MY FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS VISIT

 Lynda and Bob arrived about 3 on Sunday afternoon. We had a tent set up for Bob.

 A four man tent was filled with a queen air mattress. Some of the nights were in the 40's, so a little heater and warm sleeping bag  was needed this year.

 Monday we headed west and stopped at Plant City for strawberry treats.

 We went to Tampa power plant to see the manatees. Unfortunately it was a grey, cool, drizzly day, but there were lots of manatees.

 We then headed over to Clearwater and walked along the beach.

 If anyone knows what this bird or shells are please identify them for me. Thanks Roberta for looking at your bird book and identifying it as an American Oystercatcher.

 We arrived back at Thousand Trails just as this sleigh came down our road. Must be Santa!

 There sure are a lots of presents under our tree.

 Christmas morning was spent opening all those presents.

 Larry opened his drill that I went out to Lowes for on Black Friday at 5:00 AM!

 I got a lot of neat things to make my wine experience better. The wine rack I will stain and build. An automatic cork removal - now I can get that bottle opened! An aerator one for red and one for white.

 Some clothes, Larry picked out that pretty dress.

 Do what you like and like what you do! A journal to keep track of all we do and a calendar for 2013 of pictures my sister took on our trip to Niagara Fall.

 Larry's big gift to me was a new NOOK HD+ . I received it a few week ago, and then he tried to surprise me with a cover for it. Unfortunately he ordered the wrong size, so we went back to Barnes and Noble and exchanged it.

 I had told my family to bring some nice clothes for my surprise gift.  They sure looked nice.

 I had purchased tickets to see Cirque Du Soleil La Nouba. Larry didn't even guess what we were going to do.  We had seen it in 2006 when we worked at Disney. When we passed by a bill board advertising it he said he would like to go again, so we did. It was a great show!

We enjoyed walking around Downtown Disney before the show.
 With the cooler, cloudy weather Lynda and Bob left late morning on Thursday. Bob wanted to go to Daytona and we thought it would be better if they just left from there on their trip north. Since there was to be  a storm in the northeast on Saturday they arrived back in PA before it hit. I sure miss them when they leave, but am glad we were together for Christmas.

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS

 We have been having some trouble with our wifi  aircard so I haven't blogged for awhile, but we have been busy enjoying the holiday season. In the beginning of Dec. we joined our Blue Heron camping group in Sebring at Chicanes for a Christmas dinner.

 It was nice seeing some of our members who haven't been camping with us lately because of illness or no longer owning  an RV.

 We always have fun with a gift swap, everyone must have had the Christmas spirit for there wasn't much gift stealing.

 The white Christmas here in  Florida has been the dense fog each morning.  We had to drive over to Lazy Days one morning to get the jacks fixed.

 This  is a good winery close to where we stay. They had a chocolate and wine festival on the weekend, and I'm a fan of both! There was wine tasting with chocolate, music and a craft show.

 This weekend we started our celebrations with a play at the Winter Garden theatre.

 It was a cute musical and we enjoyed it very much.

 Saturday we went to the First Baptist Church in Orlando to their Singing Christmas Tree show. We met George and Janeen Livings and after talking with them for awhile found out he was the creative art director and she was the choreographer of the show.

 We had a very nice meal before the show in this building.

 The sanctuary is huge, there have 6,000 people attend each week. I felt like I was climbing the stairs to heaven to get to our seats.

 The trees were made up of about 100 singers each and lots of lights. The music was quite loud. The program told the Christmas story with a modern twist. The story took place in Bethlehem,PA in this century.

 Sunday we went to the Methodist church in Clermont with Dee and Rich for dinner and their Celebration of Carols Christmas cantata.

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I love the music at Christmas and what a great way to celebrate the season with good concerts and our friends. My sister and son are coming next Sunday so this may be my last blog before the new year so Merry Christmas to all and I hope you have a good holiday.

TRIP HOME

 We heard on Wednesday morning that Larry's dad had passed away at 4:45, so by 6 o'clock we had the car loaded and headed up to PA. We had decided to drive instead of fly, it is just a little over 1,000 miles. We stopped at a motel just south of Washington DC about 8 that night  and then back on the road at 4 in the morning.  We were in Myerstown by 8 Thursday morning.

 We were surprised to see snow covered ground in PA.  We had heard it snowed on Tuesday but we didn't realize how much they had and that it was cold and cloudy so it wasn't melting.

 Larry worked on getting mom's social security, insurance and dad's state retirement benefits for mom  figured out on Friday. The services for dad were held at Clauser funeral home in Schaefferstown, PA Saturday morning.

 He was buried at the Millcreek Memorial Cemetery.

 We had a nice catered luncheon at the Millcreek Lutheran church following the burial. There are five children all with grown children and families, so there is always a large group when we all are together.

Jason, Mystique's boyfriend, Mystique and Mark Larry's children, and Dorothy, Brian's wife. (the other Dorothy Mathias.)  We went back to mom's and then headed south about 3 o'clock. We stopped in North Carolina Saturday night and arrived back at TT by 5 Sunday night.  We appreciated Beth-Ann, TT's  manager allowing us to leave our RV unattended for these 4 days and that friends Keith and Marie watched after Godiva for us. It is good to be back in warm Florida.