Mardi Gras

Who says old people don't know how to have fun??? Yesterday we had the beginning of the park's Mardi Gras celebration which goes for five days. The whole night was hilarious and fun.

Friday night we had spaghetti dinner and chocolate cup cakes for dessert, instead of the traditional "King's Cake". There were two plastic babies inserted in two of the cup cakes. This determined the King and Queen. Here are the corp of trumpets announcing the arrival of the King and Queen.

After retiring to change into their royal garb, here the King and Queen are being inducted by the Court Jester.

The band was called North Wind and the drums and bass are made of five gallon buckets - very inventive.

One of the men in the band also makes beautiful binjos and mandalins from large cookie tins. Aren't they something?

The best part of the night were the skits. Oh, my the skit writers were very creative. The theme for this year was 1950 sit-coms. The theme music for each sitcom would start and the actors would lipsink the words or perform a short skit from the show. So this is what we saw.
Singing along are Edith and Archie Bunker.
The Golden Girls were also there with a funny ditty!

Green Acres folk - Oliver and Lisa Douglas - singing the theme song.

This lady danced around the stage to the music of Mr. Ed. Fun-n-n-ny!

Here's Dot dressed up like a Moon Pie - now what is that connection to Mardi Gras? Don't know, but I sure do like Moon Pies with an RC Cola, of course! Anyone else use to enjoy that delicious snack eaten in the south?

Lesle and I got recruited to help out on one of the skits. It was for Lucy and Ethel and the Candy Factory bit with the chocolates running along a conveyor belt faster than they could handle. Well, here is Lesle and I being the conveyor belts - that's a roll of toilet paper Lesle is pulling across the table with me putting candy kisses on the "conveyor belt". Then we threw the kisses into the audience. So much fun!

The band played and we all started throwing Mardi Gras beads into the crowd, danced around the hall in a congo line, laughed, giggled, and had a marvelous time.
We all had a wonderful time and everyone were very energenic, lively and happy. What a great evening!!!!

Lambert's in Foley

We had a fun time yesterday with Bill, Lesle, Jim and I went to lunch at Lambert's - Home of the Throwed Rolls, in nearby Foley. The side of the building has a massive mural of the owner and family.

It is a fun place to eat with humorous wait staff.

Everyone sits at booths with the name of the restaurant and Est. 1942 - the year I was born.

The food is very good and plentiful. Lesle and I had the plateful of fried chicken wings ($10.99). They were from huge chickens because one wing was as big as your hand, but very, very tasty. Bill and Jim had 1/2 pound burgers ($8.99). You get side dishes like beets, sweet potatoes, cucumbers with onions, fries, applesauce, etc. Then the wait staff comes around with "pass ons" that are bowls or potfuls of other items you add to your plate like potatoes and onions, macs and tomatoes, black eyed peas, white beans, etc.

Then of course, they have "throwed" rolls. This is what Lambert's is known for because the wait staff throw the rolls to the customers, some times from across the room. They are very good at it also. I just couldn't get a photo of the roll in the air....sorry.

They play practical jokes on you by pretending to refill iced tea and "spill it" on you from a trick pitcher; act like they are serving you a pass-on and there is a stuffed possum in the pot; have a plate of "food" they accidently spill on you. It is all so impromtu that I couldn't get a photo of them...they do it and then are gone. It is all for a good laugh and we accommodated them!

As you leave the restaurant you go through their gift store. They have tee shirts, postcards, etc. I did take a photo of the funniest thing in there.

So here is the "hillbilly 'brief' case" - yes, it is a tidy whiteys!!! Hilarious!!!

We continued to drive towards Gulf Shores and enjoyed a view of the Gulf of Mexico. We traveled along the coast to see all the colorfully painted condos and houses.

Driving back home we stopped at Books A Million and I bought the latest edition of Fons and Porter's Love of Knitting magazine. If you are a knitter you will enjoy this quarterly magazine. The patterns are very contemporary and doable. I really like it as much as Creative Knitting magazine.

As we drove back to the park we stopped in Foley at Stacey's Rexall Drug Store with an old time soda fountain. They have 10 cent coffee still, that you serve yourself, a jukebox with 50's music on 45 vinyl records, and a one scoop ice cream that it actually 2 1/2 regular scoops for $1.50. Bill had a Key Lime milk shake and he watched as they actually used two fresh Key Limes in it.

We had a great day with friends, good food, many laughs - it was a good day!

Remember - you are loved!

Craft Day

Yesterday I had a full day of crafts. I joined the knitting group at 10:30 am who were all working on their individual projects; there were 12 ladies around the table. There was a wonderful woman named Gretchen who is a certified master knitter who walked around the table helping each person with their problems. It was an excellent chance to ask all those nagging knitting questions. Most of the ladies were pretty new to knitting like me, with two gals just learning how. One lady was beaming with pride as she just learned how to purl that morning!

After lunch I went to the crocheting group of about 10 ladies. These ladies are very ingenious recycling plastic bags and old tee shirts. Those plastic bags are becoming wine bottle holders, purses, and shopping bags. The tee shirts are cut into strips and crocheted into rugs. This group is certainly doing their part in recycling.

Many of you know Jim and I use purchased store bags to use for shopping and try not to use plastic bags. I give whatever plastic bags we do get to owners of big dogs for obvious reasons. So I only had 4-5 bags to cut up in a cleaver way. You fold up the bag, cut off the handle and bottoms ends, leave free the side fold and cut into the piled up folds at 1.5 inch intervals. Then when you open it up you can off-set cut the strips into one long strip about 10-12 yards long - much like quilters make bias binding for quilt edges. I was really surprised you could get 12 yards of strips from one Walmart plastic bag. It takes 15 bags to make a medium size shopping bag so I may have to get a few more bags!

Being a fulltime rver really is an advantage to crocheting these recycled bags as we go to different cities and areas of the country, so we can find different colored bags at different stores. It is a real prize to find colored plastic bags to add an edging for detail to a shopping bag, since most of what we find are white bags with colored printing on them. Oh, well, another thing to start saving.

Remember - you are loved!

Valentine's Day-Alabama-and beyond

We had a nice Valentine's Day here in Summerdale, Alabama. It was rainy, but OK.

The park put on a huge dinner and dance.

We sat with Lesle and Bill.

There were about 200 people there - mostly in red and pretty. There was a live band called "Vintage Vagabands" - two couples from the park - they were very good.

The band played 40s music which I loved.

Surprisingly, many people danced to most of the music. We had a good time, danced a little and went home.

Today, Sunday, Feb. 15, we got to move to a regular site, a bit behind Bill and Lesle. Jim hurriedly got the satellite up so we could watch the Daytona 500 - the start of the racing season. I took advantage of having all the carpets up from moving to do a thorough vacuuming. I ended up moving the recliners, all the dining chairs, polishing and cleaning. It took about two hours, but it sure feels good to know it is done. Jim is using Liquid Gold on all the wood in the rig. It is a big job as we have so much wood, but he is doing a little at a time - eating that elephant a little at a time!

Plantation Park is having their annual Mardi Gras celebration starting next Friday through Fat Tuesday. They have a parade here in the park, several meals, a king and queen, music and skits several nights. It is a big deal. We are going to sign up for the package tickets for all the meals for $18 a person...good deal.

Tomorrow Lesle and I will start attending the various classes they have here at the park. Lesle is going to a digital photography class tomorrow morning and I'm going to a knitting group. We're both excited!

Remember - you are loved!

Summerdale, Alabama

We made it from Reddick, Florida, to Summerdale, Alabama, in one long day of driving. It took 7.5 hours but it was an easy drive. It was clear and dry all the way....all the way until we checked in at the office of this Escapees park. THEN it began to rain. The park is full so we are in dry camp mode until they apply the "first in first out" rule.

We set up in the rain, went to the happy hour and learned about all the many and varied activities this park has. They have so many things to do I'll probably not have time to read - although they have a very nice library here. They have knitting, beading, quilting, pine needle basket weaving, crocheting, woodcarving, wall st. watchers, computer club, gentle exercise class, line dancing, etc. These are all separate classes and gatherings. They even have a group that flies kits most days. There are breakfasts, dining out, and dinners every week, along with the usual bingo, card night, 4 o'clock social hour and ice cream on Sundays. We are going to their Valentine's dinner and dance tonight.

We drove to Foley for dinner, and retired to listen to the rain; and listen; and listen. It rained all night and will again today, tonight and tomorrow day. We are actually in a flood warning right now, but we can still see the ground, so I guess we are ok.

I'm using the battery on the computer to type this post. So if you don't hear from me for a couple of days don't worry. I'm either too busy with one activity or the other, or we don't have the generator going to charge the computer battery. With this weather we don't want the park to move someone so we can get into their spot....we'll just wait it out.

Remember, you are loved.

Reddick, Florida

Just a note to let everyone know we arrived safely in Reddick - a long 60 miles drive from Bushnell :)

We had a wonderful time in Micanopy (Mick-an-opy) yesterday which is a cute, rural town a little north of here. It is were the movie "Doc Hollywood" with Michael J. Fox was actually filmed. Photos tomorrow I hope.

Today we went to Mount Dora which is another charming town with many cute shops to poke around in. Photos tomorrow I hope.

Here is a photo of the "cheat panel" wallhanging I was working on for the Alamosa Fire Department. I just added the "keyboard" border to the sides. The top is finished but I need to quilt it now. I'll wait till I get back to Alamosa and use the local quilt store to quilt it.

Also here is a new photo of our puppies (6 years old now) for all their fans. There are actually a couple of ladies out there that are pretty much in love with Chorizo (or Weenie as Molly calls him). That's Chorizo on the top laying on top of Poncho. Pretty cute, huh?

Too tired to add all the text and photos of the last two days, but I will get to it. We'll leave here on Friday and probably drive the 400 miles straight through to Summerdale, Alabama. But if the guys get tired we will stop.

Remember, you are loved!

Lasagna and Birthday Party

Last Sunday, Feb 8, we started off the day by going to Webster's Flea Market for produce. We got some wonderful egg plant, green beans, peppers and a half a flat of strawberries. I will miss all the fresh produce when we leave Florida this week. Next we drove to a nearby citrus grove and got a quarter bushel of mixed fruit with red grapefruits, navel oranges, tangelos and honeybells. It was so much fun to pick your own out of the bins as they came right out of the adjoining groves.

Paul and Connie graciously invited the Class of 2007 to their new home in Ocala for a lasagna dinner. It was the largest pan of lasagna I've ever seen! Connie said it just fit in her new oven sideways. That pan fed 14 of us with each couple taking home a serving.

Connie outdid herself with this fabulous meal. Then to celebrate Molly's "39th" birthday Connie made an amazingly delicious red velvet cake. It rose a lot in the middle and kind of formed a dome, so we named it the "booby" cake. But then someone added a grape in the middle, so it became "the nipple" cake.

After dinner Molly started cleaning up and got down to wipe up the floor, then she rose up in a yoga posture and I got the shot!

Happy, happy birthday, Molly. We have been honored to be with you for your last two birthday parties....covering nearly both sides of the country. Last year in Arizona and this year in Florida....we do travel a bit don't we.

It was a fun evening and we wish Paul and Connie all the best in their new home without wheels. Hope to see you on the road again some summer.

Remember - you are loved!

Lazy Day

Yesterday was a lazy day without much going on. Jim made a late breakfast and it started getting warm. We have been blanketed with cold and or wet weather for the last couple of weeks. Been filling up that old propane tank a lot lately. Luckily there is a place in town that only charges $15 for the 30 pound tank.

Oh, here is a picture of Jim watching the tv show "Chuck" with those 3-D glasses the Monday after Super Bowl. Isn't he cute? I remember going to the movies in the 50s to see early 3-D movies. Only then the glasses had one red lense and the other was green to get the 3-D affect. At this year's Super Bowl they had that 3-D commercial and without the glasses you couldn't tell any difference. In the "old days" without the special glasses you saw two distinct images - one outlined in green and one outlined in red. It was pretty funny looking. I started knitting a hat for a chemo patient that goes to the same place for treatment as my buddy, Lory Sanchez. For my knitting friends it is made of Lamb's Pride yarn in a varigated of browns and blacks. So I went outside and knitted under the awning and read some in a mystery book. Our neighbors, Dick and Carol were out and about so we kibbets with them some while Dick cleaned the roof of his MH (motorhome).

The sunscreen DEFROSTED finally and we needed it with temps up to 76 degrees. I got rosie shoulders and neck. THIS is what we came to Florida for - glorious warm weather.

For dinner we grilled some red snapper and Gulf shrimp. That along with a baked potato for Jim and baked sweet potato for me topped with a salad was rather fine. I coaxed Jim to drive to town for ice cream and I made some cookies - made with a cake mix. I added oatmeal, chocolate chips, nuts, and raisins to make them healthy :) Yummy, folks.

Bedtime was early for some reason and here we are up at 4 am to start another day. Today is our last day here in Bushnell as we are moving up to the Ocala area tomorrow for a week. Today being Monday we will go to the famous Webster Flea Market for some fresh produce. Then we'll go to a open house and dinner in Ocala with our friends, Paul and Connie who bought a "sticks and bricks" and will be reverse snowbirds by living in Ocala for the winter and travel in the summer to somewhere cooler. We will miss them on the road!!!

Well, that is our news. So what have you been up to lately?
Remember - you are loved!

Amazon.com reunion plus

We had a fun day today getting together with two couples we worked with at Amazon.com plus our neighbors.

Bill and Lesle are parked behind us here at Sumter Oaks in Bushnell; Linda B and Linda S are staying at The Oaks in Bushnell. We had all the Amazon.com departments covered with Jim from Receiving, me from Stowing, the Two Lindas were both Pickers and Lesle and Bill from Shipping.

We planned a snack and chat time today. Lesle brought delicious homemade guacamole and the Two Lindas (which is what we call them) brought a homemade, fantastic chocolate bundt cake with fresh raspberries - oh, my it was to die for. We decided to call it a Brownie Cake it was so dense and moist. They promised to send us the recipe.

Now isn't this the cutest photo of Linda B with Chorizo just lapping up the attention he is getting.

As you can see the weather was wonderful. Started the day off with thick fog and temps was 35 and humid. We bundled up to walk the dogs and when I went to wash clothes. But then we changed into shorts and tee shirts. I would have used the sunscreen, but it had to defrost first from being left outside last night :)

We enjoyed having our neighbors, Dick and Carol join us for the afternoon, with Dick keeping us laughing.

We concluded the evening with us going out to dinner with Bill and Lesle at Cracker Barrel - rvers favorite restaurant.

Tonight we are watching NASCAR Budweiser Shoot Out race on Fox. It is the start of the race season, which both Jim and I enjoy watching on Sundays.

Talk with you later - remember you are loved.

Big full day

I had a big full day today. Started off going to Dunnellon, an hour's drive north of here, with three friends for a Girls Day Out. We wanted to go to a bead shop there, but it was closed. We did make the Stitch Niche which is a cute house that has a different shop in each room. So you have the quilt shop, yarn shop, embroidery shop and then the book store. Very clever idea and very nice.

Right across the street was the Grumble House Antiques. Oh, my! This was a happening. The house is beautiful with wonderful woods, banister, windows.

Then each room is chuck full of stuff!!!

Even the working bathroom is a place to sell merchandise. Very cute.

We hit the local thrift store benefiting Habitat for Humanity, which was a lot of fun. Everything was labeled and sorted - very organized. We really liked it.

As we went around a corner I saw this statue of the Blue Brothers - life size even. It stands in front of a motel...
Next we went to lunch in a really nice restaurant called The Front Porch.

I had a Cuban sandwich which is much like a panni that has sliced pork road, ham, salami, swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles. Then it is pressed on a grill and flattened. It came with a cup of Spanish bean soup. It was yummy. Then we all too advantage of the speciality of the house homemade pies!!! Here is Kitty, me, Kathy and Lee with coconut cream pie and real, real key lime pie. Sing along with me now, "heaven, I'm in heaven".

We got home in time to go to Stitch and Discuss :). Now take a look at all the different types of hobbies going on. Most of the ladies bead, but then there is hardinger - a form of cross stitch on linen using yarn, quilting and knitting.

My friend Kitty is knitting these amulets using 000 knitting needles - very thin metal needles, using #8 Pearl thread. It is very intricate. She does beautiful work. This amulet is small - like two inches wide by an inch high. Now look at these pendants that Betty beads. They are pictures but made entirely out of stringing beads. Look closely and you can see the individual beads of different colors.....amazing work!
Here is a sample of hardinger cross stitch. It is very pretty and are used as throws

Now you would think that would be enough of a day to call it quits - right? Nope - several rvers in the park went to dinner last night at a Chinese buffet in Brooksville. So I mentioned it to Jim and he said "I'm in". So we rustled up our buddies Lesle and Bill and off we went to Brooksville for dinner. Oh, my goodness, Buffet City was the best! They had nine food stations, along with a sushi bar and a Mongolian grill. They had roast beef, pizza, mashed potatoes and gravy along with all the usual Chinese buffet dishes. But they had six soup choices and I chose Miso Soup....yummy. They had some very different foods like raw oysters on the half shell, clams and mussels in the shell, and baby octopus or was it squid? He's Bill with his delicacy and the serving dish full of them.

For $10.99 each we certainly got our money's worth. Buffet City was exceptionally clean and the food hot and tasty. I wish we knew about this place earlier so we could go there again. But we are moving on Tuesday so we'll have to wait till our next trip to Florida.

I had a full, wonderful day - it was great.

Remember - you are loved!!!