LivingOurDream: 2023

Saturday, December 30, 2023

Imagine Museum

Hi All,

Sandy was checking the museum passes available at our library when she found passes for the Imagine Creative Glass Museum.

What an awesome surprise. Hundreds of spectacular glass creations. If you are anywhere near Tampa, check this place out.

Love,

Sandy & Carl

greenbaum2@gmail.com

617-435-8502

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Our Travel Emails

Hi All,

Several friends have encouraged us to write a book about our travels and volunteering experiences or at least summarize our emails. We'll, we just checked and found 1,101 emails in our blog at:

LivingOurDream

livingourdream2011.blogspot.com

Most of our emails have 6-8 photos.

Enjoy but please do not print them out for the sake of the trees🙀

Sandy & Carl

greenbaum2@gmail.com

617-435-8502

Friday, October 13, 2023

Tornado 2 Miles Away

Hi All,

We are fine but having a tornado touch down two miles away was unnerving. It started at 1:42 AM Thursday. We were both awakened by our iPhones' alarm and the following message.

Fifteen minutes later the night light flickered for a minute then went dark.

We awoke to news that a tornado had touched down in the parking lot of the strip mall at the beginning of the causeway. Several stores had windows blown in

and a box truck was blown over.

Across the street, part of the roof and wall of a condo were blown off.

Our power was restored about 7:30 and the debris from the palm trees was cleaned up by days end.

The only damage we suffered was when Sanibelle got twisted by the twister. This morning she lay on the rug with her front legs pointing one way and her rear legs in the opposite direction🙀. Fortunately she untwisted soon afterwards.

Love,

Sandy & Carl

greenbaum2@gmail.com

617-435-8502

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Dolphin Cruise

Hi All,

Saturday afternoon we boarded the MV Parrot-Dise for a dolphin watch. We left the harbor with the theme song from Gilligan's Island playing on the speakers.

Our crew included these beach babes we found on the dock.

Amy & Lenny

The dolphins started following us right away.

Flying along in our wake.

Jumping clear of the water

Sandy, Alan, Barbara and Aunt Lily

Some old couple making out in the back!

A great trip. Lots of dolphins and local history. We even saw Hulk Hogan's house.

Love,

Sandy & Carl

greenbaum2@gmail.com

617-435-8502

Friday, September 15, 2023

Keeping Busy

Hi All,

Last Tuesday we attended a raptor program at a local city park, Hammock Park. Volunteers from a raptor rehabilitation center in Clearwater came to talk about some of their "educational " birds. These are birds who's injuries mean they cannot be released.

This beautiful swallowtail kite has a wing injury.

The barred owl is very common around here.

This eastern screech owl is only 6" tall!

We have been training for a new volunteer gig with the CareLift program at the local hospital. Carl will drive the van and Sandy will help get clients in and out of the van as we drive them to and from doctors appointments. This free service operates 8 vans in two daily shifts from 7:30-4:00. That's 32 volunteers per day for five days!

Still lots of flamingo photos being posted as the birds blown north by hurricane Idalia recover from their stressful adventure.

Wildlife in the condo remains curious and entertaining.

Love,

Sandy & Carl

greenbaum2@gmail.com

617-435-8502

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Here Comes Idalia

Hi All,

We watched carefully as Idalia grew from a tropical wave to a Cat 3 hurricane as she roared out of the Gulf of Mexico towards us. While working at the state park on Sunday, the ranger we work with invited us to stay with her if we needed to evacuate. We are in Flood Zone A (lowest & closest to ocean). Sure enough, at 7 PM Monday the county issued a mandatory evacuation order for Zone A. Early Tuesday we prepared the condo including getting all of the furniture and plants off of the balcony. It all fit "neatly " in the corner of the dining room!

Sophie and her family were wonderful hosts and we felt very welcomed. We spent a lot of time watching TV news and weather as the storm slowly moved to the west, sparing us the worst of the rain and storm surge. Still, the causeway leading to our condo was closed with 4-6' storm surge.

At 5 PM, after the high tide had passed, the causeway reopened. We packed up, thanked our gracious hosts and headed home. Not too much damage visible but lots of debris along the the causeway.

All was fine in the condo. We never lost power. Thanks again to Sophie and Kevin.

Thanks also to all of our family and friends who called and texted to check on us.

The departing storm left us a beautiful sunset.

Love,

Sandy & Carl

greenbaum2@gmail.com

617-435-8502

Saturday, August 26, 2023

James Museum Jewelry

Hi All,

Amidst the sculptures and paintings is a room labeled "The Jewel Box" containing very intricate examples of Native American jewelry. Luck for Carl, none of them were for sale!