Dec. thru Jan 26, 2012 Florida

After a nice visit with our friends Don and Lois, we went to the Orlando Thousand Trails park for 5 days. We actually spent a lot of our time organizing things in the RV we had packed way too fast and needed time to really organize.

Next we went to Ramblers Rest for 2 weeks. We love the Venice area. The beaches are great the town is a fun town and the park is filled with very friendly people. While there we went to the Englewood Sports complex to play pickle ball and who do we run into-- John and Carla. They have now bought a house in that area. When we are in this area, we attend the Englewood United Methodist church. We decided to spend Christmas day volunteering for the church. Each Christmas they feed about 1,600 people in the local community a full Christmas dinner. It takes about 300 volunteers to do it and Lee and I volunteered. What a great way to spend Christmas.
Jim and Cheryl pictured above.

This picture is out of sequence. The picture above is of new friends we made in Nokomis. Their poodle Anna and Nicky had a lot of fun together. We all went to dinner at the restaurant pictured above. What is unique about this place is your dogs can be with you as you eat. They even prepare a chicken and rice dinner for the dogs.
This picture was taken at Royal Coachman in Nokomis which is where we went after our 2 weeks in Venice.

This picture was taken at the Christmas dinner we were volunteering for at the Englewood church.

This is a picture of one of the many lovely beaches in Venice.

This is the Royal Coachman one of our favorite Encore parks.

This was our camping spot.

While in Nokomis we spent a lot of time on the beach and a lot of time biking. The Legacy Bike Trail is just outside the campground and is just lovely.

There's Lee off to another day at work!!!

Royal Coachman

Our next stop was Peace River. It was so good to see Jannie and Ed and Jerry and Lee. We arrived there New Year's Eve and next day joined a group for the traditional Pork and sauerkraut.

The picture above was taken over at Hardee County Park along one of their trails.

We also finally got to see Bob and Julie, Travis, Lou and Carol and Mark and Chris. I finally got to met Teddy (Mark and Chris's new puppy). Teddy and Nicky became fast friends. I so enjoyed spending more time with Mark and Chris. We were also able to catch up with Lou and Carol and play "Hand and Foot" with them. We are looking forward spending more time with everyone when we return to Peace River.

Taken at Hardee County park

Mark and Chris and Lou and Carol joined us for a lovely dinner at The Wauchula Family restaurant which is owned and operated by a Greek couple. Very good food at a fair price.

The latest hit in Wauchula is a new ice cream parlor.

The ice cream is being solidified here with liquid nitrogen. Really cool to watch.

After Peace River we were off to Pine Island. The picture above was taken at a restaurant here where they were having a singing contest. It was a hoot!!!

The island consists mostly of palm tree plantations and fishing.

I love these trees they remind me of our Blue Spruce at home in color.

This cute little shack was in the back yard of the plantations owners.

Below is a picture of the church we attended in Pine Island. I was so impressed at the community outreach they have.

While here Lee and I made trips to Estero beach, Lovers Key, and Sanibel Island. The park is very nice and the people very friendly but there is very little to do on the island.

Sanibel Island

The first Sunday we went to church a man came up to us and handed us a card and said give me a call I'd love to take you out for a sailboat ride while you are here.

It was a 32 foot Morgan.

That is Clarence's house on the left.

This is Clarence. After showing us around his yard and all his fruit trees etc., he then took us out for about a 3 hour sailing trip. It was a gorgeous day.

Clarence's bananas and the view from his house.

Lover's Key

This blimp was sure flying low.

I have buckets of shells at home but I can't help myself. If I'm on a beach I have to look for shells.

From here we will be going to Fiesta Key on the Keys. ROD park system just picked up this park and our membership is good until May so we were able to book a week there. We have never stayed on the Keys only visited so we are really excited about this opportunity.

Those of you who are ROD members might want to get on line and check on this. It is not in the book only listed on line.

November and Dec. with the Rileys 2011

Nov. 13, my niece, Brooke was in from Las Vegas. We spent Friday making our holiday sticky buns together. It was Brooke, her sister Ashley and I. The girls did a great job. The following day we had what is known in our family as the annual Thankstweenie celebration. What we do is celebrate Thanksgiving in between Halloween and Thanksgiving when Brooke can be with us and then again at Thanksgiving. Both times the whole family is invited.

I thought this was a good picture of our daughter Michelle and our grand daughter, Carissa .

Featured above my sister, Jill, her husband, Barry, son, Nigel and daughters, Ashley and Brooke.

As usual there is never enough to eat at these affairs.

Brooke, Nigel and Ashley

Brooke and her very good friend Amanda. Best friends since High School. So she always come in to see Brooke when she is home.

Brooke who is handbag buyer for Zappos blessed me with this lovely Baggallini bag. My early Christmas present.

These pictures were taken at Thanksgiving. We celebrated Christmas with our children then since we were going to be away for Christmas.

Two of our grand daughters, Hollyn and Izzy.

The gangs all here. We had 17 humans that day and 3 dogs. Mass confusion and such fun. Each Holiday with the children and grand children is so special. We had a wonderful day.

We opened our Christmas presents after dinner.

Troy, Steve, Carissa and Lauren

Nicky is such a beggar on Thanksgiving day.

The following day Lee was busy with our neighbor lumbering our trees. Jim Tull will appreciate the amount of lumber we got off these trees.

This is our grandson, Garrett running the skitter. He takes directions extremely well.

Behind Garret is a solar field put in on land we sold to the county. They are generating electricity to support all administrative buildings. It has been extremely successful and they are planning on expanding it. Nicky and I often walk across this field and I have noticed that even on a cloudy or rainy day it still generates power. Heavy rain is the only thing that kicks it out.

This is a portable saw mill brought in by our neighbor.

We left home the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. It was beautiful and 64 degrees. We were not on the road long before the rain began and it got considerably cooler. We spent the first night in Virginia and it was cold. The next morning we took off and as we entered Georgia we started to see snow. Is was beginning to think we were headed in the wrong direction.

We stopped at a rest stop about 1 1/2 hours out of Madison (our stop for the night) and when we got back in the RV it would not start. It would not ever start with auxiliary batteries. Lee ended up jumping it. As we traveled down the road I found a dealer in Madison got their number and told them our problem. They said they could look at it tomorrow morning. They invited us to spend the night in the lot and offered to hook us up to electric and water. This is the second time we have been so impressed with Georgia hospitality. The next morning they hooked it up to the diagnostics and could find nothing wrong. It usually cost $70.00 just to hook it up to diagnostics but they didn't charge a thing.

Just before we had arrived in Madison, GA we saw the most incredible sunset. God had worked out the dilemma of where to go to have things checked out on theRV and then blessed us with this sunset.

Thursday we arrived at Don and Lois Waltz's house. You can see the RV parked in their driveway.

Of course, Lee could not be still so they worked together and took out a couple of stumps.

Anyone who knows Lois knows what a fabulous cook she is. What we didn't know is what a good cook Don is. We are so thrilled for Lois and her new kitchen. As much time as she spends in the kitchen she deserves to have a kitchen that is so efficient to work in.

Lois and Don have been painting the outside of the house and Lee and Don are taping the shades so he can finish painting them. Don't you just love that step stool?.

We say good-bye to Don and Lois being with them is like being with family. They are so easy to be with. Thanks again you two for a wonderful 4 days.

Nicky will miss hanging out with Toby.

Nicky getting a drink in the Waltz's backyard. When you're as tall as Nicky a birdbath is just the right height.

October thru Nov. 6 2011

What a busy time.  We're trying to see as much as we can with the children before we leave for Florida. All the canning is done and there are 2 major family get-togethers before we leave and of course the camper to get packed.

I did get a second opinion on my knee replacement and it appears that the reason it is taking so long to heal and that it has been so painful the first 5 months was because the knee scope and the total knee replacement were done only 5 weeks apart.  The surgeon I saw for a second opinion says he won't do 2  surgeries on the same knee in a year let alone 5 weeks apart.  He said I have severely traumatized tissue and it may or may not get any better than it is at this point.  I choose to believe that with prayer, continued PT and good supplements I can greatly increase my odds of getting this a lot better.

Issabella doing color guard

I'll try to catch you up with some of the things Lee and I have been doing.

We had a lovely weekend with our eldest son, Dave, and family in Pittsburgh.  The foliage was beautiful on the drive there.  Friday evening we went to the football game and watched the band perform.  What a great band.
Izzy is featured above doing her thing.  What a terrific band they have and the color guard just recently won in competition.  We're very proud at how hard Izzy works at this.  Our grandson, Garrett, featured in the collage above just loves scouts and is doing an excellent job.Their dog, Friday, had a nice visit with Nicky. 

Next we went to visit our youngest son, Brandon, who lives in West Chester, PA.  The town of West Chester is located outside of Philadelphia and is loaded with history. Just a lovely town to walk through.  We had lunch at a lovely restaurant in town and then walked over to the hospital that Brandon works at.  The bikes you see in the pictures are hybrid bikes.  They had a battery pack on the back. Really neat but very pricey.

 

Lincoln's first published work was written in the building in the lower left corner.

The two collages above are scenes from West Chester.

Lee has been busy with many projects here.  He just finished building a portico for my brother.  It is beautiful. 

The portico

Lee has also continued to work on what I call his man-cave in the lower half of the barn.  Jim Tull will appreciate these pictures because he saw the barn before Lee started this project.  What this truly is for those of you who have not been able to figure it out is a root cellar for storage of fruits and vegetables and a room to hold canned goods which will maintain a certain temperature.

 

Storage area outside root cellar

 

For those of you who have been here we also re-landscaped the entry way.

You've seen our two grandsons, Keenan  and Troy, on the blog playing soccer.  Keenan now plays soccer for Geneva College in PA. Troy's high school team were district champs last year and just missed it this year in a double overtime game. The winner was determined by penalty kicks. What a good game it was and two very equally matched teams. It sure was cold though.

The game was played at the Hershey stadium see the roller coaster in the background.

Troy being introduced.

The Saturday before Halloween we were hit with a one day snow blizzard.  Two days before I was out in the yard in short sleeves and then bang it hit. It was 4-10 inches in this area but melted so quick.  It was a beautiful sight on the mountain the next day.  I've never before experienced fall foliage and snow covered trees at the same time.





Just prior to the snow storm this had been the view from our sun-room and I remember thinking, look at the heat coming off the pond, it's going to be really cold soon and about 4 days later we got the snow storm pictured above.



We are very much looking forward to seeing all our family  friends again.  Won't be long now!!!