A UNIQUE CHRISTMAS

 We bought a live tree from the youth group at our church and have had it in the house all of December. Presents kept appearing under the tree, awaiting the arrival of my son and sister. They left Philadelphia on Wednesday night at 9 o'clock and drove until reaching VA before stopping for the night. Thursday the traffic was stop and go (mostly stop) all the way through the Carolinas, so they arrived at our home at 10:30 Thursday night.

 Saturday we spent the day getting meals ready and doing some last minute shopping and then decided to have dinner and open presents. We have never opened presents on Christmas Eve before. That is not a real fireplace behind my sister it was on Netflix.

 I was able to hide this box from Larry all month with help from friends storing it at their house until he went golfing one day and then a friend helped me get it to our house. I wrapped it and put it in the corner of this room with an afghan over it and the rocker in front of it. He never saw it since it is not a room he goes into often. It is a new desk chair.

 Christmas we all went to church at 10:00 and then we drove to Gainsville about 90 miles north to the Paynes Prairie Preserve to see alligators in the wild. Larry and I had been here when we did a project in Gainsville a few years ago.

 Bob loves seeing alligators when he is in Florida. Do you see the one he is taking a picture of?

 Look at all of  them on the other bank. We must have seen over 100.

Also so lots of birds.

 Unfortunately the alligator saw this bird too. It amazes me not more end up this way.

 At the end of our mile and 1/2 walk down the trail there were thousands of sand hill cranes. At least it sounded like a thousand.

 Lynda and Bob walking down the trail. The rainbow in the sky and then it started raining. We were a little wet by the time we reached the car. We then had a tail gate meal of shrimp, cheese, crackers and hummus that I had brought along for our Christmas day lunch.  We toured the Villages on our way home and then I made Christmas dinner. I had cooked the turkey on Friday. After dinner we played a game, so it was a very different and enjoyable Christmas Day with family.

 Monday we went over to Disney in the evening and road the monorail to the Contemporary Hotel where we could watch the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom. Bob takes great pictures with his phone. That is space mountain in the background.

 The castle, sorry no pictures of the fireworks but they were beautiful.

Bob and Lynda left on Tuesday morning and drove straight home arriving at 1:45 on Wednesday morning, 16 hours later. It was a great visit and glad they came down.

CHRISTMAS HAPPENINGS.

 Our church Christmas program was as beautiful as ever.  Our neighbors went with us and then we had a nice meal at Wallace Grill in Clermont.
The week before we kicked off the Christmas season by walking in the parade with our church's Celebrate Recovery float and going to Montverde Academy's program of Carols and Lessons.

  Last week we went to Epcot to have dinner and see the candlelight procession.

 The weather was perfect, even had a full moon that night.

 We ate a buffet meal at Germany.

 There was even entertainment during the meal.

 The Candlelight Procession is a very beautiful presentation of the Christmas story.

 Robby Benson was the guest narrator. (he was the voice of the Beast in Beauty and the Beast)

 The whole program was signed. It was a very impressive evening.

Susan and Bill came by for a visit when they were staying at Disney. I taught with Susan and she is now retired. It was nice seeing them and showing them our house in Florida. Glad to have friends stopping in.

NOVEMBER BLESSINGS

 All of November I have been going over to Thousand Trails and teaching line dancing. Slowly other instructors and dancers are showing up . Bruce is teaching this dance. Since TT wasn't having any Thanksgiving celebration I opened my house to all the dancers, some neighbors and friends from church for a turkey dinner. There was 13 of us. We had a good time getting to know each other a little better.

ALLIGATOR CROSSING

 There has been concern about cars speeding by our homes since they put the houses in at the end of our development, so a stop sign was put up in front of our house.  It is not a cross road so since there is no reason to stop I put up the alligator crossing sign. There is a pond in the front and behind our house and an alligator has been known to go between them.

So after much protest the sign was removed and three speed tables were installed along the road. Guess the alligator will have to cross on his own now.

PERFORMING ART CENTER

 We enjoyed seeing this comedy show at the Black box theater at the Performing Arts Center.

There was a craft fair in Clermont last Saturday. The Performing Arts Center had a booth so I filled out a entry to win tickets to see Defying Gravity. I wasn't sure what the show was about and if we wanted to go. Surprise! I got a call on Sunday that the person whose name had been drawn was unable to attend and  mine had been the next name drawn. Going for free sounded good to me (seats were $65) and we didn't have any other plans. It was an interesting show with Stephen Schwartz playing the piano and singing some of the songs from the musicals  which he had composed the music and lyrics. Scott Coulter, Debbie Gravite, and Michael Mccorry Rose also sang some of his songs from Wicked, the Baker's wife, Working and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

WHAT A WEEK!

I can't believe that it was less then a week ago when we left Lancaster to come to Florida. We left Circle M campground at 6:30 Saturday morning.  We wanted to get an early start, so we could get around Baltimore and Washington before there was too much traffic. As we were hooking up the car I asked Larry if he had seen Godiva. She always finds a place to  hide when we travel, but when I looked around I didn't see her any where. Larry said she hadn't gotten out and must be somewhere in the RV, so away we drove. A little while later and almost to Baltimore we get a phone call from the man who had been parked behind us that they had our cat. Larry found a place to park the RV, we unhooked the car and I drove back to Lancaster for her. Two hours later we were on our way again, so much for an early start.Luckily we didn't have any real traffic problems. We made it to our house Monday afternoon.

 One lucky cat to be in her house in  Florida.

Tuesday we unpacked the RV, I went swimming and Larry played golf. Wednesday we did a little grocery shopping and filled up the car. The stores were packed and long lines at the gas stations and for propane. All getting prepared for the hurricane. We felt very lucky with a sturdy house to be in, and with the RV there is lots of water and the generator if we lost power and needed it. Thursday we listened to the TV and all the warnings about Matthew, Even Disney closed at 5 and wouldn't be open on Friday. We are close to Disney but about 90 miles inland from Daytona. We got rain and wind in the evening and through the night, but we never lost power and had no damage. Picture of our house Friday afternoon. I am glad most people listened to the warnings and the storm hasn't done the damage they were expecting.

FAMILY TIME

 We enjoyed our week in Branson with Lynda. We stopped at Wolfie's campground in Zaneville, Ohio on the way home. Playing a bean bag toss game together was good exercise after a long drive.

 Grandpa holding the newest member of the Bush family.

 Averie Violet Bush was born September 13, weighing in at 8 lbs 6 oz 20 inches long.. She is a beauty.

 We watched our grandson play football on Saturday. Chase is #58. He was on the field most of the game.

 Since the weather has turned much cooler it was a perfect night for a chili, hot dogs and a campfire. Mark and Danielle

Chase, Brian,Irena, Brady and Dorothy.

 We celebrated Ashtyn's 2nd birthday a few days early.

 Daddy helped blow out the candles.

 She enjoyed every bite.

 Then there was a bag of presents to open.

 Some clothes

 and some books for the reader.

 We kept Ashtyn overnight, she is a delight to have visit and we will miss seeing her.

My turn to hold Averie and it hard to think of how much she will have grown when we see her next summer.

FUN TIME

 Tuesday afternoon this Phaeton pulled into the site across from where we are parked. When we saw who it was we were so excited for it was Joyce and Ken. They were part of our Blue Heron camping group from Florida. We had a good visit with an evening of dinner and cards. Unfortunately they only had reservations here till Friday and since it was Labor Day weekend the campground is full so they were unable to extend.

This is a very family friendly and active park. Saturday night there was a good country band and we did some dancing. Sunday evening they had a DJ outside, the kids were enjoying it.

 Then at 8:30 there was the launching of Chinese lanterns. They sold them at the office for $2.00

 When you opened it up there were strings on the bottom with a little piece of cardboard soaked with wax so it would burn.

 Larry lit the cardboard and waited for the air inside the lantern to heat up.

 Ready for the lantern to take flight.

 Up, up and away.

The sky was filled with a 100 of floating lanterns. It was quite a sight.