Happy New Year's!

To ring in the New Year, the pickleball players decided to have a party at our favorite place-the pickleball courts.  What could be better than Happy Hour combined with playing games?  We had a great time, even if we did have to leave early because I worked the next day.  In fact, Austin was the only one that stayed long enough to see the New Year arrive!

Happy New Year's to everyone and we hope the following year brings wonderful things for you!

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

A few years ago, this picture of my granddaughter and her dog was snapped along with a bunch of her playing soccer.  I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.  I thought it was cute, but then again I think everything she does is cute.

Today I was going through those pictures and I saw it through different eyes.  I got it.  It wasn't just cute. Now that I'm a dog owner as in this dog is "our dog" owner...I know what this is.  It's pure love.

 If you were to follow us around with a camera right now, you'd probably catch a few shots of us doing the same thing to Ava.  She's growing rather fond of us by now too.

Living the life in Florida.

Merry Christmas from Show Us the World

We hope everyone out there had a very Merry Christmas.  We only had two of the five kids with us, and no grandkids, so that made for a very quiet and somewhat sad day.  Setting that aside, it was one of the best Christmases I can remember.  We were low on funds, so we knew we would not get many material gifts.  Which meant we had very low expectations.  The really great thing about low expectations is you are rarely disappointed and in this case, we were tickled pink with whatever gifts we had.  Nathan did all of the gift shopping and he did a great job.  I really love that man!

The boys were very mature about the light number of gifts.  I've been very proud of both of them lately for various reasons and today was another reminder of why.  I told them today that they are so much cooler than I was when I was there age.  One of them told me they are cooler than I am now.  I agree!

We did enjoy our biggest family gift, which was Ava.

 Lucky for us, we all love her and think she is a great gift.  She spent the whole day going from one of us to the next, soaking up all of the love and cuddles she could get.  Even the guy who swore he'd never get a little dog thinks she is the bees knees.  Having just written that, the fact I use the phrase the bees knees might just be part of why the kids are so much cooler than me.  Who cares.  The point is, Ava is by far the best Christmas gift I've ever received.  I love that dog so much!

 Outside of the little sweetness known as Ava, our family had much sweetness this season with those people who are with us right now.  I am really humbled by the gifts that others have given to us, especially with those given to the boys.  It has reminded me of the true reason for the season.  We really have had a great holiday so far and hope it continues into the New Year!

Hope everyone else enjoyed their day too.

Merry Christmas to all!

Happy Holidays at Sea World

Today we visited Sea World, which was decked out for the holidays. It was such a treat to walk around hearing Christmas music while seeing all the decorations.  It definitely put me in the holiday spirit.

We don't even have a Christmas tree this year.  Nathan said he brought me to a place where there were tons of trees instead.

Beyond the fabulous decorations, there was holiday entertainment too.  Christmas music:

An ice skating show:

Even Shamu's show was Holiday themed.  I sat next to a cutie pie who made the show ten times better because she squealed with delight each time she saw the whales. 

We had a great time and really loved the different shows!  We hope to get back again to see the few shows we did miss before they change them out.

Living the life in Florida!

Christmas Party Time

I've never been a huge fan of work Christmas parties.  It seems when we worked for corporate America, I dreaded having to go and spend an evening with people I barely knew.  Then we owned our own business.  I wasn't a fan of those parties because I felt a lot of pressure being the bosses wife.  This year we all attended the work party here and it was "just right".  Meaning it was low key, casual and we knew almost every single person there already.  Since two of us work here...make that three since Austin was introduced as a new employee too...it almost felt like our happy hours we have with our pickleball friends.

We enjoyed chatting with some people and getting to know them better.  We ate a great meal that Aric and Austin helped prepare and got a few nice gifts.  We left when we wanted to.  Not a bad way to spend an evening at all!

Living the life in Florida!

What I've Been Up To Lately

I have written 750 blog posts here since I started this blog.  In the past two months, I am guessing I've contributed less than ten to that total.  It's been odd to not blog at least every other day.  But then again, our whole life feels a bit odd right now.  Far too many words would be required to explain that sentence and far too much time would be required to catch up on all we've been doing.  So I'll do the short version instead.

This has pretty much been my life lately:  There is my family and pickleball.  Of course.  The other things that fill my days lately are this:

Which wouldn't be so bad if I could just stay inside the RV until it gets warm.  But this requires me to be outside of the RV five days a week:

Because that does require me to leave the RV and move around for forty hours a week, I try to do this: Reach the World and this for a little down time and brain activity:

 Beyond that, there isn't a whole lot of leftover time each day.  I try to give some of that tiny slice that is left to my friends.  And then of course, this is on our minds:

Thanks again to Mira and Vicki for the ornament.  I feel hugged every time I look at it.  Let's see what else have I been up to?  Oh yeah, there is this:

Her name is Ava.  She's new to the family.  She is still settling in.  We were a bit concerned how she'd do since she is a rescue dog and had a quite literally last hour salvation from death.

So far so good.  She's a sweetie pie and even the guys who were less than thrilled about adding her to the family are in love with her now.

That's about it.  I've still been following all of the blogs I read and enjoy them greatly!

Living the life in freezing Florida!

Where Oh Where Has My Florida Weather Gone?

If you were to visit Weather.com, it might fool you because although it is in fact sunny as the cute picture shows...it is just downright COLD here right now.

Cold as in low of 27 degrees tonight cold.  We had an unusually cold winter last year and I'm fearing this year will be a repeat.  I hope not!  So how is the weather in other parts of the country?