling Santa. The star and the reindeer areboth made by Sue from Englewood Gen. Society.

The Santa stands on some small tablerunners (not actually runners but I dont know the english word for it!!!). We bought them in La Palma on the way here. So, 3 more things in our box marked Christmas decorations!

We also have Gunnar the Security-Giraffe - he has on his black bowtie and his Santa-hat - All dressed up but no place to go!!!

First I did not find his hat, but then we found another box marked Christmas-stuff, and there was Gunnars' Santa Hat!! 

On the tables we have the poinsettas, they are beautiful, and gives the christmassy feeling even to our bathroom.

Next year maybe we even have a small small small christmas tree???

Terry the Turtle?

In the pond surrounding our pool, there are several turtles. I have seen atleast 4 different individuals, usually in the water. Day before yesterday one of the bigger one came up to the shore, and had a nap in the sunshine.

They are very shy, if they feel people walking on the wooden pooldeck they jump into the water. (And, you thought a turtle was slow? Nooo  - fast, very fast if they have to).

Picture by me.
Read about the Florida SoftShell turtle curtesy of Wikipedia.org

En utrolig vakker dag - søndag 29. november 2009

I går var vi på en av våre favorittsteder her nede, nemlig Fishery restaruant. Vi spiste ikke da, men tok litt drikke i baren hos Debbie, en god venn av oss. Det viktige med Fishery er faktisk at den fremdeles er der, den er "family run", den er i et gammelt (til Florida å være - eldgammelt) hus, og ligger ved vannet. Problemet her i Florida (og sikkert andre steder i USA) er at det her er lov å sperre for andre til å gå på stranda dersom man eier den. Allemannsretten gjelder altså ikke. Så det blir mer og mer "private beaches" her. Trist trist trist!

Fishery ligger ikke ved beachen da, men den har vann-linje, og en brygge hvor båt-gjester kan legge til, og vi landkrabber kan gå ut og se på livet. Her lever både manatees (men om sommeren), delfiner kommer lekende og det er en stor pelikankoloni her. Både de tradisjonelle grå, og store hvite pelikaner! 

Under restauranten bor det i tillegg en pusefamilie, (regner faktisk med at det er villkatter) men de ser rene ut, og de er mette og snille. Selvsagt. Dette er tross alt en fiskerestaurant!

Et nydelig sted!

Gratulerer med dagen, Dennis!

Gratulerer med 2års-dagen i går 28 november Dennis -grandtantegutt!! Regner med at dere skal feire stort i hos bestefar og Lani i dag!

Har tidligere blogget om alle fettere og kusiner og menninger du har her, som sikkert også vil være i bursdagen din!

Gratulerer med dagen, Pappa!

En stor bursdagsklem til Pappa, som fikk større familie når jeg begynte med slektsforskning!

Vi kommer på middag på søndag!

Vacation planning... Azamara Journey

We are in the "waiting and see" mode for our summer-vacation planning. This due to the hysteria around the flue going around. We hope to go on a cruise bound for St. Petersburg, Russia. But the russians have started a "not wanted- campaign" on american tourists, and the cruiseship is filled with americans of course.

But - also while we are waiting, the prices goes down - we like we like!!

Hopefully our good friends Liv and Bjørn also will join us - their first cruiseship cruise, but their second cruise with us. Their first one was a rivercruise in Ukraine, wonderful!

This will eventually be our second cruise with Azamara Journey. We did a cruise from Barcelona to Venezia last fall. A small ship, only 700 passengers! Sooo nice!

Well - hopefully the mexicans stop sneezing on people so the flue-thing will die by it self!

Safer than humans...

Road sign in Florida?

Some roadsigns are not! to be followed..

Translation to norwegian:
Gående og syklende:
Trekk til siden for veien når et kjøretøy nærmer seg!

Roger Rabbit

Home!!

Just a short note to tell everyone we are home, the weather is nice, and the flowers have started their way up from their winter-hidingplaces!

The airfare went totally uneventful (thank you Continental) but I will send a little message to them to tell them that Norwegians are NOT chinese... the seats are so small Per and I had to eat one before the other! Terrible. Last time we fly Continental if they don't change back to their big flying machines!!!

Miss you already, Florida!

Delayed from Orlando

ok... usually I will stay longer but not in an airport! And finally not in a terminal without a good burger! This also means we don't get our goodbye-America-burger in Newark, since we (hopefully) gets in just minutes before the plane to Oslo leaves....

Have my computer, have a bottle of beer, and Per got his Diet Coke.. we are good for now! (2.30 pm)

We will miss you so much!!

Ok - last night with our best best best Florida friends! And - Sharon! Thank you so much for the Brighton Florida Bracelet, I just love it! It is now glued to my wrist!


this blog will be filled with norwegian lies about snow, cold, travels, food (lutefisk), beer, Per, me, and other goodies when we get home!

More dinners, more sun, more more more!

We went to Leverocks again today, the food was just wonderful! I had sauteed trout, Per the Ahi Tuna! jummi! And for dessert... Key lime Pie of course.

Weather: just have a look! Purrfect!



Here we are... purrfect couple, right?


The Harbourtown Marina, view from our table!

Dave and Sharon... what to eat what to eat!


And the weather perfect, the company perfect.... what could spoil this evening? Nothing!!!

The pelicans at Stump Pass Marina

I have been a lousy lazy blogger this vacation. But, we have a great time, if you wonder!

I have written about Stump Pass Grille before. We went there day before yesterday too, and I took some pictures of the pelicans.

Later we drove to our special wateringhole. On the way we met this little fella' an Armadillo!


This is for my good friend Torill in Norway

A cute new gator in the pond!

Today I saw this cute little fella' in the pond!

Easter dinner at Daniel's...

Yesterday we had a wonderful dinner at Daniel's Steak and Seafood.

I started out with Escargot, gently baked and prepared with Daniel's house garlic butter on a bed of fresh baby spinach. It was topped with a parmesan crust. I ate it before I remembered to take a picture!! Per had the Jumbo Shrimp Coctail - huge (enormous) shrimp served with a lemon wedge and zesty coctail sauce. Jummi!

Then I had Rack of Lamb - dijon crusted, it was perfectly seasoned and roasted, medium rare, garlic chive mashed potatoes and jummi vedgies.

Per had a seafood cassolette, with sea bass, shrimp and scallops baked in a creamy bechamel sause topped with crusted parmesan served with wild rice pilaf. Hungry??? it was just SO good!


















After dinner we jumped over to Joannie in the bar for coffee, and what did we see? The glass, Liv - the glass!!

Boca Grande - busy and beautiful!

To day we decided to do something else. So, we drove to Boca Grande. It is 20 minutes drive from our place.The drive to Boca Grande is a beautiful one, and today the colors of the water was amazing. I could not take any pictures since I was driving though.


A good friend of ours, Kathi, works in the local newspaper in Boca Grande, the Boca Beacon (costs: 25 cents, for sale everywhere, in restaurants, paper-salesboxes and spa-salons....)


One important thing to do in Boca Grande, is to have an ice cream at the Loose Cabboose, in the old railway station. Goody! (and since my icecrem was 1 scoop of orange/pinapple and one scoop of mango/apricot, my white t-shirt needs to be cleaned - the spots have nice pink and orange color.....)

After the ice cream, we took a walk around the little town. It is filled with golf-carts, people use them in stead of cars (wrong, there are lots of cars here too, but if all the people had had cars Boca Grande would have been a big parking lot).
It seems like they have opened more access to the public beach. We walked and I took some pictures of the houses that have direct view... wow! must be wonderful to live like that! Well - at least outside the hurricane season. And outside the tourist-season. And when the sun is up. And during daytime. Actually... I think it is nice to live where we live.

And of course, every little town has its churches. In Boca Grande they have at least this cute little baptist church, and across the street an even smaller one. And, in one of the stores they sold coffee by the honor system (take coffee, put money in the box to the left. looked like people paid their coffee!)

Stump Pass Grille

One of our favourite lunch-places in the sun is Stump Pass Grille. It is located at the end of Maryland Ave. - down by the water. In the old days, they even had a swimmingpool for the guests, and you could lay there in the sun all day beeing served drinks and burgers and other goodies! Just like on a cruiseship!

There is a marina there too, and an old lighthouse (don't really know if it has been a lighthouse, but it looks like one). We have also rented a pontoon-boat there a few times, really a great way to enjoy sun and intra-coastal water!

Yesterday we went to Stump Pass Grille to enjoy the late sun and the smell of saltwater. The view is also great, lots of boats passing, the fishermen feeding the pelicans. The pelicans are strange and wonderful birds. Their flying skills are good, but when they try to land... they look like they are having a belly-flop contest!
Stump Pass Grille have good (not great, but good) burgers and sandwiches (called sammiches) Their burger is juicy and tasty, so together with view and smell, and reasonable prising, the place is actually great!

Breakfast, goodbye and poolday!

A sad day - Eric the golfer/ plumber/ carpenter/ taxpayer/ doorman/ gardener (Morten) left to go home to Norway. He was sad, because he really got the swing on his golf, and also found a new golf-friend. So - I am sure he will be back within a few months. We had breadfast at Pix-sea before he hit the road, and what a breakfast! They call it The Jogger, and I can understand.... he surely need to go jogging after all that food!

Erics plane is already 1 hour delayed from Tampa to Newark, so then he gets lots of time to eat a huge real American Bacon Cheese burger before he leaves the US of A!! Have a safe trip home, Morten (Eric)!

After we said goodbye, we went to the pool, and I had my daily swim... Per did his daily sudoku, and I got to read some pages in my book. After 1 hour and 30 minutes other people ruined the peace with their yelling and cellphones, so... now I am by the computer again!

Genealogy on the lanaii - with some good red wine.

Last night I sat outside, it was a lovely night, temperature around 70 F.

One of my goals for this vacation is to go through my source-database and correct, fix and clean up.
Almost all genealogist experience that the things they found the first years of their work, is to sloppy source-vice. So do I - and lots of my genealogy-friends!

I have till now gone through all my norwegian census-sources, and made them look more logical and easier for others to read.

The picture shows me and my laptop (and this IS a laptop, see??) ... and the glass. Glass to the left.

J. A. P. D. I. P

Weather: purrfect!

There are no words to describe how it is to be back in Florida!

Last night (Friday April 4th) we went to our favourite wateringhole, Daniel's, and there they were. All of them! I think the rumour about our return has gone around town.... and it was a purrfect first night!

And, since I managed to sleep till 7.30 this morning, the jet-lag will disappear in a flash. Usually I am up before the sun. Per had already made coffee of course (his days usually start around 6 in the morning Mondays and Sundays. No difference there.

I went out to get some sun, it took less than 1 hour to get that sexy pink tan.... and, since it is 5 o'clock somewhere......

Yeah! J.A.P.D.I.P!

Thank you Continental!

We got this offer when we checked in online at Continental - upgrade to business class from Newark to Orlando, 100 USD each. Worth every cent! After a very crowded monkey-class from Oslo to Newark, that was just what we needed. Huge seats, free red-wine, and the dinner they served was actually really good!

Now we are at Marriott Airport Hotel in Orlando, 9th (consierge) floor with a view. Dark though, so we don't see anything. But, the room is nice, and Per is already sleeping.

Tomorrow we will take the shuttle back to the airport, and get our rental-car, and I will drive us home to Englewood. Really looking forward to get there!

Just a short note...

We are in the US of A! Newark right now, leaving here in 2 hours for Orlando! Sun sun sun!!!! The airfare was ok, long but ok. So now... a bar for me and a coke for Per!

We are ready guys!

Ok - we are ready - 1 suitcase filled with... suitcases, and 1 small carry-on, my computer and 2 Gold Credit cards... sounds like vacation to me!!

Per is counting his (read: mine) USD.. 4 dollars 25 cents! He can buy me a good glass of wine for all that money during Happy Hour at Daniel's, right??

Ok guys, see you on Friday, maybe Saturday, depends on mr. Per.

The picture is mostly for my norwegian friends... you down there know how it looks like.. Paradize.. Right? Right?

Ok - see you guys!

Why we want to go to Florida?

Hey - look at this! Yesterday it was spring. Nice blue sky, no snow....

This morning we woke up to a new winter! I took this picture from our bedroom window

We'll see you at Daniel's Friday April 3rd around Happy Hour!

Stay healthy and wealthy!

En ny liten kompis på pulten...

Torill, du må på Ikea! er er det hundrevis - kanskje tusenvis av dem!!!