Life is good....

Can you guess where this is? I have been on vacation for the last three weeks. I didn't say anything before I left that I would be gone from home for so long because I don't feel comfortable putting that information on the Internet as an invitation to a burglary.

Anyway my friend Carol, whom I visited last year in Florida, was going to Hawaii with her husband and they offered their place to my family for 15 wonderful days. I have to say it was a much more enjoyable trip this year- very relaxing and nothing but wonderful memories. We drove to Raleigh, N.C. first to visit my daughter and son-in-law for a few days. They just bought a new home in November so we had to go and check it out. From there we drove to Georgia and spent the night in a bed and breakfast. We ate lunch here at the above picture. Do you know where it is now? I'll give you a hint- Food Network. That's right, we had lunch at Paula Deen's restaurant. It was such a nice afternoon. We spent a few dollars in her store which is an attached building to the restaurant and then we walked around and enjoyed the beautiful sights of Savannah. We then headed down to Cape Coral and the drive went by faster than I thought because there was so much to look at along the way.

This is the view I had every morning on the lanai with my coffee and the morning paper. I have to say this is what I miss the most. Even though I was on vacation I was still up at 6:30 so I could absorb this image. My son Elliot was on spring break while we were down there so he flew in for a week. We saw a lot of dolphins. They would come up and down the canal looking for fish and as if right on cue, they would surface two and three times right out in front of us.

We went to Captiva Island for the day and this handsome young man (my son Elliot) braved the cold water in the Gulf of Mexico to find me some nicer shells out in the deeper water. I knew he loved his momma. It is hard to believe he will be 21 in May but he certainly looks like a grown young man in the pictures and handsome at that if I don't say so myself. We spent the day looking for shells and relaxing in the sun. I was playing with the camera and decided to take some pictures of the waves. It looks so refreshing doesn't it? The beach at the edge of the water is actually all small shells about the size of a quarter and smaller.

Captiva is known for their spectacular sunsets and after we had dinner at a quaint restaurant we were treated to this beautiful sunset to end a perfect day.

I did a bit of stamping and visited my two favorite stamping stores in Fort Meyers- Strawberry Fields and The Owl and The Pussy Cat. I had a nice little chat with Regina who owns The Owl and The Pussy Cat regarding a comment that was left on my blog last fall and my hunches were right all along. Sometimes my intuitions scare me when I see how true they are. As usual she had some wonderful findings that will find their way into my projects.

I have to say that this has to be one of my most memorable trips. To make it even better, I got on the computer and visited some of my favorite blogs. I happened to leave a comment on Tim Holtz's blog a few days earlier and I couldn't believe it when I saw that he had a random blog candy give away and I had won. I had emailed him back with my info. and told him how excited I had gotten when I saw my comment and that my husband came into the room and thought I had won tickets to Ellen- which I told him noooo, it was something better than Ellen. I told Tim that I was waiting to go dinner until after 7:00 when I could register for one of his classes in Novi. I told him I was going to have to throw my family a few more crackers to hold them over until I was registered. Yippee, I am now going to get to go to one of Tim's classes May 8th. Mario emailed me back and said he wished he had been a fly on the wall that evening and he would send me out a box of goodies when they returned home from Ranger. I can't wait to see what I won.

Sorry that I didn't post any cards today. I have some pictures of a book that I made that need editing and I was just too tired yesterday from the drive home. I will get those up and posted the end of the week.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. I will as I still am re-living some cherished memories.