B&B

Bowling started out pretty bad...I had a 103 and a 105.  I started the third game much better, though, and ended up with a 155.  I also won both cribbage and poker that game!!  I didn't have such good luck at bingo.  I was close, but didn't win.  Maybe next time!

More later...

Monday

Yay - Bob & Ann are back from Dallas AND the day was warmer!!  I'm tired of winter so it was wonderful having the sun shine on us today!  I worked on the new phone book today.  It's going to take me a while to do it.  We didn't do a new phone book last year, so there are LOTS of changes! 

More later...

Sunday

I love Sundays!  We had a good church service this morning!!  We've been "studying" The Apostle's Creed and today was about forgiveness of sins.  I've still got some work to do on that one. 

This afternoon, we went to Post Corner to meet some of the Girls of 66 - Sudi, Pam, Mary Ann, Sally, Nancy, and Becky and of course, Howard, Rod, and Jim.  We were there for over 1.5 hours - it was a fun lunch!  Good catching up with classmates!

More later...

Busy Saturday

I got up early this morning because we had a lot to accomplish!  I had to make a crockpot full of chili and a dessert for tonight's annual Soup & Sandwich Dinner.  I got the chili done and cooking, plus a 9x13 graham cracker crust before I took my shower.  Then around noon I made the pudding for my banana pie in a big dish.  Oops, I forgot the bananas!  So Dave sliced bananas and I pushed them down in the pudding.  It worked, but had I not forgotten them, I would have put at least 1 more banana in it.  Oh well.  Sometimes Mom made it with just vanilla pudding, so I guess I could have also.

We had 55 or so people at dinner.  We had 19 soups to sample along with PB&J, ham/pickle, tuna salad, and egg salad sandwiches and numerous desserts!  Wonderful!!

More later...

Friday

Our adventure for today was to go to a new park on Walsingham....McGough Park.  Beautiful place, but we walked over 2 miles.  We went out to the intercoastal and back!  My hip is going to hurt tonight!!

They have birds in captivity that have been imprinted or hurt.  Beautiful birds of prey!  Kestrels, owls, hawks, an eagle, and 4 little bitty screech owls.  I hope our pictures turn out good!

On the way home we stopped at the orange shipping place and had an ice cream cone...an orange/vanilla twist, made out of fresh orange juice.  OMGosh!  It was yummy!  Dave said we'd be going back there!!

More later...

Thursday

We went to Sarasota today to see what birds we could see.  The only different one we saw was an American Bittern.  We'd never seen one of them.  Plus, we watched a limpkin catch a snail and have escargot for lunch!!

Speaking of lunch, we ate at Chipotle - we'd never eaten at one of them before.  It was delicious.  I've been wanting to go to Moe's and Chipotle was a lot like it.  After that we went to see Roberta.  Fun day!

Tonight Heckarts and us played trivia at Fat Cats.  We got 26 out of 30 right, but missed the bonus question - bummer!  It was fun, though.

More later...

T & W

I got to watching the Iowa State basketball game and simply forgot that I didn't blog!  The first half of the game was awesome - the last half not so much!  It was a W though!

Bowling was okay.  Chuck and Coreen came to watch and Chuck's a pretty good teacher.  He changed up some things I was doing and I started hitting the pocket much better.  Thanks, Chuck!  Bingo was okay - I only lost $3.50!!!  haha  Ann had a great night.  In fact, I told her I was going to throw her in the pool if she won any more!

Today after coffee, we went to Tampa to take Bob & Ann to the airport.  They're flying to Dallas to watch Cheyenne show her horse.  On our way back we stopped at Whiskey Joe's for lunch.  Great place to eat with a beautiful view.  Unfortunately I fell over an umbrella stand that was in the middle of the aisle and ended up pretty stiff and sore.  I think I'm okay, but we'll see what tomorrow brings!  Needless to say, our meals were on the house!  They brought me an ice bag and got all my info, just in case I sue them! 

We also ordered the cabinets for our mobile home.  We have to wait about 3 weeks to get them, but we're excited to get that project out of the way!

More later...

Monday

Decent day here today.  It was very windy and this afternoon, it got kind of chilly!  Dave and I went kitchen cabinet shopping today.  We were both unhappy with Home Depot - I think they're always rude in there.  I liked the stock cabinets at Lowe's but you have to design your own layout with stock cabinets.  We went to Cabinet Traditions also.  We liked them - they are extremely helpful.  They came out this afternoon, measured, and called us to tell us they had a workup for us already.  So, tomorrow afternoon, we'll see how bad it's going to hurt our pocketbook if we go with them!

More later...

Sunday

Good church service today.  Pastor Jack preached about the church and related it to the results of the election and the hate that election generated.  I hope I can forget about the election and listen instead to God's voice in me.  I'll pray for our country and for our leaders.  If we pray for Trump to fail, we pray for the US to fail.  Good sermon...hard to listen to, but good!

I worked this afternoon on the February newsletter.  I've got it done and ready for the printer.  Yay!!

We waited all evening for the storm that they predicted all day.  We had about 1/2" of rain, but no big lightning.  Glad for that!

More later...

Saturday

I didn't go to bed until 5:30 this morning and got up at 7:30...not good.  I took an hour nap this afternoon, but I'm still really tired.

My hip hurt really bad today, so I only shuffled one game and I got clobbered on that one.  I think it's odd that shuffling hurts my hip even worse than bowling does.  I should get it xrayed so I know what I'm dealing with.  I'll do that one of these days.

Floyd Gourley and Kathy stopped by for a bit this morning.  It was good to see them.

More later...

We're Home

We had a wonderful 3 days at Disney World.  We visited Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom - all 5 of the parks!  We were in Magic Kingdom to get our iconic  picture in front of the "castle" and to watch the street parade...which was wonderful. 

 Then we went to Epcot - love this park.  So many foods, drinks, music, and beauty.

On Wednesday we went to Hollywood Studios and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Of course, part of it was Star Wars and we both love that series of movies.  There were rebel soldiers walking in the street - even Darth Vader and a Sith Lord! 

 We also got to watch an Indiana Jones stunt man doing a typical scene!  It was great !

Last night we went to Animal Kingdom.  Unfortunately it was dark when we took our Safari so we didn't get pictures.  We saw hippos, rhinos, giraffes - even a lion and 2 lionesses!  Awesome.

That's the way to go to Disney World...just the two of us - no children!  We could do what we wanted and rest when we needed to instead of running around here and there!

While we were on our Safari, back in Waterloo, Bryan and Erin got married.  I couldn't get Skype to work on my phone, so we didn't get to "attend". 

More later...

No computer

I'm not taking my computer with me to Orlando, so no blogs for a few days.  See you when we get back home!!

More later...

Monday

Today I attended my first board meeting!  I'm really official now.  It was a good meeting and I feel like I can make a contribution or two!

Dave worked with Bob & Gary and got them closed in.  They are taking 5 windows out of their lanai and putting only 3 back in.  It's amazing what a difference that made in the looks of their place.  They've still got some work to do inside. 

I packed this afternoon and charged up all the batteries for the cameras.  We're going to Epcot tomorrow - just Dave and I.  We'll be gone until Friday and we're planning to do 3 of the 4 parks at Disney World.  I hope we enjoy it!!

More later...

Sunday

Other than a great church service, today was pretty boring for me.  Dave worked with Bob & Gary after church so that left me here alone.  So I took a nap in my chair!

More later...

Saturday

Today was our annual Chinese Auction where you buy chances on items people don't want any more.  Tickets are 10 for a dollar.  At one point I know we'd taken in $231!  That doesn't count the money from the hot dog lunches either.  After the auction is over and people have taken everything they want, then the guys take the rest of the stuff to Amvets on Belcher so they can sell it and hopefully make some money for their organization.

During all of this, we also did our fun shuffle.  I only played one game and I lost it.  I just didn't feel like shuffling today.  In fact I didn't feel like being social!  This evening, the guys are watching the football game and the ladies are playing 7s.  We didn't go! 

More later...

Friday

This sure didn't seem like Friday to me...but it was.  We had visitors today.  Dave's sister, Pat, and her husband, Milt, brought Roberta up to see our place.  After we visited for a while, we took them to The Pub for lunch.  It was beautiful sitting out by the water and the food was scrumptious! 

More later...

Fun Day

After Dave got home from working at church, we packed a lunch and went to Fort Desoto for a few hours of sun and birds.  We were hoping to see some different birds, but mid-day isn't the time to see birds.  We did, however, get some good shots of pelicans and snowy egrets!  Plus, it was absolutely gorgeous out there...80 degrees and very little wind so the water was really calm.  I was able to walk both piers and didn't have to use my scooter!!

Tonight we went with Bob & Ann and Gary & Barb to Fat Cat's for trivia night.  We had a good night - we got 24 out of 30 questions right and got the final bonus right!  We were pretty happy!!  Good food, good company, and a fun trivia game. 

More later...

Congratulations?!!

Congratulations to me.  I'm the newest member of the Holiday Ranch Homeowners' Board of Directors.  I've been sworn in and am anxiously awaiting my first meeting!  It's a 2-year commitment, but the first year I'm just a Director - no office.  By next year, who knows?

After the meeting 17 of us went to Bahama Breeze in Tampa for a Red Hatters' lunch.  Delicious food and good company.  Unfortunately on the way home, we got snarled up in traffic on East Bay.  It took us about 20 minutes to get to Bahama Breeze and over an hour to get home.  :(  Bummer!

More later...

B&B

We had only 11 bowlers this morning.  When we have under 12 bowlers, it goes really fast.  We went to the Legion for lunch and we were there early!  It was gorgeous sitting out there today.  Plus, we saw several dolphins so that's always a plus!

Bingo was better tonight - we actually had 21 people there.  The pots were good and I won $16!!  I'm happy when I get to say "bingo"! 

Just finished watching President Obama give his final address to the American people.  He's such a class act!  I wonder what the first address by Pres. Trump will be like?  I'm sure it won't be as classy.

More later...

Monday

It's warming up!!  Yay!  I still had back spasms today, but not as bad as yesterday.  I'll have to remember to take some ibuprofen before we go bowling.  That seems to stop the spasms.  I was able to get in for a pedicure today.  Thank goodness.  I was dreading wearing my bowling shoes tomorrow!  This should be better now.  Dave did a couple of little things around the house, but nothing major today. 

More later...

Sunday

I woke up this morning with back spasms.  I finally slept all night and I think I slept in one spot the whole time!  It's been spasming most of the day, but is subsiding in intensity.  Hope it's gone tomorrow.

It was really cold this morning, so we even wore jackets and long pants to church.  By the time we came out, it wasn't quite as cold and the sun was really shining.  Hope tomorrow is warmer!

More later...

Brrrrr..........

Bob and Ann must have brought back this cold weather!  It's downright frigid!  We've even got the furnace on tonight!

More later...

Friday

Yay!  Bob and Ann are back - delayed, but they're here.  It's very comforting for me to know my big brother is next door.  We just got back from the airport from picking them up. 

Dave and I had a good day.  We cleaned house, did laundry, I got my hair cut, and then we went to the Botanical Gardens to get some flower shots.  Preliminary glances at the pix show some good shots!  Stay tuned!

Oh, it's raining - yay! 

More later...

Thursday

We even had breakfast on the lanai this morning.  Then after packing, etc., we went to Largo Nature Park to see the big alligator.  Wrong!  Some guy there said that he hadn't seen the big guy for at least 3 months.  Darn!  So instead we just walked and looked at birds. 

Then we went to Scully's for lunch and to see if there were any dolphins.  We did see 4 of them, so the day was very successful!

We came home so Jami & Danny could get on the road.  Wrong!  Her van wouldn't start, so after getting it jump started, they went to get a new battery.  So about an 1 1/2 after she wanted to be on the road, they got going. 

Tonight's been very quiet.

More later...

Busy Day

Jami and Danny came to spend a couple of days with us.  They got here around 6:00 last night while I was at bingo.  Speaking of bingo, I didn't win last night.  I was close, but no cigar!

When I got home, we talked until about midnight.  Then, after we went to bed, I couldn't sleep because of the prednisone.  I was still up at 4:00 AM.  I finally got to sleep somewhere around 4:30 but got up early because it was coffee and donuts this morning.  After coffee, we went to Sawgrass to see the wildlife and to get some exercise.  We had a record day.  We saw 28 alligators - some just weeks old, some were last year's babies, and some were around 2 years old...plus momma and a 4 year old one.  We also saw a Roseate Spoonbill, a Limpkin, several turtles, and various other birds.  Fun trip.

Lunch was Grandma Peg's breaded tenderloins!  Then we rode bikes, took naps, and even played shuffleboard.  The three of them took another bike ride while I uploaded pictures.  After a light  supper, we played Farkle.  

Whew!  I'm tired!

More later...

Tendonitis

I have an official diagnosis - I have tendonitis in my thumb.  I got a prescription for prednisone for a few days.  If that doesn't help the inflammation, then I will be referred to an orthopedic surgeon for a series of shots.  I sure hope the prednisone works!

More later...

Drat!

I can't believe that I missed blogging on the last night of 2016. Oh well...Happy New Year!  2017 is here and in my honest opinion it's going to be hard to top 2016.  I loved the two reunions this past year - I looked forward to them both and enjoyed them both immensely.  I don't have anything big to look forward to in 2017.

Last night we went to the clubhouse for a party.  It was very noisy so we came home early.  We didn't even see the ball drop.  Lots of fireworks around here!  I wasn't sure I'd be able to sleep because of the "booms", but I did.

Today, after church, we went to Woody's in Ellenton and then went on to Sarasota to the Celery Fields to see the birds.  Surprise...there just weren't any birds today.  I think it was too hot for them or else they were just all taking their Sunday afternoon naps.  We called Roberta and went to visit her for a little while, then we came home and took our own naps!

We fixed our cooked cabbage for supper so we're covered for the year as far as prosperity goes!

More later...