April 2014

Hawks Cay is a wonderful resort, especially for families with young kids. They have one area with a special pool, just for kids. Also in this special youthful activities area there is a basketball court, volleyball court, soccer field with turf and an 18 hole putt-putt golf course. The kids(and parents) enjoyed special organized activities. They especially liked the water polo and diving for hidden treasure in the pool.

This is Barbara Manaee. She is the one for me.

Our first special activity was parasailing.

We enjoyed our evening meals at the Island Fish Company in nearby Marathon.

We spent our days lounging around the private lagoon and sipping virgin Pina Coladas while soaking up the sunshine and fresh air. The kids played in the lagoon on paddleboards and Jason’s family swam with the Dolphins at the hotel.

We ended the week with deep sea fishing. We had two boats for the day and while one family fished for Yellow Tail Snapper off the reef the other headed 22 miles out into the Gulf Stream to fish for Mahi Mahi. We ended up with a lot of fish. We took some of it to the Island Fish Company and they prepared each type of fish three different ways for us to sample. The restaurant sits right on the Gulf of Mexico and has some great sunsets to go with the excellent food.

After a day of fishing we enjoyed the catch at our favorite restaurant. The waiter David adopted us and became an honorary member of the clan.

Thanks to Diane and everyone pitching in we had a family retreat that will be remembered for some time to come. Good memories! By the end of the week we were truly relaxed. Thanks everybody.

April signals the end of the social season at Riverbend Golf Club and it culminates with the pool party. This year we had some rain but it was still a great party.

Riverbend is a special place with special people.

We took advantage of some good weather and went to dinner on the boat at the new U Tiki Beach restaurant with good friends the Sharpnack’s and Mike and Cathy Bell joined us for the trip home. It was a fun evening.

We enjoyed the Raabe’s daughter and Grandchildren one afternoon. They were great guests. Cute kids. What a nice family.

Our big project for the month was to fix up the dock by replacing 25 year old poles that had been eroded by oyster bore worms and putting down a new deck. It turned out nice.