Key Largo, Tai Chi, Buttonwood Bay, and the Chinese New Year

These Orchards were growing on the trees throughout the  Buttonwood Bay property. 

They just attach them to the trees and they take root.

A lot of the owners here have a water front on Florida Bay, the Gulf side.

The Admiral in her Tai Chi T-shirt

The Buttonwood Bay Marina was pretty big and the whole thing was cut out of the Coral  Rock as you can see along this ledge.

The cool little Channel leading in to the Buttonwood Bay Marina

Part of the Chinese New Year Celebration, This little guy dances around you for good fortune. 

Key Largo, Tai Chi, Buttonwood Bay, and the Chinese New Year
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The Admiral hooked up with the cruisers who wanted to continue to practice their Tai Chi moves so 9-12 of them would meet a few times a week at the park nearby to practice. This soon led to her attending the formal Tai Chi at a near by Episcopal church. That in turn led her to making the 1 hour drive a few times to Key Largo to practice with that group there. They planned on having a 2 hour Tai Chi practice and afterward getting together at the Buttonwood Bay Condominiums for a Chinese New Years Celebration and dinner. She invited me along, I declined the Tai Chi but accepted the Celebration and Dinner. I could always find something interesting to do in Key Largo for a few hours. The Key Largo group meets at the local Lions Club so I dropped off the Admiral and my first stop was a used Marine supply store. I spent about an hour there carefully looking for any gem that might serve Wand'rin Star. I nearly bought a couple of things but decided to wait. I then checked out the area on the Ipad and drove to the Atlantic side to check out a couple of marinas.
It was time to recover the Admiral so we drove to the location of the dinner and we still had some time to kill so we had a leisurely walk around the Marina and the Gulf side of the property. I was amazed at how they cut through 15 feet or more of the Coral rock to create space for the Marina. There were a lot of small power vessels in there mostly fishing type but a few pleasure cruisers.
The Dinner was of course great, more food than the group of 40 or so could eat and then a Tai Chi master of sorts who was down from Miami for the event showed some slides of her recent visit to china and ended with a Chinese New Year Celebration where this puppet like Dragon Dog danced throughout the group to bestow good fortune on all. I had no Idea how powerful the ceremony could be. Soon after we heard the incredible news from our daughter that she and her Husband Russell were 3 months pregnant with their first. We were so excited we decided right then and there to get the boat back to Texas and be in Seattle by August when our 3rd Grandchild will be born.