Friday Feb 4th

We woke up around 8:30 and made coffee and fresh squeezed oarange juice and sat on the patio enjoying the morning air. Terry and Joann were soaking up the 75 degree morning weather, I think in shock. They were at 13 below wind chill yesterday and in the thralls of summer down here today, probably a complete shock to their systems!

Wake up everybody!

Bennie called around 9:30 to verify the time to meet at the beach, and we confirmed noon to be the meeting time. Bennie and Valerie and family were going to spend the day with us. All we needed was Aaron and the A-team would be complete! We took off at 10 to go find Terry a wallet like I have as he liked the compact size of it. We went to Bealls outlet and they were out. We then had a while to kill before we met up with Bennie so I took them over to the lighthouse park.

looking for fish!

Bennie called! We gotta go!

We hung out there till my phone rang, It was Bennie, and he was at the beach. I told the group...We gotta go! So we rushed up to the beach and met up with Bennie and his family...We picked out a prime uncrowded spot and set up Bennie's tent like structure.

The crew!

We sat out for a while, then Bennie wanted to go swimming, so he and I went out into the water. I now think, in retrospect, that we should have wondered why nobody else was swimming. The beach was pretty crowded and it is unusual for nobody to be swimming. As we approached the water we saw a lot of Man of war jellyfish washed up on the beach, but I didn't give it much thought as he and I raced into the water. About 5 minutes in I felt a sharp sting on my inner thigh. Then Bennie said he felt a sting. We rushed out of the water with a jellyfish sting each. It hurts!!

I saw this one from the pier, after we had been attacked!

We all hung out chatting for an hour (waiting for the pain to subside).

Ilsa getting buried

Ayden wanted to try

Then Valerie came up with the idea to go back into the water. I know what you are thinking....What?
We figured the jellyfish scare was over. After the dip we were chased out of the water with stings all over. Valerie had been stung at least once, Bennie had been stung in his other leg and I had one on each foot and one on my uninjured leg. It still hurts! We abandoned all hope of any further swimming for the day so we retreated back to our camp on the beach. We chatted the afternoon away until 5 in the afternoon, when we were informed that Bennie and crew had to get going. We packed up all of our gear and walked back to the cars, Lots of hugs and bid them a farewell...very sad... I love those guys.



Back row...Bennies sister, Mike, Valerie, Bennie, Me, Joann and Terry Front row Ayden and Ilsa

 After our farewells we walked back to the pier to grab a drink.

Drinking a beverage at the pier cafe

We then stepped outside to grab a smoke and I observed Terry looking at something on the beach.

Whats he looking at?

I stood up to see what he was looking at....Oh now I understood.

Ohhhh, I see

We then decided to walk out on the pier. It was a very nice evening...77 degrees.

On the pier

We were worn out so we headed for the condo. Once we got there we heard some birds making a bunch of noise. We looked up in the trees and much to our pleasure, it was some parrots, Terry and Joann were very excited to see some not in captivity.

It was 6:30 and every body was getting hungry, so we ran over to Crabby Jacks to get some fish for diner. After diner we returned home to visit and hopefully go to bed at a reasonable time. LOL We shall see.....