Dinner Flop

Had Todd and Shannon over for dinner the other night but......... I had bought a new crock pot and cooked up , White Beans and Ham Soup, well even soaking the beans overnight and cooking on high in the pot for four hours the beans were HARD. So everyone dined on salad and cornbread. Needless to say the crock pot was returned to the store the next day.
Last night was wild, we've heard the last two winters about an event that happens every Sunday night down at Siesta Key so decided to go down. Drummers get together and play for hours. These are drummers of all ages and every type of drum, they stand or sit in a group and just beat on their drums. People come from all around and you can either sit and watch or get up and join in. Children were given hula hoops to play with, a very small woman dressed as a belly dancer gave out flowers and then she danced, a gentleman was there dressed all in black with a white hat on who gave blessings with bird feathers as he danced around. As I said it was a wild night but very interesting. After the sun went down and the parents took their children home it got even wilder, young people moving their bodies as if they were in a jungle dancing around a wildfire or maybe placing a curse on someone. Later I'll post some pictures that Doug took after he gets them loaded on the computer.

Day before Good Friday

It may be spring elsewhere but here it feels like summer, temps in the 80's, this is what we winter in Florida for. Invited to Siesta Key for an afternoon to sunset picnic, had a great time and met several couples so live here in Camelot East. The food was wonderful, everyone brought their favorite dishes (mine was my spaghetti salad) and I tasted everything, including the three 3-bean salads. We understand that it is a standing joke to count how many bean dishes show up.

Saturday was spent driving around just visiting interesting shops and getting new ideas for things to do in home2.

Granddaughter Amber called to let us know that her fiancee, Mark, has gotten a promotion to Assistant Manager with Publix. We're very happy for them.

Dinner today at Todd and Shannon's, smoked ham.
Hope everyone has a Happy Easter

Edison & Ford Winter Estates

Tuesday, day off from exercising and we decide to take a day trip. Had heard about the Edison & Ford Museum in Fort Meyers so headed that way. The estate is over 13 acres and you can take a guided tour or just get the earphones and tours by yourself. We elected to go with the earphones and took our time wandering around. The homes are beautiful. Lots of history, we never knew that Edison, Ford and Firestone were such good buddies. In the museum is a Ford Van that Ford had converted for all the camping trips the three families took together.
Edison visited Fort Myers in 1885 and that same day purchased his property, the next year he built his two homes using materials shipped from his home estate in New Jersey. Ford visited for several years then in 1916 purchased the home next door. On the grounds are many trees and bushes. A four foot Banyan tree that Firestone gave to Edison in 1925 is now the second largest in the U.S., first is in Maui.
If ever in the area we highly recommend this as a must stop.

WII Fit

Well we've finally gotten serious about exerise! Started on the Wii Fit and work out every other day, talk about sore!! On the days we don't do the Fit we take long walks. What we are seeing is sore bodies, oh my goodness, backs, legs, feet ouch

Feb/March

Time seems to fly by so fast. Here it is almost the last of March and our snow bird neighbors are planning their trips home, Doug and I will be here at least three more months. Aaron is graduating the end of May and we will take him on a cruise to the Western Caribbean then start working our way to Home1. It was so busy while Larry was here visiting, a lot of work was a finished, we had a few day trips and one overnighter to the Strawberry Festival in Plant City. The men got out fishing a few times with Todd and spent relaxing days on the boat.

Our friends from San Diego, Bill and Nancy, stopped by for a visit one day and we had a very nice time catching up on all that has been happening at City Front Terrace. We do miss San Diego.

Suppose to get to 85 today, the wind is blowing so hard that branches from our king palm keep falling onto the roof. Hope there is no damage.

What a month February was

Hard to believe that February is over, it seemed to last forever. We stayed so busy with work on home2 and visitors. Bryan and family came from Renton for a visit, spent four days with us and a week in Orlando visiting all the theme parks. Their visit was pretty easy on Doug and I as Todd and Shannon had us to dinner for a couple of nights. Michelle had requested Todd's deep fried turkey and bacon wrapped green beans, we all came home that night stuffed. The next night they made pulled port sandwiches with potato salad, Todd is one for the few who can make my mother's salad. MMMMM Speaking of our oldest son, we're very proud of him as he has quit smoking (again) he's been smoke free for almost a month now.

We celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary with Bryan and family at Magic Kingdom. A person never gets to old to go on the rides.

Our friend Larry arrived on the 24th and Doug immediately put him to work replacing all the windows in home2. They're finally finished and the house looks a lot better with white windows, now Doug and I need to do a little outside painting. Larry will be here for a couple more weeks and we hope to get some more work out of him but also get in some sight seeing. This Friday we will be going to a Strawberry Festival in Plant City. Larry, Todd, Shannon, Doug and I will drive down that day go to the festival, see Jeff Foxsworthy that night and come home on Saturday.

What we've been doing

A few days ago someone said to me that they thought I should continue with my BLOG even though we were no longer traveling so here we go.... Home2 is finally becoming a home. The countertop is connected, sink hooked up and the microwave installed over the stove. The cabinets and free stand counter have been taken out of the house and installed in Doug's work shop. We feel a little proud that we two "old" folk were able to install both the microwave and cabinets onto the walls by ourselves and they haven't fallen off....yet!!

Had our first party on Sunday, it was a combination Super Bowl/Birthday party. Grandson Adam, who was born on a Super Bowl Sunday, is now 19. Fun time was had by all and Amber was the big winner of our foolball pool.