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Tag: #Dandrea

  • Feb 9 and 10 2025: Bradenton on a Sunday and Monday

    Steve went to Our Lady of the Angels for Mass. Our neighbors from across the street (Tim and Andrea) go there regularly and took Steve with them. The church was packed! There was a line of cars coming in and going out both before the 9am Mass and afterwards. And there were three levels of greeters! My neighbors described this as a vibrant church, at it certainly was filled with people that wanted to be there. (The people prominently in the picture are innocent passer-bys and were erased from the picture..}

    Our Lady of the Angels Church

    Vicki watched her Rockside church service remotely. We took turns staying at the RV so we could be with Lexie, who is recovering from the sutures nicely.

    In the evening I visited Greg, Barb and Nick to watch the Superbowl. Sorry, no pictures. 🙁 Vicki stayed with Lexie because of the sutures. I told that to Greg, sort of. But the text read that Vicki had been bitten, and I was letting Lexie take care of her while I went to the superbowl party.

    Monday Steve took Lexie for a 2.5 mile walk at Lake Manatee State Park. Lexie was tired near the end and really wanted to rest. But she got the message to continue. It was a great walk along sandy trails. There were signs explaining that controlled burns were performed every few years, and there was evidence along the way of controlled burns. Lake Manatee was visible on the return leg of the walk.

    Lake Manatee State Park dog walk
    Lake Manatee State Park controlled burn area
    Lake Manatee State Park w Lexie
    Lake Manatee State Park

    Alan and Patty Watson visited us for lunch. We talked awhile in the RV, though I don’t think we convinced the Watson’s to buy an RV and travel. We then went for lunch at a local cafe: Peaches. The lunch was more of a breakfast with three eggs benedicts ordered.

    Watsons inside RV
    Peaches Cafe w Watsons

    In the evening we went to Restaurant Edelweiss in Bradenton to have dinner with Dan and Andrea. We shared an order of potato pancakes followed by four schnitzel dinners. Dan and Steve had Hunter’s Schnitzel with a mushroom gravy. Vicki had a schnitzel with a mango and peach topping. Andrea had Schnitzel Cordon Bleu. Somehow we had room for dessert: apple strudel and Black Forest Chocolate cake.

    Restaurant Edelweiss entrance in Bradenton
    cheers with Dan and Andrea at Restaurant Edelweiss

    V-great German meal! So glad to have one last chance to visit with Dan before his weekly work trip.

  • Feb 8 2025: Bradenton and not so fun doggie adventures

    The day started well with Steve taking a 17.5 mile bike ride. And I think the 254′ change in elevation was due to the roughness of the road. Steve biked to Rye Preserve, drank in some of the water at the park, and returned to the RV. The route was along the Manatee river, which was very narrow at this point.

    Rye Preserve bike ride map
    Biking to rye preserve
    rye preserve nature center
    inside rye preserve
    upper manatee river outside rye preserve

    After the bike ride, Steve, Vicki and Lexie went back to Dandrea’s place for another dog walk. The walk was uneventul and we saw some turtles and bottom heavy ducks at a nearby pond.

    ducks and turtles at Dan and Andrea – notice the 3 turtles in a row on the concrete culvert

    The afternoon took a nasty turn when Thor thought Lexie was too close to him when the dogs were going through a door into the pool zone. Thor snapped at Lexie but this growling/snapping lasted less than a second. Steven was guiding both dogs into the pool zone and pulled Lexie quickly away. About a half hour later Andrea found some blood on Lexie’s throat, and the blood was from a puncture wound. Lexie didn’t notice anything, but Vicki and Steve packed her up to get her stitched up. Lexie was a great dog, declining the anesthesia. She has been quiet today (Sunday), it probably helps that we have given her some drugs to keep her calm.

    V-Lexie was a great patient. The vet techs said she was well-behaved and they had no issues cleaning out the wound and checking surrounding areas and then getting 3 small staples in to close the wound. The price was so reasonable. If you’ve ever needed services of an emergency vet (hopefully not) they can easily run into the thousands. Better yet was the sweet care they showed her and us. Beacon Emergency Vet Hospital in St. Petersburg  2909 4th Street North St. Petersburg, FL 727-888-2191. The primary tech on our case was Hunter and he reminded me of my Connor, so compassionate and thorough in all the details of aftercare.

    It was so quick and over immediately when Thor got her, just a quick snap to remind her of who is King at South Pole. The dogs were not freaking out at all. We checked her over and didn’t appear to be any problem. I did say it was karma – Lexie got Little Dog’s ear about 6 months ago.

  • Feb 7 2025: Bradenton and St. Pete (still 0 miles road travel)

    Another morning walk with Lexie at Tom Bennet Park. Our morning route is shown below.

    Steve and Lexie morning walk in Tom Bennet park

    Today we got Vicki’s bike out and we took a short bike ride around the local neighborhood. While only seven miles, Vicki’s wrists still became numb from the vibration.

    Vicki preparing for her first Floridian bike ride
    Steve and Vicki first bike ride together

    Dan and Andrea treated us to dinner at Beau’s and Moe’s Italian restaurant. The food was fantastic! Dan ordered a chopped lobster tail for us to share as an appetizer, which was smothered in butter and delicious.Vicki and I shared a Chateaubriand, a baked filet that was very tasty.

    Afterwards the four of us returned to Dandrea’s place and Vicki and Dan jammed on the guitars. Steve played a tambourine, at his own beat. Andrea was on a beat box…

    dan jamming
    Vicki jamming
    Dan and Vicki jamming

    V – what an absolute joy this evening was. From great food to a really FUN jam session. Dan’s Taylor guitar is really SWEET, first time I ever played it. I haven’t had so much fun playing guitar in a while, especially great playing with this very talented guitarist while he was playing on his newest guitar, I believe this was his electric Fender. We be jamming. LOVED this night.

  • Feb 6 2025: Bradenton and St. Pete adventures

    Another walk in the morning for Steve and Lexie at Tom Bennet Park.

    Vicki enjoyed another water aerobics workout in the morning.

    Our lunch was grilled steak sandwiches with steak from two nights ago. The sandwich was steak, tomato, provolone between two pieces of garlic bread.

    Steve, Vicki and Lexie visited Dan, Andrea, Thor and Luna at their house near Treasure Island. All went for a walk, the dogs got along nicely. Thor remembered Lexie, and vice versa. A friendly remembrance. Luna barked at Lexie at first sight, but that was her only reaction. Most of the time the dogs ignored each other. Or overpeed on the grass. We kept Luna separated from Lexie when we were back at Dan and Andrea’s house. Thor and Lexie were fine, but the toys and food were kept away from them.

    Steve accepted Dan’s challenge of 10 minutes in a steam sauna followed by a 2 minute dip into chilled water. The chilled water was only 48F, not the normal 40F that Dan likes. Steve only lasted for one minute in the dip. But there was no whimpering, release of magic words, or other reaction to show how cold the water was!

    Relaxing with Dan and Andrea

    Steve had an IEEE Executive Committee meeting in the evening. Chris Weber, the vice chair, did a great job of leading the meeting.

    We closed the evening out with a game of Cities and Knights. Vicki one by a point, I wasn’t able to steal the longest road from her! In spite of the barbarians hammering her!

    City and Knights winner

    After the game we watched another episode of Eli Stone on the DVD. I think we have enough episodes to last the rest of the trip.

    V- the table in the RV can seat 4 and it is JUST large enough for most of our games – for longer trips or games like Terraforming Mars, we will have to be creative with an additional table. We’ll figure it out. This trip is about figuring out how to best use our living space and the different things we’d like to do with it as much as getting that natural Vitamin D.