St. Patrick’s Day Fun

A couple years ago, Tom’s wedding ring had gotten very thin and cracked, and we had it repaired and resized by having a piece of gold added to it in the area of the crack.  Last month in Kissimmee, he felt like it was developing a crack again in the same area, and then one afternoon in the pool, the piece of gold fell out of the ring.  We actually managed to find the little piece of gold in the pool (amazing!), but Tom couldn’t wear the ring anymore.

Tom couldn’t decide if he wanted to get it repaired again, or trade it in for something new, so we took it with us and went to a few jewelry stores in Sarasota.  Wow – gold has increased in price in the last 25 years!  We ultimately decided to leave it with a jeweler who said he could re-shank the ring, re-size it, and thicken it up in the back so it wouldn’t wear through again.

We left there feeling pretty comfortable, although the repair bill was going to be almost as much as I paid for the ring originally!  That was until Tom started checking online reviews of the store we left it with!  None of the reviews were current, but non of them were positive, either . . . uh oh!  He called a few more places, and without seeing the ring, they all said they would perform the same repair, and in the same price range . . . but several of the reviews complained about the timeliness of repairs from the other shop.  We only had a couple weeks to work with, so we were hoping that we wouldn’t have that trouble!

Tom lost a little sleep over it, but we decided to wait the week that they said it would take, and see what happened.  As it turned out, they called us two days later and the ring was done!

Since we needed to go back to Sarasota to pick it up, we decided to make a full day of it, and go to the beach at Lido Key after we picked up the ring.  The ring turned out great, and you can’t even tell that it was repaired!  We were really happy, and we made sure to go into Yelp and leave a positive review so that future customers don’t have the same sense of unease that we did.

We also made an appointment at Safe-Lite to get a chip repaired in the Jeep’s windshield.  They were booked in the morning, but we were able to schedule it for the end of the day so we could stop on the way back from the beach.

View of downtown Sarasota from the bridge

With that business taken care of, we were ready for a day in the sun!

We arrived at the Lido Key Beach.

It was beautiful . . . and fairly crowded in the area we were in.  We found a spot of vacant sand, and settled in.

I got my book out and started reading, and after a few minutes, Tom decided to go for a walk on the beach.  It was a great day and I was enjoying my peace and solitude, but after an hour or so I began to wonder where Tom was!  I went for a swim to cool off, and then started walking along the shoreline to see if I could find him.

Before long I spotted him, walking and talking with some guy on the beach!

They split up, and Tom and I continued to the far end of the beach.  It was much less crowded down there.

Still beautiful!

We walked and enjoyed the beach . . . and the water.

It was a beautiful day!

We had to leave by 3:30 to get our windshield chip repaired, then went home to clean up and feed & walk Casey.

We had heard about a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in downtown Bradenton with a live band and food trucks on Main Street.  We thought it sounded like fun, so we headed over to check it out.

There were a couple blocks on Main Street closed off for the food trucks and vendors, and the band was set up at the end of the blocked off area.  They were on a break when we arrived, so our first stop was at the food trucks.  We saw somebody walk by with a pizza that looked really good, so we went in search of that truck.

We found the portable pizza oven,

and placed our order.  Tom went in search of drinks while I waited for the pizza.

YUM – it was really good pizza!

Tom got his green beer later!

We made our way back up towards the stage when the band returned, and found a spot on the sidewalk to stand and listen.

The Gamble Creek Band

They sang mostly country, with a little bit of southern rock mixed in, and were REALLY good! 

This little guy was enjoying the music, too – he was so cute in his kilt!

It was a fun evening – great music, interesting people-watching, and a beautiful warm evening!  We ended up staying until the band finished for the night!  We really enjoyed it!