GUN SAFETY

 On Friday I took a gun safety course. Another woman and I went to the instructors house in Fruitland Park in the morning and then to the Eustis Gun Club to practice in the afternoon. It turned out that the other woman lives up the street in my development, but we had never met before.

My shots are the body shots. I fired a 22 handgun for the little holes and a Smith and Wesson Shield for the bigger holes. I liked the handgun.

ZOO AT NIGHT

Sharon has shared pictures on Face book about this event and said it was worth going to see. So Sunday after church we ordered our tickets online and drove over to Sanford to the Zoo for the Asian Lantern Festival. The animals in the pictures that follow are all made of silk and painted. It took a team of 30 from China since May to create all the displays.

 This was so big I couldn't get the whole thing in my picture.

 The giraffe had been near the real giraffes in the zoo and the real giraffe broke their fence trying to reach them, so they had to move this display.

 There was a sign beside each exhibit about the animal.

 Larry smelling the flowers.

 He also tried to feed the kangaroos.

 The pictures don't do justice to the beautiful colors and details. There is a baby in her pouch.

 Larry took lots of pictures too, along with everyone else.

 We tried to take a few selfies.

 This dragon was huge,

 and very long.

 There must have been over 200 of these lanterns.

 Not just one flamingo but the whole flock.

 The swan's reflection in the pond.

 Selfie attempt again. Notice I had a coat on because it was a beautiful clear night but the temperature was 48.

 Can you see the bug on the  lizard's tongue?

 There was a whole lot of these flowers.

 A little sea life.

A different light show, sorry we didn't go when you were here Lynda.

TRIP NORTH

I love my new 7'5 foot prelit Christmas tree I put up this year. We got it on sale last year from Lowe's. We had a nice party with our neighbors on Saturday.
 We left our house on Christmas morning at 4:00 and went to the airport. Our plane left at 6:50. 

We were at my sister's at 9:30 a.m.. Many of our gifts had been sent there so we wrapped them, had breakfast and then opened the presents

 with Bob and Lynda.

Thursday Lynda took us to Exton and we had breakfast with our grandsons, Brady and Chase. Brady told us he had just gotten hired for a full time social studies teaching position in Columbia,PA, and that Irena and he would be married on May 23rd.  Chase had finished his first semester at West Virginia University. We are so proud of both of them.
Friday we rented a car and went to Brian's and Dorothy's. That evening was a nice party at Dorothy's sister's.

 Saturday we visited Mystique and her family. That is the kitten that kept us busy this summer.

 There gift to the children this year was a dog. It is a Belgium Malinois. Her name is Mali.

 Mystique is working on training it.

 Mystique painted the faces on these big dolls they had made. There are four, one for each of them.

 Ashtyn with her doll.

 They can play together.

 It was a beautiful warm day for December 28th.

 They played outside all day.

 Eric had to work so when he came home we had a delicious dinner then opened presents.

 Hunter opened his boxes first.

 He loves dinosaurs.

 Ashtyn and Howie got puppets.

 Alivia got a Light up easel. She is really becoming a good artist.

Howie enjoyed playing with a dinosaur.  We had a really nice visit with the family.
Unfortunately our plans to see Mark on Sunday didn't work out.

We left to come back to Florida on December 31 at 4;50 in the afternoon.
 We arrived at our house at 8:00 and at 8:30 we were at Thousand Trails for a good New Year's Eve party.