~Jessie's Birthday~

Well.....our precious Jessie turned 17 years old on the 26th - wow!   Where did the time go?   It seems like just the other day I was holding her in my arms and now she is a beautiful, young lady.

She began the day with a table full of gifts and cards................

......her favourite breakfast meal of crepes, strawberries, whipping cream, nutella and cinn/sugar...........

......and then some awesome serenading, gifts and cards from the Goldens.

We decided to spend the day on beautiful Sanibel Island.  We went to Lighthouse Beach - the lighthouse there is the first lighthouse on Florida's Gulf coast north of Key West.

The day was stunning and the beach was beautiful.  This may look like white sand but actually most of  the beach was made of crushed shells and near the water it looked like this............

We had so much fun looking for shells.

We set up "camp" for a few hours and enjoyed the beach, going for walks, volleyball, football, looking for shells etc.....  There was a strong current so swimming was prohibited.  We did all wade in the water tho' as it was a very hot day!

Next we took a drive through J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge.   The Refuge is world-famous for its birding and is home to almost 250 species of birds.   We drove the 4-mile Wildlife Drive and tried to see how many different birds we could find.   They are all so different and so amazingly created!

This is the Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron - wow - isn't it beautiful??

There were hundreds of these White Pelicans.

This is the White Iris.

Here is the Great Egret.

This Osprey was sitting high in a tree eating a fish!!!   Very cool!

This is the Anhinga also known as the "snake bird" as it uses its sharp beak to spear its prey.

The kids had a blast as they rode in the back of the truck and saw the birds that way - very fun!

Then off we went to Bowman's Beach for another few hours of fun in the sun.

These are some of the shells we found.

Jessie's choice for dinner - Chinese food - yummy!

And of course what would a birthday be without cake............or rather ice-cream sundaes with m & m's, sauces etc.....     And no......she did not turn 98.....but rather 17 which is the sum of 9 and 8 !!!  The best we could find  for candles!!

Love you Jess - Happy Birthday!!