BEAUTIFUL WINDOWS

 At the Matecumbe Methodist church they have a stained glass ministry. This was the only stained glass  window in the church when it started. If you have ever seen the Netflix show Blood Lines you may recognize it. All of the other windows in the church were gold glass. Susan Bateman did stain glass and she hated the gold glass so much she thought about  going to a different church.  Each week she talked to Jesus about it. Finally felt lead to do something about the windows and offered to teach a class in her home and put stained glass in the doors. That was in 2000 and it has grown into a  mission, putting stained glass in all the windows and raising over $25,000 for the church. They have a room in the Fellowship hall where they meet and teach stained glass twice a week. 

 Some of the windows.

 The lights are kept on at night inside the church so you can see the beautiful windows.

 At day inside the church.

 The front of the church.

 One of the panels in the front of the church has a picture of the original building. When the current church was built this building was moved down the road and is used by the Baptist.

 This is on the end of the Fellowship hall.

And this is call Easter Sunrise and now hangs in my home.

HURRICANE DAMAGE

 Saturday morning Barry and Mary took us all out for breakfast at Robbie's.

 Barry and Mary had a Bloody Mary.

 Larry had the special bloody Mary, it had a shrimp, meat stick, stuffed olives- one with a pickle, and bacon.

 The roof was covered with dollars.

 We then went to Curry Hammock State park. It has a nice 28 site campground right on the ocean.  We took a walk along the beach, Larry saw a school of little fish.

 We watched some guys set up their kites to do kite surfing.

 We waited for them to go out but the wind wasn't strong enough.

 We stopped at Herbie's for lunch. I had conch fritters, not my favorite.

 We stopped at Coco Plum beach, a free beach you can walk on for a mile. We found shells, and coral.

 We then drove around and saw some of the damage from Irma. This is in Marathon.

 4 months later and lot of work still needs to be done.

 There is a lot of debris along the side of the road.

 Getting the debris cleaned up.

 A boat on the side of the road.

 This boat yard was destroyed.

 Friday we took a walk around the town by the church. This is Ron and Carol's hurricane house. Floor, ceiling, and walls are all cement 12 to 18 inches thick.

The plaque by their house.

SATURDAYS EXPLORATION

 We have spent the week working at Islamorada in the Keys. so we decided to learn more about the coral reefs.

 We took a nice ranger guided tour.  We had walked by this tree and never saw the tree snail until the ranger spotted it.

 The hammock is in shock from the hurricane.  All of the leaves were stripped from the trees during the storm and many of the branches got broken. The state park does not cleanup after the storm and lets the branches decay to form soil. 

 The red bark tree is the gumbo limbo tree, the wood is very soft. The tree on the left is ironwood and very dense and hard.

 This is poisonwood, if you touch the leaves or sap in a few days you have a rash worse then poison ivy.

the leaves of the poisonwood.

 Henry Flagler started constructed the Overseas railroad in 1905. He quarried the coral from here to form the bed of the railroad.

 He dynamited the coral, forming these lines.

 In the Windley quarry blocks were cut off to be used on buildings.

 Large blocks of coral that were cut. Larry is walking on coral. Billions of years ago this land was covered with 30 feet of water. The glaciers caused the water to drop. the Keys are formed of fossilized coral.

 Walking on all kinds of fossilized coral.

 The walls of the quarries

 We saw a large iguana in the tree.

 The coral used on the educational building.

 We then drove 30 miles down the Keys, passing a lot of damage from the hurricane. We stopped at the Sunset Grille to watch the sunset.

 It was too cool to eat outside, about 60, but breezy.

 Clouds covered the sunset.

We had a good meal,  a tall drink, and watched the Eagle game. It was a very enjoyable day.

POLAR EXPRESS

 Saturday evening we took a quick trip into Hollywood Studio to see their Christmas shows and fireworks before we headed north.

 It is clever how they projected the pictures onto the Tower of Terror.
Christmas Eve we had a service at church and a visit with neighbors before we took off to Philadelphia on Christmas Day. Our flight left at 10:00am and we were at my sister by 1:00 wrapping gifts we had sent to her house. It was an uneventful trip.

 We then celebrated Christmas gift opening with my son and sister. We had a great Christmas dinner and enjoyed a quick visit with them.

 Tuesday we rented a car and went to visit Mystique and her family in York. They weren't celebrating Santa arrival until Wednesday when everyone  in the house had off.

 The girls opened our presents.

 I had given Averie and Ashtyn a piggy bank for their 1st birthdays, so I gave Alivia one for Christmas.

 Averie liked playing in the box.

 We gave Mystique hedgehog mittens, she is an animal lover. With temperatures in the teens mittens are needed.

 Other then celebrating Christmas with the family we went to PA to meet our new grandson, Hunter Mathias Bush.

 He is two months old January 3.

 I let grandpa hold him for a little while.

 Eric is a proud papa. A son at last.

 His three lovely daughters. Mystique and Eric are great parents.

 It is hard to say good-bye. We even went back on  Friday for a quick visit.

 When we weren't at my sister's we stayed in Lancaster at Brian's and Dorothy's. Chase and Brady got high power flashlights from Grandpa. 

 Family picture, Coda two years older but  still full of energy.

 Two Dorothys between the guys. Larry, Chase,Brian and Brady.

 Irena and Brady got engaged this summer.

I had a bone density test, a mammogram and my hair done. We went out to dinner with Brian and Dorothy and had lunch with Mark and Danielle.We visited Larry's brother and two sisters, and spent some time at Mark's and Danielle's. It was a busy trip.
We woke up Saturday morning to two inches of snow and still snowing.  We left at 6:30 so we could get the rental back  near Philadelphia by 9. Glad Larry was driving, it has been awhile since we have been in snow. It sure looked pretty. We made it to the car rental just in time.
 We spent until January 2 at my sister's. I would have gone into Philadelphia on New Years day to see the Mummers parade but it was too cold! I watched it on TV. I miss seeing it each year.
We left Philadelphia at 6:30pm  and arrived back at Orlando at 9. We were ready for some warm sunny weather but it has been almost freezing and rainy here the last two days. But then it is winter.