Luvin' Me Some Zoom and Some Lights!!!

So ... 2 posts in one day.  Where is this all heading?

Tina and I took our walk today back out at the Viera wetlands, and I had to show off our new camera.  For a relatively "cheap" point and shoot (cheap is really REALLY relative here), it's got some really impressive capabilities.  Compared to the pics we posted a month ago, this camera is really impressive.  And even though Tina was still yelling at me to get away from the gators, she wasn't yelling quite as loud!  :)

Here's one of the best one's I got of our toothey little friends.

 Even though Tina was yelling at me like I was right next to him, I was a good 15 feet away ... and both me and the gator had our evil eyes staring at each other.  This was one of the largest ones we've seen out there and we estimated he was probably 8 feet long.

Tina spotted this next one when she saw some sort of movement around the shoreline. It's not very often you catch a gator with his dinner in his mouth.  This guy was probably 3 feet long, but he sure got himself a big ol' dinner.

We also spotted another maybe soon to be gator dinner.  This guy was probably a foot long just hanging out in the shallows of the lake shoreline.

 And not to be forgotten is another pic of our feathered friends.  Much easier to get a nice pic of them when you have a 30x zoom.

And last but not least are the plant life flowering it's way through a beautiful spring season.

And finally, to explain the rest of the title of this post, our friend Doug from work finished wiring the new workshop today and so we now have outside spots and inside lights working.

So ... no more posts for today ... ... ... I'm exhausted from 2.  :)  Until next time ...

And Now It's Dried In

And then there was a couple of roofs. Both the top roof and the extension over the outside kitchen area roof are dried in now.  The next step is to put in the new doors both upstairs on the balcony and the 2 french doors that will replace the one currently downstairs.  We're really starting to get excited about the whole project.

And here's the view from the 2nd floor balcony looking toward the back yard.  The landscaping still has a ways to go.  :)

Bye for now - Tom and Tina

PS - Pics are from the new Canon SX500 camera we just bought yesterday!  Super great camera! Being super light and having a 30x optical mag capability makes it a GREAT point&shoot camera!

A New Roof is Born

Finally!!!  HOOORAYYYY!!!

OK ... so it really doesn't look like much of a roof yet ... but it's at least starting to take shape.  Here's what the back roof looked like towards the end of last week.

 And here it is as of the end of the day today.  There's still a few more hand framed trusses that have yet to be added to the upper portion of the roof, and all the trusses from the balcony to the chimney for the covered kitchen area have yet to be added, but we're back to making positive progress again.

 This picture is actually from where I'm standing on the 2nd floor balcony looking up at the trusses they added.  The tarp isn't overly critical since they haven't torn off all of the existing roof line with the exception of the metal shingles.  What still remains is the old shingles that were there from before the metal was added.

Meanwhile, one of the guys from my work came over and is in the process of wiring the back workshop while Tina and I continue on in negotiations as to whether she gets any space in this area.  So far she wants 1/3 of the space and I'm leaning more towards 0.0000000001%.  Stay tuned for the results of the Tina/Tom Workshop Treaty Negotiations.

I also had the pleasure this week of attending my granddaughter Kaylyns grandparents day at her school.  Tina and I split up with me taking Kaylyn and her taking Ashlyn's class with Tina's Mom, Linda.  I don't have pics of Ashlyn here, but Jens blog should have them soon.

Also, another walk late last week out at the Viera Wetlands.  This little guy was only about 2 feet long and the zoom on our current camera is REALLY not that great.  As such, you can imagine Tina trying to yell at me while taking this, but biting her tongue because she didn't want to scare the poor little fella.  Awwwww ... the dilemma's that a good marriage puts people in!  :)

New posts coming soon.  Hope everybody's enjoying spring ... even our Northern US brethren who are still in the midst of winter regardless of what the calendar says. What was that good old Easter song we used to always sing?  "I'm Dreaming of a White Easter".   So I guess lets just close with ... Merry Easter everybody!!!

 Uhhhhhhh ...that's not right.  Let's try this!!!

A Hike to Lake Winder

Out west of town, beyond the Viera Wetlands that we wrote about a couple of posts ago, is the River Lakes Conservation Area.  We did a couple of hikes out there this last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed the wild wilderness of Florida.  Welllllll ... almost!

The conservation area is pretty far west of town leading to Lake Winder which is only accessible by boat (mainly airboat) or hiking.  We elected for hiking since our boat enjoys salt water.

Saturday we took a hike shown in red on the above map.  It was a 6 mile hike round trip.   It's old time Florida country side, reminding  us both of "A Land Remembered" by Patrick Smith.  We actually took a hike there Friday too, but opted for taking the path from the green arrow starting point straight down the canal to the lake.  About a 1/4 mile short of the lake we ran into a 14 foot gator.  Fortunately we scared him into the canal and he equally scared us about 20 feet back from the canal.  Regardless, it's a beautiful part of wilderness here in Florida.

Friday all we had was Tina's phone for pictures since I forgot our main camera.  Unfortunately Tina kept the phone in her sports bra so by the time we took pics the lens was all fogged up with sweat.  That's part of what motivated us to go back on Saturday.

Our fine feathered friend waiting patiently for us to pass.

Lake Winder, a seldom seen and rarely visited lake.

Looking out at the lake.

Our fine feathered friend perched in a tree.

Fly Forest ... FLY!!!

I'm still promising updates on the house soon.

These vagabond shoes they're longing to stray ...

Our journey last week took us on a brief trip up to NYC with my parents and Tina's Mom, Linda.  For the most part the weather cooperated other than one day when we had a lot of snow and rain.  Nonetheless, we had a great time going to Broadway shows, seeing some sites, and enjoying each others company.

We got into town on Wednesday morning and got to the TKTS booth (half-price tickets) in time to take in the matinee showing of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood".   This is a hysterically funny play based on the final novel of Charles Dickens which he never finished before he died.  The musical production we saw lets the audience choose the ending of the story in deciding who actually killed Edwin Drood.  We were fortunate to get to see it since it quit showing the following Sunday.   It's hard to figure why it wouldn't be going for a longer run.

Then it was back to TKTS to buy the evening tickets where we took in a Disney production called "Newsies".  The story is based on the NYC Newsboys Strike of 1899 and  won 8 Tony's including Best Musical, Best Choreography, and Best Original Score.  Particularly watching some of the high energy dance sequences, it was obvious why it has become so popular and successful.

The Evening Showing of Newsies

Unfortunately, Linda lost her bright pink beautiful ear muffs the next day and we all spent hours collectively crying over such a tragic loss.

Thursday took us down to the 9/11 memorial.  The museum portion is still under construction but they do have to 2 large fountains which were built on the original foundations of the North and South WTC towers.  It's a stunning reminder of just what all our country lost on that day.  All around the edges of the fountains are the names of all who died that day at the WTC, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania.

The North Tower Fountain

Although the official museum has yet to be opened they do have an offsite museum telling the stories of some of the people who perished on that awful day.  Unfortunately we were running tight on time and the lines were long to get in, so visiting that will wait until next year.  Regardless, the outside of the building had beautiful artwork of it's own.

 That evening took us to see the musical "Nice Work If You Can Get It".  The production starred Mathew Broderick and Kelli O'Hara who teamed together with the rest of the cast to put on what I think we all agreed was probably our most favorite play of the trip.  As you can tell from the picture (sorry for it's blurriness) the temperature was starting to drop significantly as we headed into our cold weather day.

On a Cold Street Outside of Nice Work If You Can Get It

Friday brought on the snow, but it wasn't cold enough to keep us inside or let the snow stick much. The temperature for most of the day was mid-30's, and we've certainly experienced a lot worse than that back in our days of visiting NYC in January.  We took a walk down to Rockefeller Center and watched the crews trying to prep the ice skating rink for opening up later on that afternoon and evening.  We also visited St. Patrick Cathedral which is in the midst of a $123M restoration project.  Tina and her Mom bundled up under a single umbrella since the 2nd unbrella Tina brought broke, and this was only the 2nd time she'd ever used it.

Two Hotties on a Cold Winter Day

Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink

Friday evening took us uptown to Carnegie Hall and a concert by the NY Pops.  It was also the Carnegie and NY Pops debut for Megan Hilty who's a Broadway singer as well as a star on the musical-drama TV series called Smash.  It was obvious in no time that she deserved this appearance at Carnegie.  She traded time with a fellow Broadway singer Ryan Silverman (Phantom of the Opera amongst others) doing songs from Sinatra, the Rat Pack, Ella Fitzgerald, and on and on.

Outside of Carnegie

The New York City Pops Getting Prepared

By Saturday the temperature reached an extraordinarily pleasant 56 degree's and Tina, her Mom and I enjoyed a late morning stroll through Central Park.  Being this warm in March, the weather brought out thousands of runners (i.e. crazy people) as well as dogs, kids, and walkers (i.e. sane people).  

Tina and Her Mom

A Beautiful Sighting at Central Park

Looking Back at the Manhattan Skyline

I See Crazy People

The Two Love Birds on a Beautiful Day at Central Park

Saturday afternoon we split up and Tina and I went to see Rock of Ages (not recommended for our parents :) ) while Mom, Dad and Linda went to see the Fantasticks.  Unfortunately, they didn't like their production much, but Tina and I absolutely loved ROA.  (Again, apologies for the blurry pic.)

The Matinee Performance of Rock of Ages

Finally, we wrapped up the visit with a fantastic dinner with all of us and our niece Eva, her SO Corey, and my Mom and Dad's great-niece Heather and her husband Steve.  They took us to a small Mediterranean restaurant we had enjoyed last year and had as equally enjoyable time this year.

Hale Hale the Gangs All Here

Then Sunday brought the flight back home, getting up at 4:30 AM to catch a 5:15 van ride to the airport and then wait for 3 hours for our flight.  Given that was probably the worst part of the trip, I think we did pretty well.

More updates on the house coming soon.  Until then ...

Goodbye!!!

We're Steel Here!

So we're still making progress ... slow as it might seem at times.  The steel beams finally got delivered and installed on Monday, March 3, 2013.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt this is part of the house that will last well beyond Tina and myself.  All of this because we didn't want any posts in the middle of the porch area.

Today, Tuesday, the contractor was out to set up the scaffolding and started getting the braces ready for the balcony and eventually the new extended roof.

 Hold your breathe.  Next week we might actually have a new roof line to show everybody.

Until then ...