MOVING

I hope everyone had a filling Thanksgiving. We were invited to Connie and Phil's home to celebrate with their family and friends. We had lots of great food and enjoyed a good time together. We left Thousand Trails Orlando on Sunday night and went to Standford, Fl. We planned to stay at a Walmart for the night but when we asked if it was OK they said they didn't allow it. We then went down the road to a BJ's and they said it was fine to stay overnight in their parking lot. Monday morning we had an appointment at Le Mesa RV a few blocks away to have work done on the RV. When we were in Red Bay and they had to replace the dash they missed hooking up the wire to the defroster, so they fixed it for us. We got to Clerbrook about noon on Monday. We have a nice site on G Street. The snowbirds haven't arrived yet and there are lots of empty sites.

The Sandhill cranes are sure here. Everyday the come by for a visit.

There must be about 5 pairs here at Clerbrook.

This must be Florida! This sign is by the golf course, don't think we will play here.

CELEBRATION

Larry has been playing pickle ball each morning. There has usually been enough players for both courts to have games going.

Charlotte saying goodbye to Lou and his wife. They are going home for the holidays. There have been a lot of players coming and going.

While Larry plays pickle ball I have been doing line dancing. Karen ( in boots) has been doing most of the teaching. Each day our group is growing.

Our first entertainment. I really enjoy Mike's music and I bought another one of his CD's.

Diane has a nice voice and we enjoyed her singing. It was a fun evening of music and dancing.

We saw this play advertised in the paper so we got ticket for Sunday. The theater is in Winter Garden. The play was about a group of seniors trying to save the place where they live by putting on a show. It was a musical and everyone had great voices. All the songs were from other plays or songs we know, so it did not have an original score. We did enjoy the play and it was very well attended.

I'm another year older, so know I can get my social security!

We found an Elephant Bar Restaurant here in Orlando! We thought it was only in Palm Springs.

We came here for my birthday celebration with Larry and Jeanie. They live in Sarasota and drove up to visit us for the day.

We all had a delicious meal and then had yummy desserts.

I had two desserts! I didn't know they were surprising me with the ice cream and I had ordered the cream brulee. What a birthday!!!

FESTIVAL OF TREES

My get well flowers from Larry. I have had a cold for over a week, but hope I'm getting over it now and haven't given it to Larry.

Ann taught me how to knit dish clothes at our camp out. So this is the third one I have made.

Looks like our car. Look closer. Our car was at the dealership getting the lift gate fixed. We were thinking about getting another car, so they let us test drive and use this Equinox while they repaired our car. We were thinking of a smaller vehicle and one with better gas mileage.

It really wasn't much different then what we have, so we will keep our car for now.

A few days later we were back at the dealership with a burnt our headlight. Would you believe they have to take the bumper off to fix it and then it took a whole new headlight. Over $500 in all, luckily warranty covered it all.

We went to Orlando Art Museum for Festival of Trees. It is a big fund raiser for the museum. Tuesday was Senior day.

Lots of beautiful plants for sale.

That's a tall tree.

This hall had all gingerbread houses. They were for sale from $90 to $500.

This was one of my favorites. A gingerbread doll house.

The outside of the doll house.

A gingerbread church.

There were lots of small size trees, perfect for in an RV.

This was a clever use of wine corks. Sure would have to drink a lot of wine to make one.

Shells look pretty on a tree.

A tree full of nut crackers.

One of the volunteers offered to take our picture.

This tree won first place. Can you guess what the ornaments are made out of? There really was a tree under them.

If you look closely you will see the bottles.
It was neat how each tree had a theme. This one was all about the arm services.

This one had a school theme.

I liked how this went from white to dark blue.

Lot of Santas.

This was called angels in the garden. I thought the cone shape angel was clever and simple to make, paper and a nut for the head.

When we went in they gave all seniors a raffle ticket and then at 1:45 they raffled off lots of gifts. We were lucky to win a bag with bath salt and lotion.

This begins our holiday activities. It was just a little earlier then usual.

BACK TOGEETHER

We were at Sun Lake RV park in Ruskin, FL from October 29th to November 6.

We had a nice view of the lake.

Our Blue Heron NCT chapter was having its first camp out of the season here from Nov. 2nd to the 6th. Larry is the wagon master for the club this year and I am secretary. We were elected to these offices while we were in California.

We were right across from the rec hall where we had all our activities.

Since this was our first camp out I made a welcome back chili dinner, and we gave them a northern breakfast of cream dried beef.

Jan Gore put out her puzzle. Mimi Poore made some progress. Helen and Charles Chambers were sick so they didn't make the rally or I'm sure the puzzle would have been finished.
We also had fun line dancing every day.

Jan had a little craft for us to make.

Our happy hour always had food, this became our Saturday dinner. Here Ann Cains and Audrey Young are putting out their contribution to the meal.

Marty and Audrey Young and Tam and Chuck Oates( newly weds.)

From the window are Cliff and Jo Delk. It was nice seeing Jo here for she had spent the last three days in the hospital, Mimi and Paul Poore. On the other side of the table are Jim and Jan Gore.

We had fun with an Old Geezer quiz. They knew all the answers, I think I'm the youngest in this group.

We also played How Well Do You Know Us. Marty the Master of Travel (MOT),his wife Audrey , Larry and I thought of 15 things about us and the rest had to guess who had done it. Like who had jumped out of a plane? the answer is me.

Every evening we played a new card game we learned in Myrtle Beach called sevens or spades. You use two decks of cards except take out one run of spades. All the cards are passed out. the person next to the dealer starts. The seven of spades has to be played before any other card. If that person doesn't have the 7 of spades the person on their right gives them one of their cards. It is usually an A because they are worth 100 points if you have any in your hand when someone goes out. Play continues this way around the table till the 7 of spades is laid out. After the 7 of spades is played the other 7 can be laid down or the 6 or 8 of spades. Only after a spade has been laid down can that card be played on any other suit. If you can't play you always get a card from the person to your right. When someone gets rid of all their cards everyone has to count how many points they have in their hand. A = 100, K,Q,J,10 are 10 points and 9-2 are worth 5 points. We kept a running score and when everyone had a turn to deal the game was over, with high score losing and low score winning.

Tam getting a card from Jan.

Saturday was the business meeting. I read the minutes from April. Dick Kettering is on the end and is our treasurer. He is 93 very alert and active and driving his RV.

Joyce and Ken Williams(standing) came for the meeting but he isn't able to drive his rig yet. He has had shingles on his face and had two eye surgeries. He had just had his right eye sown shut.

Several of us went over to the Seafood Festival in Ruskin.It was $2 to park and $4 entrance fee for a senior. You had to purchase tickets for food when you entered. They said the meals were about $6 -8 and drinks were $2-4. So were got $20 worth.

We walked over to where the food was and then had to decide what we were going to have.

The shortest line was at the clam chowder so this is what Larry and I ate. It was very good and we took another bowl home. We had to use up our tickets.

The rest stood in long slow moving lines for fish dinners.

A little dessert of funnel cake was shared by Marty, Tam and Chuck.

We left on Sunday and stopped at Fort Meade for a Shrine barbecue chicken and pork dinner at Peace River Park. We are now parked at Thousand Trails in Clermont for the next three weeks. It poured for a few minutes right after we got to our site and then there was a beautiful full rainbow. I guess this is Florida weather.