Florida Summary - days with family and friends

We have spent the last almost 3 weeks with family. We were mostly in Vero Beach with Mark's parents, Cal and Alice. When we arrived, John, Mark's brother was also there as he drove the folks down to Florida in November and had been working there since. Two mornings, I got up with John to go with him to his daily sunrise Qi Gong on the beach. The first morning, it was only 48 degrees!

Old Florida

Either I just finished a big meal or I need to diet!

We also spent some time with Michael and Nancy, Mark's twin brother and his wife, who live in Lake Worth. They had some company from Canada visiting, too, which was fun and one night, we all went out for dinner, joined by John and his friend, Rose. Nancy, unfortunately, had a tooth abcess and was not feeling great.

Alice took Mark, me and John out for lunch, after a shopping trip to Beall's, on Valentines' Day.

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For my 65th {ugh} birthday, we drove over to Cape Coral to stay with Ted and Bev for two nights. We celebrated by going on a bird walk at Ding Darling National Park on Sanibel Island and by a wonderful lunch at Fish Tales.

On the birding front:

Burrowing owl 

We took 2  trips to Pelican Island in north Vero where we saw a bald eagle the first time when we went with Diane and Bob Robusto. The next time, we met up with 4 Canadian birders who pointed out a fairly rare Reddish Egret (a life bird for us, meaning one we have never seen before].
Weirdly, we saw our second Reddish Egret at Ding Darling....what are the odds? And, we also saw a blue grey gnat catcher, thanks to the knowledgable Canadians.
And when we were in Lake Worth, we also visited Green Cay with Mike and Nancy's company from Canada (Walt and Colleen) and met up with John and Rose, too.