Linda asked me what I'm doing, I said "nothing", she said "that's what you did all day yesterday", I said "I wasn't finish". Oh well-- that's how the year went.
Another year coming to an end. The older we are the faster the years go by. We need to slow this down and enjoy everyday. We need to be thankful for each and every day. So remember when you wake up to a cool rainy day, be thankful you woke up. That's enough wisdom for now. On with the review of 2011.
We started the year with a visit from our son Mark and his wife Tracey for Christmas and New years. It was the first holiday season in 6 years we spent with family. It was wonderful, both Linda and Tracy had colds, and Bob got a very bad cold and had to go to the doctor. He only sat out a day. While they were here we met Bob's Cousin Jane and her husband Nick, who have a winter home in Cocoa. We spent Jan thru most of Mar in Florida. We reconnected with many friends. We did meet many friends we worked with at Walt Disney World.
After we took Mark and Tracy to the airport we left the Orlando area. We went to the Thousand Trails Peace River Resort in Zolfo Springs. We pull in and Linda spots friends Tom and Paula who we volunteered with at the Escapees CARE center in Texas the previous year. We spent 2 weeks there visiting the area.
Next we move to Arcadia for about 3 weeks. We visited Linda's cousin Carl and his wife Dot. We hadn't seen them for about 10 years and had a great visit. We toured Mayakka State Park and had a few great hikes and some bike rides. We saw many gators birds and turtles. We went to Punta Gorda and Lake Placid to see all the murals. Next was the Ringling museum, The Edison and Ford estates in Sarasota. Friends Dave and Liz came for a visit from their winter home in Largo. We visited our long time friends Diane and her husband Marvin (Linda's girlfriend from elementary school day) in Cape Coral. We met friends Dave and Penne who read our blog and saw they were close by. So we got together for lunch half way between. I had some great fishing at Toby's RV park in Arcadia. We also had a great private tour of the "Clown Museum" in Lake Placid from Toby the Clown. We toured "Solomons Castle" and saw the "Lipizzon Stallion" show at their winter training grounds.
Wow. We need a brake. That was all in about 3 weeks. From Acardia we traveled further south to The Glades RV Park to visit friends Ed and Vivian and new friends Lon and Betty for some fishing at the Big"O', Lake Okeechobee. While here we did a tour of a sugar cane factory and an orange juice plant. Next we move to LaBelle where we almost bought a RV lot. While there they were having their "Swamp cabbage" festival. We had a good time with friends Dianne and Marvin from Cape Coral who came to visit.
While in Arcadia Linda got her new ride, a 2011 HHR. We needed some more economical transportation to tour around in. We were wearing out our truck. This proved to be a very good move for us. We already have over 22,000 miles on it.
We them started to head north. We made planes to meet friends Barry and Donna from Georgia that we volunteered with in Texas. They live in GA and we met in Tifton GA. We had dinner and swapped stories of the passed year. That's when we got a call about Linda's brother and Sister in law. They were both in the hospital. The next morning we said good bye to our friends and hit the road for a fast trip back to PA.
The next six months were very tough for us. While there we found out Linda had melanoma. Thank God that worked out ok after two operations. The same week we found out about Linda's cancer we also found out Blazer has bone cancer. The same week our sister in law went back into the hospital. A short time later we lost our sister in law after she was making a great recovery. We did get Linda's brother placed in assistance living were he is doing well. Even though this was a very tough time for us, we were grateful we were able to help. We know as time goes on we will look back at this time and be thankful we could help. We had more family time this year with sons and their wives Cy and Dawn, Mark and Tracey and Erik and Lori .We also thank them for all their help and being there when we needed them. We did make some wonderful friends while there, Abbie, Nancy, Teddie, Helen, Ester, Carolin, Char and Don, that all pitched in and helped, many thanks to them also.
While at the Thousand Trails park in Hershey we had friends Ed and Cathy from Florida pull in aside of us. There are over 300 sites and they pick one aside of us. We weren't there at the time. They called us and said we think we just pulled in aside of you. We later had a great visit, and of course we went out to dinner. We also got a call from friends Dave and Penne we met in FL this winter. They were in the area, so we got together for dinner. We met them at one of our favorite restaurants, Shady Maple. I'll bet they are still talking about it. They really enjoyed the food. I got Penne to try apple butter and cottage cheese. She really like it.
September had a bright spot for us, we started our 7th year on the road as modern day Gypsies. We were looking forward to October as we had to be in Fort Lauderdale Fl for a cruise with our son Cyril and his wife Dawn.
October 1st we hit the road like the devil himself was chasing us. We didn't slow down till South Carolina. We had a super cruise with our son and his wife for their 20th anniversary. After the cruise we finally had a chance to relax for a few days.
While resting at the Thousand Trails park in Orlando we did get to go to Walt Disney World two times with friends Jim and Linda who still work there. Then it was off to ST Augustine. We will be in ST Augustine till the end of the year. You can read more about our passed year in the archives on the right side of our blog page.
We tried to limit this year end review, but it did get longer then expected. Even though we had some tough times this year we are thankful for another year. We look at the year, the whole is better then the parts.
MAY YOU ALL HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR
We skiped a few things. First we met our friends Ed and Johanne in Orlando in March. Also in Nov we net our friends Barb and Jack in ST Augustine. Sorry if skiped anybody else.
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