Back To Stuart

So we got up Saturday morning thinking we would just head home after coffee with Julie . 

We hadn't planned on any breakfast because Julie is proud of the fact she doesn't cook and I heard Mark head out at 5:00 A.M. to go hunting and he is the one we count on to make meals here.

SURPRISE. Julie's on it today.

So she doesn't like to advertise that she actually cooks but when she saw I had a picture of her behind the stove she posted a picture of herself cooking that I had taken of her on her own blog thinking she would confess before I could say anything about her activities.

I wasn't going to say anything to blow her cover being the nice guy I am. Hahaha.
 She threw herself under the bus. 

It was a great breakfast.

I seem to remember she use to make a great roast beef dinner .

Hopefully that will be on our next visit.

So after our first night back on the boat we went on our regular 5 kilometre walk along the ocean.

As we left the marina Ruth asked Bruce and Heather if we could take their Lab who is also named Daisy.

The ocean is very bumpy today. There were warnings of rip tides.

I was a little concerned about  their Daisy thinking she might want to go out to far.

No problem .
Both Daisy's stay close to shore.

Black Friday's Activities

None of us are shoppers so we planned to do something fun this afternoon instead.

As I was getting the coach ready to leave the Grand Oaks Equastarian RV Park a carriage came past being drawn by 3 beautiful horses. Something that you don't see every day.
This is a cool RV park.

We went to Mark and Julie's home and set up the coach before heading out to their favourite bowling alley for an afternoon of fun and games. We took up three lanes with our group.

I was playing against Bob and Sue. My first roll was a strike. ALRIGHT.
Too cocky too soon. I'm not a bowler and that showed real quick.
Sue bowls once a week and she is good.
Bob has never bowled before in his life and he got strike after strike. Wow.
Ruth was one lane over and she did great.
Me, Not so great. Oh well , They say it builds charactor.

Nice form. Now I see why I married her.

She got quite a few strikes and spares.
Everyone we were with is really nice. I had a good time today.

The best part of the day was ICHIBAN BUFFET TIME.

Funny thing happened in the parking lot on the way in.
Mark spots a licence plate from new york where he grew up. The guy was sitting in the car and I said why don't you go over . You likely know him. Haha.
Just then the guy looks out at Mark and points to him. They went to school together.
What a small world.

We all got a head start on the food. He was another 20 minutes.
So I saw this glass picture on the men's washroom door and thought "Thats what I should look like"
I feel like I am getting close. Five hours later and I'm still full.

Back to Julie's . A little TV. We're all tired.
 Ruth was in bed by 7:30.

American Thanksgiving Dinner - November 26th

Once again Thanksgiving was held by Diane and Kris at their home in the Villages near Orlando.

To start the festivities off everyone played a game where a famous person's name taped to their back and you had to guess who it was by asking questions where the answer could only be yes or no.

Ruth had to guess Einstein and I was Harry Potter.

I never got it. I hate games.

After we guessed we got a prize. 

Ruth got a clowns nose while I got google eyes.

Something for the Grand Kids.

It was definitely a feast.

There were 16 of us for dinner. 

I think everyone brought something but Kris outdid himself in making it happen.

The Turkey was delicious.

I'm at the back on the right between Julie and Ruth,

Near the middle of the evening Wayne , Mark and myself went back to the RV park to let our dogs out and also feed them.Mark and I were done but Wayne still had one more dog to walk. 

That's when it started to pour. Here he is trying to protect the dog from the rain.

When we got back to the dinner Randy stood up and said he had something he wanted to do .

He got down on one knee and proposed to Dawn.

Here Julie si almost between them yelling at Dawn to say yes. So funny.

It was very sweet. They make a nice couple.

Ruth and I were very happy we could be here for this.

It's never a party until Julie has too much wine and does her Winston Churchill impersonation. Hahaha.

We had to get a picture of the three sisters with their new addition to the family.

American Thanksgiving Travel

So we left the Marina on Wednesday to travel up to the Villages near Leasburg 

to celebrate American Thanksgiving with our friends.

This made me laugh. I saw this from a distance and had to catch up.

It took a while but I finally got a photo op.

We got set up in the camp ground and managed some free time before the evening celebration.

We are next to Mark and Julie .

Wayne and Sue are next to them.

Mark set up tables next to their coach for cocktails.

It's Kris and Dianne's 15th anniversary today.

They will be here shortly.

Kris showed up carrying a bag water. 

We all thought it was a bag of goodies for their new dog so he was showing us different.

Dianne thought the new pup was cold so she put a sweated on her .

She thought the pup was still too cold and had Kris get the puppy blanket to wrap her up.

I think the dog must be too hot by now.

We headed over to the club house where we all ate together.

Kris and Dianne have a carriage for the little pup that she sat in while we ate.

In fact all three sisters have carriages for their dogs.

I think that Daisy is starting to feel left out because she doesn't have a carriage.

Wayne supplied steaks for the meal which he cooked on the camp ground grill.

Done to perfection.

Ruth made a Caesar Salad and mark made Fritz potatoes.

The meal was great.

And of coarse Julie brought bread pudding for desert. Yumm.

So today I solved Daisy's problem of No Carriage.

Now she's one of the gang.

She loves her new ride.

Sunday in Stuart

I love being here. The air is fresh an humid. It agrees with my lungs.
Back home I have a tendency to wheeze. 

I even use a $200. puffer now and then. Here. My lungs are clear. No puffer necessary.
They have always been my weak spot.

 I was hospitalized quite a few times as a kid with bronchitus and phenomena .

The ocean walks do me good. This morning it was raining on the walk and a little breezy.
It was such a nice change from all that heat.

This boat has been blocking our view of the water these last few days.

i was glad to see him leave. The captain told me that it is for sale.

If only I had a spare 10 million dollars I would love to be the new owner.

It sure is a pretty boat.

I watched the captain stand buy and let the owner leave from the docks. 

He did a great job leaving. 

So our friends Wayne and Sue are in town for the evening. We dropped by the Prevost park to pick up a coffee table top they brought down from Canada for us and received a nice little squeaky toy for Daisy.

She doesn't usually get toys but she seemed to love this one.
When we left our coach she grabbed it in her mouth and pranced around with her new possession .
 So cute. 

Funny. She dragged me over to the first bit of dirt she saw ,  quickly dug a hole and buried it.

She does that with everything she gets. Ruth picked it up and brushed it off.

 Daisy spent the next 3 hours in the boat before bed time looking for places to hid it.

 She puts it behind the couch , 5 minutes later gets it and hides it behind the upstairs chairs. 

Five minutes later she gets it and hides it behind our bed. Its been going on for hours. 

So fun. She's a great little dog. She's finally exhausted.

Saturday's Market

There was a seafood festival happening today in downtown Stuart.

We hooked up with our friends Magnus and Charlotte around 11:00 and had a nice time.

I can't believe we didn't take more pictures.

Ruth indulged herself with lots of seafood while I had a pulled pork slider.

After we ran a few errands around town. 

One of them was to get some fresh veggies from our favourite outside market.

I waited in the coach while Ruth did the shopping.

I love this guy. He's sitting on his trailer drinking beer , yelling at his neighbour and patching his roof.

Look at his hands.

 He is putting some patch on the roof , dipping his hands into a bucket of white plaster type crap 

and spreading it onto the patch he just laid.

Now he's looking for something to wipe his hands on.

He ended up scraping the white stuff off on the edge of the trailer roof. What a mess.

A Bike Ride Between Rain Storms

The weather hasn't been all that great this week.

Temperatures around 90 degrees and lots of rain.

The humidity is a killer.

So around 2:00 Ruth wanted to ride the bikes down to Bathtub Beach.

I'm not too keen on the bike ride because it is a narrow road , no bike path

 and lots of old people driving cars. 

I didn't want her going alone so I went with her. It's only a few miles away.

This cute little boy was collecting plastic garbage along the beach with his mom.

She also collected quite a lot of garbage.

You know you're old when you are more interested in watching the crabs for 20 minutes dig a hole for their nest instead
 of watching the cute moms on the beach in their bikinis.

There were two crabs doing this project.

This one was a little smaller. I'm guessing the female.

She was stationed in the driftwood about 6 feet away and kept coming over to inspect the hole.

This one was larger and would disappear for about one minute before climbing out of the hole with a arm full of sand.
Obviously excavating a new home for them.

He would stop at the rim of the hole every time he emerged and check me out 

before continuing with his load. 

Very entertaining. I had a good time at bathtub beach today.