Longboat Key

Once again we vacationed on Longboat Key, Fl this year! Honestly, it is the BEST place for a stress free quiet vacation. Most of the time we were the ONLY people on the beach...awesome! This was the view from the front porch of our cottage, you can see just steps to a beautiful uncrowded Gulf. The great part is that LBK is considered a "winter" island which means going in the summer is off-season, low low rates!!!!

Our cottage was named the Snowy Egret after this bird that lives on the front porch : )

We had to dig right into the beautiful gulf sand and make a real piece of art...like Spongebob?!

and a Joey Castle

Bill and Joey enjoying a ride in their dingy : )

It is a tradition for us to find a monster shell, this years shell was the prettiest so far

We got lots of other shells and sand dollars too

Another tradition is to see lots of dolphins, these guys were swimming right up on the shoreline, we could have easily swam out to them at one point

We caught a bunch of cool creatures this year, including a big sea snail or "Gary" from Spongebob as Joey liked to call him

The coolest was this octopus we caught, he was so neat. Bill picked up a conch shell and he crawled right out onto his hand

We took Joey to the Ringling Museum and Mansion, both were great! Here is Joey and I in front of the mansion Cà d'Zan, newly restored it is beautiful. The doors and ceiling were plated in real gold!!! The last time Bill and I were here they were filming Great Expectations with Gwyneth Paltrow so it looked a little different.

Joey in front of the absolutely beautiful rainbow colored windows. You can tell Joey was not too pleased to sit still on the bench for me : ~

Send in the clowns, Joey is no exception

Then we walked over to see the mini model of the Ringling Museum were a huge surprise awaited us. The model shows the Ringling Bros circus stopped at the town of KNOXVILLE, TN!!! We had no idea. It was exact, Lays Packing, White Lilly, etc. and a Knoxville Train Station

One more wonderful surprise awaited for us during this trip. We've been vacationing here for years and little did we know that Bill had family who lived right down the street...literally!!! Bill's Great Aunt Mary (sister to Bill's Grandfather- Andrew Zanoni) called us when we moved to Florida and told us her daughter Gloria lived in Florida too and we should all get together. So Gloria invited us over for a WONDERFUL meal and GREAT company!!!! We learned a bunch about the family and I thought the family resemblance was obvious!!! Here is the whole crew Gloria, her sons Steve and Jeff, Steve's wife Nikki and their kids Nick and Ashley and Jeff with his girlfriend Oi along with their iguana Skittles and Bill and Joey of course. A couple of people are missing, Gloria's husband Paul and brother Ernie (I am sorry I know I misspelled names : )

Gloria and the kids

Bill, Joey and Gloria's brother Ernie, he is named after Bill's Great Uncle Ernesto who was killed storming Normandy for the US during WWII

Joey REALLY liked Ernie's bike : )

A good pic of all the young cousins

Then unfortunately we had to head home, on the drive we stopped at Steak and Shake for one last eating out hurrah, this is the cutest Soda Jerk in the world!

Until next year...