Sanibel Island Day 2

Today's post brought to you by Lauren (with input from Matt).

Today we got up at the crack of dawn to go on a snorkeling/dolphin excursion. It was worth the early wake-up call because we saw tons of dolphins! I was nicknamed "Lauren the dolphin spotter" because I found the first two pods of dolphins on our way out to Cayo Costa. Our captain, Captain Jack of the "Salty," did a great job. He would pull around to where the dolphins were and they would play in our wake. We got some great video and pictures of the dolphins porpoising behind the boat. (Matt says, "Shouldn't it be called 'dolphining?'")


When we got to Cayo Costa we went snorkeling. The visibility wasn't fabulous but we had fun anyways. It was Matt's first time snorkeling. We got to play with some underwater scooters too, which was super fun. We may have gotten some video of coral, but we won't know until we can download it to the computer. I also got a quick kayak fix in. We would highly recommend Sanibel Island Cruise Lines...great trip. On the way back to shore, Matt spotted the third pod of the day.


The early morning and the sun and saltwater and the snorkeling led to a glorious midday nap back at the hotel. We then headed back to Sanibel for dinner at Matzaluna which had wonderful Italian food and one of the best margaritas I have ever had. Even though it was starting to storm, we headed to the next island over, Captiva Island. We stopped for some shopping but most stores were closing up since it was Sunday evening. The weather wasn't conducive to picture taking but we enjoyed the scenic drive in the rain. We also discovered where they keep the rednecks...(the arrow could probably be pointing in all directions).


We then headed towards the lighthouse end of Sanibel to get ice cream sundaes at Pinocchios. Matt had the "beachwalk" sundae which was made with Pinocchio's signature ice cream, "dirty sand dollar". I had a mud slide.

Tomorrow we unfortunately have to leave our vacation spot. We may stop at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota on our way back to reality...can't hurt to see a few more dolphins and manatees and maybe a sea turtle or two.

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Sanibel Island Day 1

We got a little bit of a late start this morning, but made it to Sanibel around noon. We drove around for a bit looking for a good place to have lunch and came across a little place called the Over Easy Cafe. I had a grilled cheese with bacon and Lauren had a turkey club. It was really good. It reminded me of a place you would see on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. Actually, most of the restaurants on Sanibel look like a place you'd see Guy Fieri at filming an episode.




Next we headed over to Tarpon Bay Explorers where we went out on a little boat tour of Tarpon Bay. We had a very funny and knowledgable guide named Captain Dave. He pointed some bird rookeries, where we saw pelicans, cormorants, a reddish egret, and some plain old white egrets. We also saw 4 manatees. Two mommies and two babies.



Next we headed over to the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge to take a tram tour through the park. Along the way we saw osprey, yellow crowned night heron, more egrets (reddish, great, snowy, not so great), roseate spoonbills, a great blue heron, a little blue heron (no medium blue heron), and a red shouldered hawk. There were also plenty of the unofficial Florida state bird, the mosquito. Lauren is convinced that there were also some no-see-ums, but I didn't see any.



After the tram tour we headed over to the Blue Giraffe for dinner. I was disappointed though, because I was really looking forward to trying some giraffe steak. It seems they were out. I settled for plain old cow steak, and Lauren had Filet of Sole with some Crab and Lobster stuffing. We also had dessert. Hot fudge sundae for me and Key Lime pie for Lauren.

We then headed to the Sanibel Lighthouse around sunset. It was beautiful watching the sun set in one direction, and then turning around to see a giant thunderstorm rolling in. We managed to snap some great pics before it started raining though, so it was a successful excursion. We managed to make it halfway over the causeway before the rain hit us.




Stay tuned for tomorrow's post... We're going snorkeling and hopefully dolphin watching.

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New Camera

So I've been looking at cameras a lot lately and came to the realization that I am not a good enough photographer to use a DSLR. It would be a waste of money on me. So I've been looking at cameras that fall in between DSLRs and your regular point and shoots and came across the Nikon Coolpix P500. I liked it for a lot of reasons, but the two that drew me in were the 36x zoom, and the fact that you can record in 1080p with it. I love my little waterproof Sanyo for what it does, but it is lacking in features. It is great at the beach, the pool, the waterpark, etc. It is not great for shooting indoors, or stills. So I was at Best Buy yesterday and they had the P500 on sale as an open box item! It was such a great deal I couldn't believe it. I asked the guy working there if there was anything wrong with it and he said it was just missing the software that comes with it. I thought about it for awhile, and decided to get it. I got a spare battery as well because I learned my lesson with my current camera. Video really eats up the battery. I took it outside, loaded the battery and find out the zoom doesn't work. Dang it. I thought I had found such a great deal only to have one of the options I really wanted didn't work. I took it back inside and explained the situation. The guy at customer service called one of the girls in the camera department over, and she started trying to make it work. She brought over a brand new one and tried that one, and it worked perfectly. They asked if I just wanted to swap them out? I explained that I had gotten this one as an open box item and the girl said, well this one is open now too. So I got a brand new one at an AWESOME discount!
Well, since I have this fancy new camera, I had to take it out fora spin, right? So Lauren and I went to Lake Parker in Lakeland to do a little Geocaching. It was a lot of fun, and we found two micro-caches! This is the first time we have been able to find any micros, so we were pretty excited. We also saw three gators and a bunch of birds. There are still several caches there that we didn't find, so I imagine we will be going back. :)
Here are a couple of pictures from our excursion:










Until next time, peace!

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James, Spartacus, and Jesus

I got a surprise phone call on my way home from work today. I got a call from James, who is in Africa. Djibouti to be specific. After some internet problems on his end, we got to talk for almost an hour. He is doing okay, all things considered. He does not know for sure when he will be home again, but the soonest is looking like the end of May. He said the unrest that was going on in the country several weeks ago have stopped. At least from what he can tell. He did say that watching the movie "Hotel Rwanda" is not a good idea while in Africa. He will definitely have some awesome stories when he gets back. I'm looking forward to hanging out with him again.

I took a few days off from updating because I have been distracted by a new show. Not new really, but new to me. It's called "Spartacus: Blood and Sand." You can find it on Netflix streaming. It is like a cross between 300, Gladiator, and Caligula. If you can get past the blood and sex, it is a very interesting show. Has anyone else watched this? I'm only on episode 6. Does it continue after this season?

Now to Jesus. Lauren and I have started going to church at Relevant Church in Ybor City. This church is definitely a new experience for me. My friend Wendy and her husband go there and she invited us. It is basically a rock concert with a sermon thrown in the middle. I really like it. It is different from what I got comfortable with out in Phoenix at CITD, but it's good different. Our weekends can get pretty busy, but I think we are going to try and go regularly.
That is all for now. I hope this finds everyone well.


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Turkey Burgers

So I made turkey burgers for dinner tonight and thought I would share my recipe. I know what you are thinking... Matt, why aren't you posting this on your recipe blog? Because no one looks at that says I. I'll probably throw it up there too, but for now here it is:

Ingredients:
1.25 pounds of Ground Turkey
Half of a large red onion
1/4 pound of bacon
2 cloves of garlic
2 jalapeños
A-1 Steak Sauce to taste
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

I start by cutting the bacon up into tiny little pieces, like bacon bits, and frying until crisp. Next, chop up your onion, jalapeños, and garlic. Drain the grease off of the bacon and let the bacon sit on paper towels until crisp and cool. Once cool, mix everything together and make into patties. And that's it. Fry or grill however you prefer. I used an electric skillet.




I topped mine with some sharp cheddar cheese, mayo (miracle whip really), ketchup, mustard, and pickles. They were quite tasty.




Enjoy!

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Views

Since the posting of my YouTube video on the Bok Tower website, it went from 54 views up to 119. I know this doesn't sound that exciting, but it is to me. Now all I need to do is figure out how to start making money doing this so I can quit my job.


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Technology

So I FaceTime'd with my brother Nick tonight and was just blown away. I had played with FaceTime a little when I first got my iPhone, but this is the first time I used it for a significant amount of time. Nick (it's really Katy's) got his iPad 2 today and we chatted via FaceTime for about an hour. This really is the freaking future. Nick was even able to stream a movie while we chatted. I know am a fanboy, but this really is an amazing machine. People that hate Apple will always try and find something wrong with their products, "It won't do this, or it won't do that.". I have had this since the day it came out and I have not once said that. It has lived up to the hype and then some. Does Apple make expensive computers? Yes. Do they make computers that almost always work? Yes. Is it worth paying more for the security of knowing that you will have little to no problems with their products? I think so. Do I like answering my own questions? Sometimes. :)


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