It's a never ending circus ride.....The faint of heart need not apply!

I decided I might just as well try to get some more posting done....there will be no sleep anyway as I wait to hear from Mike on what the diagnosis is on our oldest granddaughter Sarah. While snowboarding this afternoon she took a very serious tumble and is in the hospital awaiting the results of a cat scan. They have a catheter on her and are trying to figure the source of the blood in her urine. The concern is that she may have done some damage to her kidney.

We recently received this picture of Betty and Emma on the snowmobile....brrrrrr. They are loving it, but I personally have no desire to go back to the snow and cold. Whoops, since I posted this little blurb, The weather has taken a turn for the worse and they are no longer enjoying it. Betty says "only 11 weeks until vacation and they meet us in Myrtle Beach....thank God!"

Oh yes, and speaking of receiving pictures, my brother (Joe) with the oh so black sense of humor, sent this one along.....If you don't recognize the young lady, it is none other than Chelsea Clinton standing beside my nephew Joseph. My brother sent it with the message "I always thought Joseph might be a closet Democrat". How long do you think it took me to get on the phone and clear up that little matter????? It seems Joseph and several and his friends were in New Hampsire for the primary (school credit) and saw Chelsea walking by the diner where they were having lunch. The boys went out and asked for a picture. I guess we can forgive teenage boys having a little fun......

New update (it's now 2 days later). Sarah was taken to the hospital. She had blood in her urine so they put a catheater in to collect urine for analysis....also did cat scan. No answers(surprise, surprise). She was to go back in today for more tests. Waiting to hear. In the meantime, when Mike and Rob got back to the house on Saturday night, they opened the garage door and out gushed the water....their cellar and garage were flooded from all the rain coming down the mountain. Took hours to be able to find pumps to get pumped out. Tons of stuff ruined. Those poor kids have had nothing but bad luck since they moved to that state. They are moving back to VA Beach as soon as the kids get out of school. We can't wait to get them closer to home. The move out there was a HUGE mistake. Oh well, they are young and have their health...they will get back on their feet.

There have been so many activities going on at the resort I have missed posting many of them. Here are a couple of pictres from the picnic held last week. This is one of our friends who had the title of youngest in the resort until Salt moved in and took her title.

The couple of the middle (Diane and Dave Kone) are from Ithaca, NY.

We were out at the flea market today and I couldn't help thinking about how much fun it would be to have my brother George and his wife Cheryl there. There are just tons of antiques in the one section (very expensive) and booth after booth of everything at the flea market. Cheryl you would be in the "dish" section for 2 days. George could even get some goats and chickens for his new farm. Check out the gal selling the chickens.....Salt was afraid she would start shaking some chicken bones and put a hex on him. These flea markets are huge and you never know what you will find!!

Last night we attended a concert at the club house.... gospel singers .. a really upbeat couple who played all kinds of instruments and told the greatest jokes. Their 2 1/2 year old son came up and sang with them. What a hoot, he told his father not to start until he tuned his uke.
What an uplifting experience. I had been grieving the losss of Frank all week. When I came out of the concert I was at peace with his passing. Their beautiful music and lyrics made me realize that Frank is at peace and in a very good place.

The Foresters For the first time since we have settled in Umatilla, we finally had company over for a home cooked meal. We had picked up some eggplant at the market so I threw together a parmigan and entertained our friends from Ithaca. After dinner we went to Bingo....I had a $40 win so that made my evening!!

It is now Friday....again. Which means this post has been sitting for a whole week...unfinished.

First of all, Sarah is doing fine. She is back in school and they are keeping an eye on her. Tonight was Salt's night to win at Bingo....$67.00!

Tomorrow is Mardi Gras and Sunday Superbowl party. Hopefully I will be able to get the pictures posted before we leave on Thursday for The Bahamas.

I got my game on.....

Finally... a 159 in bowling yesterday. It has been over 30 years since I have been on a bowling league. Salt and I both started bowling with the gang from the resort a couple of weeks ago. The first two weeks I prayed to break 100. When I quit trying so hard, I seemed to get my groove back. We are having more fun with the activities here ...we love the way they are organized. We don't bowl on teams....every week you are on a different lane with different people. It's a great way to meet new people and really takes the pressure off not having to compete as a team.

Friday night is also our big "Bingo" night....I have yet to win but Salt is keeping us in "Bingo money". I did manage to pick a $15 horse which will at least let me play again next week without having to ask Salt for money...ha ha! If anyone had ever told us we would be having so much fun on Bingo night we would have thought them insane. This group is CRAZY!!

Check out our open market....we go here for our fresh fruits and vegetables.

We are headed out tomorrow for one of the huge flea markets http://www.renningers.com/ . We talked to a gentlemen there who takes copies of pictures and puts them on canvas. They look like an oil painting and very reasonably priced....$25 for a 11 x 14. We are going to have our family picture from Disney done this way. We'll see how we like it and if it "works" for us we will have them made for the kids. I love this picture....even though we had been up for 14 hours and spent 12 of them running around Disney, everyone looked so happy!

Here are a couple of pictures from today's picnic. Everyone brought a dish to pass (Grindstone style) and cooked hot dogs over the open fire. From there we took off for a shopping trip to find our "costumes" for Mardi Gras to be held next Saturday night. You will all have to check back to see pics of Salt in his "pimp" outfit. We were in this second hand store and this elderly, very sophisticated woman asked if she could help us. I told her I wanted to "pimp my husband". She never blinked and said, "oh....I have a real pimp outfit in the other room". Well, after laughing ourselves to tears, our friends and I convinced Salt it was PERFECT for him. ...and, YES...there will be pictures posted after the party!!

This is a friend from Wisconsin....she was the youngest resident until Salt moved in and took her title.....

The couple in the middle (Dianne & Dave Kone) are from Ithaca, NY.

WAISTING away in Margaritaville.....

Let's try this again....I just can't find time to blog these days. We don't seem to have any spare time and the future isn't looking much better. We have been on the run since we returned after Christmas. Our latest venture was a week in Naples, West Palm and Key West.

We started our adventure with a 2 day stop in Naples, where we stayed with our good friend Ken Deedy. We had planned this trip last summer when we said our goodbyes to June and Frank Augusbury. As most of you know, I helped take care of Frank the last two summers. My promise as I left the island was that I would, come hell or high water, get to Naples to visit them this winter.

The first evening we arrived we took the tour of Naples (in Ken's Jag....long story which I will leave to Ken to tell) and ended up at the beach to catch a beautiful sunset.

The following day we headed for June and Frank's where we were able to spend a wonderful day with Frank. Little did I know that it would be the last time I would see him, as he passed away just 3 days later. We are SO thankful for the opportunity to have the quality time with him. Frank was an amazing man and one of the finest friends you could ever hope to have.

Everyone has asked how Junie was doing....I think these pictures say it all. The whole gang took a long walk around their beautiful neighborhood and we caught this picture of Junie taking a rest before we started back to the house. She looks wonderful! These were, of course, taken before Frank's death. You are in our thoughts and prayers June.

Oh by the way, that's Ken Deedy on the left and NOT Ted Kennedy!

After leaving the Augusbury's, Ken decided to treat us to a very unique experience at one of his favorite restaurants....(Persian). Check out the entertainment.....Ken and I had to force Salt to give the dancer a "tip"....REALLY. Doesn't he look like he thought she might "bite"!

The following morning we left for West Palm (Atlantis) to visit with our dear friends Bruce and Elaine Brooks. Last summer Elaine had suggested we all take a trip down the Keys and spend a few days in Key West. We left early the next morning and made our first stop in Islamarada Key for lunch at the Islamarada Fish Company. The food was great and the ambiance exactly as we had expected...steel drums and cool breezes off the beautiful Atlantic.

When we pulled into Key West and our motel, we were greeted by....you guessed it....Key West wild chickens! These roosters were so beautiful and just roamed all through the town. The day we arrived we had wonderful weather so we were able to do some sightseeing on foot.

Their were 14 famous sculptures "in town" temporarily....this was my favorite. Remember the Corn Flakes commercial????

Since Salt and I didn't care to indulge at either Jimmy Buffet's or Kelly McGinnis's watering holes, we settled for some BAD ASS coffee.

After waking up to wind and rain on Sunday, we opted for a day ticket on the trolley. It actually turned out to be a very rewarding experience as we lucked out getting the "driver of the year" who was not only an excellent tour guide but a comedian as well. After checking out the attractions and scouring several shops we stopped back in the motel for a short rest before enjoying a very formal and tasty Italian meal (forgot the name of the restaurant).

Elaine suggested that on the way home we swing over to into Miami and check out Jungle Island http://www.jungleisland.com/ .

Well, I still have a bunch of pictures to post but the website is having problems. I guess I will just send the post as is and try again later. I can't really afford to get any further behind. We have so much coming up in the next few weeks I will never get caught up.

The weather may have been lousy but we managed to have fun anyway!

And so this is Christmas......

OK...so it has been over a month since I last posted. I don't even want to start counting the emails and calls I have received asking me everything from "are you bored since you quit traveling?" to "are you sick?". We are alive and well and just enjoying our new winter home so much (with all the activities which I will detail in a later post) that by time we get in for the evening I am usually too tired to concentrate.

So much has happened in the last month I am not sure I can catch up without omitting several events. I will give it a try, but more than likely chronological order will not be correct.

First of all, as most of you know, we had our kids and grand kids with us for Christmas here in Florida. We moved our motor home to the KOA in Fort Summit and rented a cabin right next to our lot for Mike, Robin, Sarah and Rachael. Betty and Emma stayed in the motor home with us.

Mike and Robin

This is the cabin we rented for Mike and his family....we decorated it before they got there...We referred to it as the Gingerbread House.

We had such a great time. I started planning the get together back in June and in my usual (anal retentive) manner had everything planned right down to making sure everyone had the same number of gifts under the tree....a throwback from the days when Betty and Mike used to pile up their presents and count to see who had the most. I often wondered if they did that to see if they could figure out who w was the favorite??? Salt put the screened room on the motor home so we were able to have a LIVE 8' tree.

The stockings were hung on the side of the motor home with care.....

We spent 2 days at Disney and a full day at Orlando studios. The crowds were unbelievable, but Salt and I had planned every day so that we knew exactly where were going so were able to get fast passes and short lines. We also planned ahead and took all of our lunches, snacks and drinks. Disney allows you to do that but Universal does NOT. However, I packed everything up and when we went through the bag check the guy just kind of frowned and let us through. I think he probably looked at a party of 9 and figured we couldn't afford to feed that many on park prices. Oh yes, the party of 9.....if some of you are wondering where the extra one came from it was Robin's X (Dave Reinke) and the father of her children. He was going to be alone for Christmas so Robin and Mike asked if he could join us. He flew in from Virginia Beach and spent the week with us. I know to some people that probably sounds strange, but they all get along well and we are so glad that the children don't have to live in an environment where there are angry parents fighting for custody or bad mouthing one another. We loved having you Dave!!

You can't go to Disney without a picture of the castle,(Emma, Rachael and Sarah) Minnie and MICKEY!After watching Emma scoot up the climbing wall in record time, Mike and Dave decided to give it a try. I call these two pictures...

The Thrill of Victory....(Mike) ....

The Agony of Defeat....Dave

They did both make it to the top in the end (not as quickly as Emma though!)

The little girls enjoyed posing with some of their favorite characters....Emma and Dora

And of course who can resist a visit with "Donkey" from Shreck...

Mike, Sarah and Dave relaxing before our visit to Soaring, the best attraction at Disney (Epcot)

Betty and Mike celebrating their first Christmas together in 8 years!

Christmas day we took the day off and just stayed at the RV resort. It was very relaxing and the kids loved being able to play with their goodies from Santa. Rachael and Emma both were blessed with Baby Alive....Betty was never able to have one when she was little because I thought they were too messy. Santa, however, didn't mind bringing them to the grand daughters so they could take them HOME with them. Sarah (below) was especially pleased with her genuine "Ugh" boots. When she sent her list to "Grandma" she said she would not REALLY be disappointed if they were the "fake" ones.

The weather was absolutely beautiful, going into the 80's and allowing the girls to spend a lot of time at the pool.

So....this takes us through Christmas and I will try and catch up til the present in future posts.