Warm, Sunny Day Today!

  We got up about 8:30 this morning.  It was already sunny and fairly warm...and no wind!!  John made eggs sandwiches for breakfast.  His hip is still bothering him, and he was up twice during the night.  But he thought it might help if he took a short walk and kept it stretched out.  While he walked I worked on yesterday's blog.  When he got back we changed into our bathing suits so we could go to the pool.  Bonnie called to let me know that she had called Dad.  The cellulitis is much better and he has regained a lot of energy that the infection had zapped out of him.  Praise the Lord!!  She also said that she and Ken and Melissa and Chuck and Ernie and Noella were all planning to go to Manasota beach tomorrow and invited us to join them.  We already had plans to go there, so it will work out great!  It will be wonderful to see everyone again!  We walked down to the pool and surprisingly it wasn't as full as we thought it would be.  Oh, boy, was the sun ever hot!!  Every little breeze or cloud that came along was greatly welcomed.  Of course, we could get in the pool to cool off, but the heater wasn't working and it was cold.  Now here's the thing I don't understand.  When we go to the pool at home during the summer it is not heated!!  How come when we go to Florida we don't want to get in an unheated pool?  Oh, we are spoiled now, aren't we!!  John left at 2:30 so he could take a nap on the bed.  I stayed till 3:00 so I could get back to get ready for our dinner and show plans with Rhonda and Kevin at Overtime in Cape Coral.  We left about 4:15.  I talked with Joyce from our small group for about 20 minutes and then we met Rhonda and Kevin at 5:00.  Rhonda had made reservations for the 5:00 show and we had FRONT ROW seats.  The entertainment was a couple called The Gatlins.  They both had incredible voices!!  They did cover songs and impersonations of other singers.  At one point in the show they asked every table (about 20 of them) to give them the name of their favorite singer and they put together an arrangement of all of them.  He sang everything from Sinatra to Queen to Willie Nelson to Elton John.  She sang everything from Linda Ronstadt to Celine Dion to Christina Aguilera to Patsy Kline.  The highlight of the evening for me was when she sang "Think of Me" from Phanton of the Opera and "The Prayer", Andre Bouchelli (sp?) style.  She was absolutely amazing!!  The food was good, too. 

He sang Elvis's "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You"
to this lady that was celebrating her 90th birthday.

 

She can sing ANYTHING!!

 

The Gatlins were very talented and entertaining!!

Kevin and I had the prime rib special, Rhonda had a burger and John had a triple decker club sandwich.  It was huge.  He could only eat half of it.

Looks good, huh!?!

  We left at 7:15 and headed home so I could watch the first night of "The Voice".  John read his book.  There are already some really good singers on the show.  And those judges just crack me up!!  I also flipped back to "The Bachelor" a few times.  Guess what...he's in love with both of the last 2 women.  Whatever will he do??  John went to bed about 9:30.  I worked on the blog until 11:00 and then went to bed. 

A Relaxing Sunday at the CG

I was up until 2am, so I didn't get out of bed until 10:00!  John's hip is still bothering him...we think it's bursitis (he's finally catching up to my age)...so he didn't go for a walk.  We also decided that we shouldn't go to the beach as planned because walking on the sand would probably make his hip pain worse.   We had some breakfast or more correctly...brunch.  The sun was shining brightly and there wasn't much of a breeze, so we went down to the pool at about 12:45.  We were there about 15 minutes and a strong chilly breeze kicked up and big ugly, dark clouds blew in.  What the heck!!  We hung in there for about another 20 minutes hoping for the sun to come back out and the wind to stop.  But it was not to be, so we gave up and headed back to Harvey.  We went over to the neighbors to ask if they wanted to get together this evening, but they already had plans.  They are going to come over Tuesday evening for supper.  Then we went grocery shopping.  When we got back, amazingly, it wasn't near as windy outside Harvey as it had been at the pool.  So we grabbed our books and plopped on our rocker and lounge chair.  Shortly after that Genji came by with her owner.  Genji is a beautiful female Pug that we have bonded with.  She recognizes our RV now and always wants to stop.  I actually have to pick her up and put her on her feet when her owner wants to leave.  Another camper stopped by who has a Bounder exactly like ours.  He and John traded some valuable information like where the fuse is for the awning and the reset button for the toilets.  John would like to talk with him more to see if there are any more secrets they can share!!  By late afternoon it got pretty chilly outside.  We came in about 4:00 and continued reading.  I made Naan bread pizza for supper and then I watched the Academy Awards.  John went to the bedroom to watch TV and read.  I don't know what time he actually went to sleep.  I turned in about 12:15.  Sorry, no pics today.

A Long Day on Pine Island!

   We woke up about 8:00 and watched a little TV in bed.  We got up about 9:00 and I showered while John took a short walk.  He showered when he got back while I started the Rice-a-Roni dish I was planning on taking along to the fried chicken and pot luck brunch at 10:30 that Nancy and Bob invited us to the night they were over.  I got all the clothes and props together that I needed for the Variety Show, so we could grab them and go after the brunch.   Nancy had reserved a card/game room for the brunch and there were about 20 people there.  It was a feast of delicious food!  How nice of Nancy and Bob to do this!!

Do you think we had enough food??

 

Nancy's fried chicken was awesome!!

  We left at 12:00, gathered up my costume and headed back to Pine Island.  We stopped at the eagle's nest again with John's "good" camera to try to get better pictures, but Harriet wasn't as visible as yesterday and Ozzie was no where to be found.

That's the nest in the middle and a camera to film
live all the time is hanging above it.  If you want
to see it just google "Fort Myers eagle cam".

There's mommy, Harriet.

These are picture I took while watching
the live video on my phone.

I don't know if the chicks have names or not.  If
they are males...why not David and Ricky??

  So back on the road to Pine Island.  We got there right around 1:15 for the first show at 2:00.  I sat in the back and watched the first few acts.  How different it was to see everyone in costume!  Everyone did a great job.  All went very well for me, too!  I watched the rest of the show after I was done. The show was over about 3:30.  John took a few pictures, but most of the time he walked around the CG and the neighborhood and sat by the pool with a book.  He had a ticket for the evening show and didn't want to watch it twice.

Here I am with Nancy Steele, the moderator of the show.
She is the wife of Everett, the fiddler from the Sunday
Night Live shows at eh CG.  She is the one who asked
me to participate in the show.

This was "Flo," the Progressive insurance gal.

This was "The Wedding Photographer" skit.
The female photographer (in the middle beside the bride)
had just asked everyone who had slept with the bride
to come up to have their picture taken.  She had to
put the camera on timer so she could get in the picture, too!

Here, she asked for everyone who had slept with the groom.
Notice that the bride left the stage!  The gal with the groom
is "Shirley" who has 2 sheds full of costumes she gets at
thrift shops.  That's why the show was called, "What's
in Shirley's Drawers?"

This is the Second Hand Rose gals modelling all
their Thrift Shop finds.

This group did a song about all kinds of animals.
Several of the people had up to 4 animals
represented on their costumes!

Uh oh...who's that?

"I Cain't Say, No!" 
I had a good time...can you tell, I hope!

  After the first show we went to Woody's for a sandwich.

It may be the drunkenmost point, but
I didn't have a drop!!  I really can "say, No" :)

The restaurant was named after this furry friend
who is no longer with us.  Can't tell if he's
drunk or dead!!

  The food was very good!  I had a burger and John had a rib eye sandwich.  My bestest buddies, the Frogettes had their get-together today and they called me while we were eating.  Ahhh, they miss me.  I wish I could have been with them, but I like it here pretty much, too!!  We were going to walk around a bit, but it had gotten pretty chilly because of the breeze and the sun starting to go down, so we drove to Bokeelia on the other end of the island.  You drive until you come to the bay and then you have to turn around and come back.  But it is beautiful back there!  Unfortunately, many of the fishing piers were washed away during the hurricanes last year.

We saw this sign on one of the houses.  Our
grand-daughter's, Emma and Ellie will like this!!





This is overlooking the bay.  The pier in the background
was partly washed away and roped off.

We headed back to the CG to get ready for the 7:00 show.  I called Mom to check on Dad and his cellulitis is better.  Praise God!!  My act went OK, but unfortunately, my microphone had gotten turned off some how and because the sound guy was trying to get it to work, he missed my music cue.  And on top of that anyone else who was miked was coming thru the sound system.  Fortunately, I have a loud voice and everyone in the back said they could hear me just fine.

I don't look too bothered by it, do I??


 

This was the "Older Ladies" skit.  Very funny!!



These gals were doing the Charleston.  They really had it down!
The 2nd lady from the left is the CG pastor.  She also did a "Church Lady" skit.



And Elvis was in the building!

I felt bad for him because he was battling
strep throat!

 

This was the program

 

  I think John was more upset for me than I was.  Thanks for your concern, honey!  Being an amateur show you have to be prepared for anything and, luckily, it didn't really affect my performance.  The whole thing was fun, but it was a long day.  We stopped for an ice cream cone on the way back to Pioneer Village to make it "all better."  We got back about 10:00 and played a game of 5 Crowns.  John won again.  He shows no mercy :)  He went to bed about 11:30 while I worked on editing all the pictures and the blog.  I got to bed about 1:00.

John took this picture while walking.  I wonder
who would want it!  He did send it to his friend, Terry,
who just bought a toy hauler 5th wheel.  He thought he
might want to consider parking it here :)

A Day Relaxing, Reading, Eagle Watching and Practice

   I didn't wake up until 8:30 this morning.  John was up and dressed, ready to go walking.  I made banana pancakes for breakfast.  John cleaned up the dishes while I got on line to finally order the clothing rack that Heather picked out for Christmas.  John left for his walk and I caught up with "Words with Friends" on my phone.  I never got out of my jammies until 11:00!  John got back from his walk and we went outside to read because of how gorgeous is was outside.  It was so dry and the breeze kept the heat down.  John's hip has been bothering him since yesterday when h got on the treadmill and put an incline on it to walk.  So he decided to walk a bit more to keep it loose.  I brought my pins outside to make the backs and paint them.  When John got back he joined me and did some more reading.  I had to be at the Pine Island CG for the dress rehearsal at 6:45, so we decided to leave at about 4:00 and go to Camping World just a few miles from this CG.  We didn't spend too much time there, but we did get a sun screen for our awning on the clearance aisle.  It's missing the ties and tie downs, but for half price, we figured we can improvise!  Then we stopped just down the road from our CG to get some pictures of an eagle's nest.  Apparently, there are two young eagles in the nest.  One of them had to be attended to because of fishing line around its neck.  Luckily, the mother accepted the baby after that.  Also, I heard that the father had been shot but was nursed back to health only to be found dead a few weeks later beside a RR track.  There is now another male "wooing" the female. 

This is the female sitting by the nest.

 

 

 

 

This is the male.  He took off just before
we could get a picture of him in the tree.

Then we headed to Pine Island.  It was a good thing that we left early, because the traffic was terrible!

This bank is all over SE Florida.  Can anyone
explain the name?????

We got to Pine Island at 6:30 and Just had to check and see who was in our spot.  It was a class C motorhome.  The run through started at 7:15 and we were done at about 8:45.  It was a little rough around the edges, but should be pretty funny.  My number went very well and I got a lot of positive feedback.  I've been practicing!  There are 2 shows tomorrow - 2:00 and 7:00.  The evening show is sold out! 

"Singing in the Rain" number.

"Second Hand Rose" number.  Of course all the
acts will be in costume tomorrow!

"It aint so much a question of not knowing what to do"

"I aint the type that can faint"

"What's ya gonna do when he talks that way?"

"I cain't say No!"

We got back to Harvey about 9:30.  I talked to Arlena on the way back.  She and TW are moving into their new house tomorrow!  What an exciting day!  Dustin and some more of their friends are helping, although they have already moved quite a bit of things.  The renovations are done except for the granite on the breakfast bar.  It was cracked during shipment from Brazil.  Don't know how long it will take to get a new one.  Then I talked to Heather and Cooper.  They are doing well.  Cooper is into Pee Wee Herman right now...talked a lot about him and all the characters on the TV show.  Heather also told me that Molly, her aunt had her leg amputated yesterday due to cancer.  Waiting to get an update from Cheryl.  Please keep her in your prayers!  I didn't get a chance to call Mom to see how Dad is doing.  Hopefully, the IV antibiotics will clear up his cellulitis.  Please keep him in your prayers also.  We watched some TV and John went to bed about 11:15.  I worked on the blog and joined him at about midnight.  Have to turn the heat on tonight...only in the low 40's...BRRR!

Beautiful Day, But Cool and Windy!

   I woke up this morning to the smell of bacon and potatoes.  My dear husband had breakfast all ready to eat except for the over easy eggs for on top.  WOW...it was good!  I cleaned up the dishes and John left to go walking.  Minutes later he called to ask if wanted to play shuffleboard...the courts were ready to go and available.  I quickly got myself around and met him there.  I couldn't seem to do anything wrong the first game beating him 86-29.  And even though my neck and shoulder were aching, I beat him in a very close game, 79-51.  The last game was a marathon with the lead changing many times! 

The winning form...

 

...what style, what grace...what BULL!!

 

This is Riley.  He was a stray here in the park.  He was found
with a cord around his neck.  Luckily, the gal who found him
was able to adopt him.

 

He is so friendly now, but a month ago he was
very stand offish and wouldn't let his owner put
a collar or leash on him.  There are so many rescue
pets in the park...how nice!!

John continued walking and I went back to Harvey.  I baked a batch of some of that Tastefully Simple Beer bread using the cherry filling from a disgusting cherry pie and Sprite.  But it didn't get right and tasted horrible.  I think the mix was old, but I didn't have the box to check.  My kids are be making fun of me by now because I do sometimes tend to keep things well beyond their expiration dates.  They will be happy to know that I threw it away along with another pouch of bread mix I brought along.  There might be hope for me yet!?!  John got back just before lunch time to rest a bit and then went walking again.  I asked him to stop at Nancy and Bob's RV to invite them over for some cards tonight.  I practiced my song for the variety show, and I also hung up a new plaque using Velcro.  John returned and tonight is a go with Nancy and Bob. 

John took this picture of the mud and deep
vehicle ruts in some of the sites due to all the rain

He also got shots of these cute signs.

He had some lunch and then took a nap.  I had some chicken salad a short time before, so I wasn't hungry.  (it was very good, by the way).   I worked on making a large white bow for my hair for Sat. night's variety show.  When John got up he decided to go to the pool.  I stayed back to work on my pins.  He got back about 5:00, took a shower and had the rest of my hamburger from our dinner with Rhonda. I finished up my pins, tidied up Harvey a bit and then tidied myself up.  A lady who had been at the craft show at the Fisher's of Men church on Pine Island called to ask if she could buy some of mu scarves.  She's going to come here to the CG in the next few days (at least I hope)!  Nancy and Bob arrived at 7:00 and we chatted the first hour just getting to know each other a little better.  They are very nice and shared many experiences and stories.  They both lost their mates  while in their 30's, one to cancer and the other one to a motorcycle accident.  They have been married more than 30 years now.  They still have a home in Chambersburg, but their primary residence is on a lake in Virginia.  They would like us to come down and visit.  Then we played a game of 5 Crowns and Bob was the victor!  They left about 10:00.  And, even though I had the camera out, I forgot to take their picture!  Will I ever get better at that??  Dustin sent us a picture of Ellie wearing a large shark tooth necklace.  I wonder if they are rubbing it in?!?  I worked on the blog and we went to bed at 11:15.  Tomorrow is supposed to be a lovely day!