more fun with friends

More fun with friends- Barry and Ellen came to visit last night and we saw Snooty - had a dinner at our go to Blue Marlin- stayed up late talking and hung out in the morning before they headed back south for lunch with Barry's mom.

So we went to the South Florida Museum for some Snooty time, a planetarium lecture by a new guy Howard (where's Jeff?!?) ... and ended up here for dinner - a favorite Blue Marlin in Bradenton Beach on AMI-  but more on the food later LOL-

so back at the museum -  we started with a walk through the pre-columbian exhibit (the museum is small but has a nice collection in several areas)

then we dashed off to the planetarium where the new show was kind of hokey cartoon-y which was a bit of a disappointment - and the other disappointment is that Jeff wasn't there - but the new guy was pretty knowledgeable and held his own -

then we rushed off again for the final feeding of the day at Snooty's pool- our guy is 68 now and as of last week was down to one roommate (Sarasola was released to the wild just last week after his stint in rehab with Snooty)

this is Snooty's current roomie Ice Cube LOL-  he's gained 400 pounds hanging around Snooty- LOL
And he is getting close to a weight where he too can be released back to the wild...

Snooty calling for the food lady to come feed him his California Romaine lettuce - LOL - he's dreadfully spoiled but why not no other 68 year old guy can fund raise the way this guy can- his birthday gala every year is the big$$$ maker for the museum-

Cube comes up for a breath-

some living shells in the display area outside the manatee pool-

a view from the windows below the big pool- that's the big guy - you can tell from his scars - caused by infections decades ago when they let people pet him...

this is the view the food lady got when Snooty asked for lettuce- how could you not love that face...

off to Blue Marlin - after some champagne at home and a bit of white wine - we had wahoo sushi and scallops and lobster corn dogs (a lobster tail on a stick) YUM all around as well as some Apalachicola oysters which were fab but that I -LOL big surprise - missed the photo of them - they were baked with shrimp butter and Parmesan--- another big YUM...

we doubled the mains - Elle and Phil had the wahoo entree and Barry and I had the grouper Provencal- both excellent...

grouper above and wahoo below-

Ellen and I chose the chocolate porter mousse cake and the boys had bread pudding (Barry) and Pecan pie (Phil)

we had no problems but just in case there was a sign LOL

a cozy little cottage that has terrific food- really our number one go to place in Bradenton...

so we talked late in the night- catching up and just hanging out and turned in around 1:30 or a bit later (much later for Phil) - then I had breakfast of a sort with Barry & Ellen before they left for Siesta Key...and  lunch with Barry's mom.  Then our friends came over to sing Happy Birthday to me and drop off a couple of lovely gifts- my favorite was this photo- of me and Phil and our dear friend Barbara Ramsey (of her hundredth year post fame!)

later we went out to dinner at a new (to us) place which I will review in the next post...it was a real winner! so come on back and find out all about it!