Heading Home

Feb 15-17, 2014

We were originally planning to stop at St Augustine's for a night on the way home, but then Lynn's sister Darlene called to say they were at a timeshare in Hilton Head and asked us to stop by.  I had always wanted to check out Hilton Head so this was a no brainer.  

We reluctantly left Florida Saturday morning and made the 5 hour drive to Hilton Head.  It's great meeting up with friends and family away from home.  Darlene and Don had a real nice 2 Bedroom unit and after catching up on news we went for a nice walk along the beach. 

We went out for a great dinner.  I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant.  Food was excellent. 

We couldn't miss an opportunity to play some aggressive games of Sequence.  Don and I proved our superiority once again pounding the poor ladies into submission and exhaustion!!!!

We headed out early Sunday morning for home. The GPS said we would arrive home by 11:00 pm (no stops of course). 

Roads were clear most of the way. 

We were originally planning on getting home on Monday, but we pressed on and arrived home at 2:30 in the morning, exhausted but glad to be home.......that is until morning when we woke up to this view. 

Oh well, another month and we'll be heading back.  A great first trip together!!!!

Valentine's Day

Friday, February 14, 2014

I wasn't too sure how excited to get for Lynn and my first Valentine's Day.  

My brother Bud and our good Tromper buddy Gary Parker were arriving that day and we had arranged to have dinner together.  All I had heard all week was how Lynn was having Valentines with "THREE" guys and how excited she was about it!!!!

I put my best foot forward and welcomed the two goofs buddies when they arrived.  It didn't help any that they had a special Valentines card for Lynn. ............I felt like a fifth wheel :(

We had a great meal and time at the Ale House.  

Once I heard about how great Mardi and Jill were doing and how much the guys  missed their Sweeties, all was well again and I had recovered enough for a friendly group picture!!

A great night for sure.

Florida - 1st Trip continued - Karen & Dennis

Feb 11-13, 2014

Karen and Dennis arrived and we had a lot of laughs and some great times together.

We all enjoyed listening to Tommy Treadway at Tradewinds by the Lazy River on Tuesday night. Lynn and I returned on Thursday to hear him again and he was kind enough to bring me one of his CDs.  Great stuff!

We spent a fair amount of time in the Lazy River. Not always this close :) 

Had a great meal at Miller's Ale House.  

Karen is always a lot of fun. Dennis is an interesting and great guy.  He used to be an engineer in the Rocky Mountains. This trip gave me a chance to get to know him a little better.  

After Karen and Dennis moved on, we spent an enjoyable afternoon at the Gaylord Hotel, essentially a humongous hotel under glass. Here's a few alligators and turtles sunning themselves inside the hotel. 

We went for a very enjoyable walk around the lake at Celebration.   We discovered a few paths I hadn't been on before even spotting a deer along the way.  Someone had taken the time to write a number of inspirational messages on the concrete path along the way. 

The path ended at the water theme at Celebration. 

Why would all these wild turkeys be hanging around our back door?????

Hmmmmm......

That's not my hand!!!!! B

Florida -1st Trip cont'd

Feb 7-10, 2014

I introduced Lynn to Disney Boardwalk where we enjoyed some nice pasteries at the Boardwalk Bakery and worked it off by walking around the lake.  We also visited The Swan Hotel....

.......and watched a few buskers (not as good as ones I've seen in the past).  

We ended the night by walking to the bridge by Epcot and watching the Fireworks. 

The following day we visited Animal Kingdom Lodge where Terry and Mandy stayed before and enjoyed some of the African wildlife that walked by.

The next day we did one of my famous "Free Disney Days" visiting the Wedding Pavilion, Grand Floridian Hotel, Wilderness Lodge, Camp Wilderness, The Contemporary hotel and finally taking the monorail back to the \Polynesian Village.

Another great day in Florida!

Friday we drove to Daytona to meet Karen (Merritt's daughter) and her husband Dennis who are visiting from Kamloops. We enjoyed dinner at Cracker Barrel and then went to seethe Dog Races. I was the big "winner" on the night only losing $30!!

We had a great visit and we will see them again next Monday when they come to stay with us for a few days. 

On the weekend we drove over to Clearwater to visit Doug and Carol, our Neighbours back home (no pic, can you believe it!)

While we were there, the neighbour from across the street saw my BASSMAN plates and came over to talk fishing. Turns out he's from Brantford and after a few questions, Lynn realizes they were in Public School together!!!  For some reason they didn't recognize each other after 50 years!!

George and Lynn

After a short visit, we left Doug and Carol's and drove over to introduce Lynn to Chris' brother Cal, Marcelle and their daughter Sherri who was down for two weeks.  

We had a wonderful visit, followed by a great meal at Millers Ale House in Tampa.  We all look forward to getting together again when we return in March. 

I've Been a Bad Blogger!!

I have again fallen dreadfully behind on my blogs!!

The Blog is important to me, not just to keep my friends up to date (that's a bad term right now.....horribly behind), but more importantly as a record for myself.  When I look back at past blogs it not only reminds me of how blessed I am, but serves as a reminder of events that I've forgotten about.  That will become more important as time marches on. 

So here I am returning to Orange Lake with Lynn in March, trying to catch up my blog from the last time I was here in February!!!

So I pick up where I left off.......

Week of Feb. 2, 2014

It didn't take Lynn long to introduce herself to the Sandhill Cranes. 

They showed up at our back porch every day for some reason 😊

We went for lots of walks and tried to get our 10,000 steps in every day. 

I introduced Lynn to lots of great eateries, one being Sweet Tomato's an all salad restaurant. 

One of the highlights of course is the Lazy River   

We did the East Side/Pleasure Island/Downtown Disney Tour.......

Which always has the traditional stop at the Irish Pub Raglan Road. 

They had five Highland Dancers who were awesome! 

Creel, the regular house band....

And these kids who played outside who were excellent!

Tuesday night we enjoyed Tommy Treadway at the Tradewinds bar at the Lazy River. He is a great singer and entertainer. 

You can't come to Orlando without going to CiCi's at least once.  

To be continued.......

Florida - Week 1

Friday/Saturday, Jan 31/Feb 1 , 2014

We have been looking forward to this trip to Florida for a long time.  Between Lynn's Dad being in the Hospice for 8 weeks before his passing and both of us working full time, we haven't had much downtime together.  

We left Brantford for our first trip to Florida at 2:30 am Friday morning.  All was quiet as we passed through  Beamsville at 3:30 am

We had a great drive. 

While there was snow all the way into South Carolina, the roads were all clear and it was a relaxing drive. 

We were making great time, so took an opportunity to stop at the New River Observation park

 We caught a bit of rush hour traffic in Charlotte so stopped and enjoyed dinner at Cracker Barrel just outside the Six Flags Amusement property. 

Temps were already in the 60's, a nice break from the crap we've been dealing with back home. 

We made it to Country Inns and Suites in Columbia SC before dark leaving us a relaxing drive for the next day. 

Saturday we drove through rain showers throughout the day that helped wash most of the salt off of my van.   The new van is a joy to travel in and I can't wait to be able to use the sunroof once we get those warm Florida temps. 

We checked into Orange Lake around 4:00 pm and were assigned a nice villa (2211) on Springer Circle.  We dropped off our stuff and headed to Miller's Ale house for Lynn's first Alehouse experience.  

Some peoples feet don't reach the floor!!

The Fish & Chips were great as usual!

As always, it did not disappoint. 

After dinner we went to Walmart to pick up supplies and some fine wine .......

All this for just over $10!!!

Temps are in the high 70's and will be in the 80's  for the first part of this week. Yeehaw!!

Who'da Thunk!!

I received an email back in late September asking if id be interested in returning to Dofasco for a six month stint to help in the roll out of Windows 7 to the company's 5000 PCs.

My first reaction was NO WAY!!!, but after some further thought and viewing the perspective of spending most of this winter at home, I thought Why Not??

After further discussion and clarification with Mark Radey I decided to accept. 

Never ever in my life did I ever think I would return!! 

I've been gone for over 5 years, but when I returned it seemed like 2 weeks!!!!  Same faces (just fewer), and same problems they were dealing with before. There were new challenges, but when I looked around the room, I saw people who were capable of making this happen. 

The most difficult challenge for me was the new drive from the West side of Brantford. I have to drive through 2 cities to get to work! What used to be a 15-20 drive is now a 55+ minute drive!

One of the funny things that has happened is that I am working with my good buddy (and almost cousin), Maurice Hughes on this project.   

We never had a chance to work together in my previous career. 

The other bonus is that I get to see my little squirt sister every day!

That's Judy on the left (50 Shades of Gray) and our good friend Cheryl on Halloween day!

This is a poster that I put up when I left 5 years ago!!

It's nice to see it still there. 

I will keep you posted as the project progresses. 

Catching Up

January 28, 2014

It's been awhile since I blogged!  Needless to say I've been very busy.  So time to catch up. 

By far the biggest event to have happened since my last post was the safe arrival of Maia Christy Craig on January 4.  

A whopping 4Lbs 15 oz (that's more than her two sister's birthweights combined). 

Terry and Mandy (and her sisters) are on top of the world!  Needless to say, so is Papa and Lynn!