Christmas in Flowery Branch

The beast is on guard duty.....no one messes with the presents!

Judy & I traveled to Jody & Renatos's home for Christmas and Randy came down from Onsted.  We all arrived on December 23rd.
Renato's daughter Maria from Brazil is with them for two months during her school's summer break.

 One of the first items on the to do list was making Christmas cookies.

Santa arranged for one gift to be delivered early Christmas Eve morning........................

Dustin & Brianna didn't quite know what to think about this.................

But they figured it out pretty quick, Maria was the first King of the Hill.

 

Uncle Randy reminded them that all the local cats will appreciate the sand pile too.  The weather was great so a pontoon ride was in the days schedule.

Renato loves to cook and has lost quite a bit of weight too.  I'm not sure if this is breakfast or dinner....

Who said sand piles are just for kids?

And the BIG day arrives.....................

 

 

 

The turkey has been in the oven so it's time to get started on all the fix'ens.

 

And now it's my turn to get into the show, I've been waiting for this!

But we can't forget Devyn who's with her mother this Christmas!

            We hope everyone had a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Where has a month gone????

Since the last  post a lot has happened.  I haven't been keeping the blog updated often enough to keep our activities in order so I 'll just ramble on and probably get things mixed up. 
On November 19th we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary... We're not fancy so we went to Krystal's for breakfast.  I am so lucky that Judy said "yes".  We have no idea where 50+ years went.

             And for dinner we went with Don & Zola to Pizza Hut....

                                                Then home for some cake!

We spent Thanksgiving in Flowery Branch with Jody & Renato and the kids.  During this time Brianna learned how ride her bike!

After I took these pictures she was off and riding by herself.  I did have pictures BUT my Dell laptop died and along with it I lost 2 weeks of data that I didn't back up. 

While we were there we celebrated my 70th birthday.  Renato and Jody have both lost a lot of weight so the kids were excited with having cake, me too!

 

 Getting back home we prepared for Christmas by putting the tree up and decorating it..................

                                          The weather has been excellent..................

In addition to my laptop dying we also has a slow leak in a tire.  Getting it off was easy but Judy and I struggled to get it back on after the valve stem was replaced but persistence paid off.

                              Randy and Devyn also put their tree up.............

                                         Meanwhile in their front yard.........

We have seen the Blue Angels a few times zipping up and down the beach and one day while Judy was out alone she spotted a Marine Osprey at the Jack Edwards airport here in Gulf Shores.  If you didn't know better you'd think it was a small drone.

I went along with three of my poker playing buddies to a casino in Biloxi for a Texas Hold'em tournament.  We play here at the campground four times a week (Hold'em twice and dealers choice twice) and I really enjoy it so I thought I'd be brave and take the next step.  The buy in was $60 and there were 58 of us at the casino, I was pleasantly surprised coming in 4th and winning $296.  Time to hid the tournament circuit?
One Saturday we drove to Navarre, FL to visit with my cousins Larry and Mary and Mary's daughter Kelly.  Mary lives there around and Larry splits his time there and in Michigan.  e had a great visit and hadn't seen them since Aunt Margaret's funeral many years ago.

Renato's daughter Maria has arrived in Flowery Branch for several weeks (school break in Brazil) and the three kids went to see Santa................the Brasil family is all together and happy his Christmas.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

After church Sunday we grabbed some food from McDonalds and parked at the beach to eat and watch the Gulf.  Guess who showed up?

I managed to get a picture of Santa with one of the local kids................

We have been busy getting into the winter routine playing poker and euchre and socializing and eating out with our winter friends and HitchHiker friends who spend time here.  Today Judy is in Biloxi at the IP Casino on a bus trip she organized, she schedules one a month and 50 some snowbirds here at Gulf Breeze RV Resort go to a casino.    

Sunset cruise

Last year Judy and the water aerobics ladies went on an afternoon sailboat cruise.  Jenny and Craig wanted to do it again so she set one up and there were 4 couples plus several other passengers.

  I mooned Judy in the picture below!  I sent a copy to Devyn and she responded "gross".  She though I really mooned granny. 

See the moon up there?

And yes, the sun did set!

It was a very pleasant evening in the high 70s and a very light breeze.  My only problem was getting around the boat considering my size and the millions of wires, ropes, booms and cables everywhere but Judy found me a nice seat in the back.  Afterward we stopped at The Keg for a bar burger.

  

Meanwhile, up north it's November in the UP but Randy said it's 50 and still riding weather!  Tuff kid.

Halloween was just a few days ago and Brianna and Dustin enjoyed it!

Gulf Shores, Happy Birthday Judy

We have been in Gulf Shores for 4 days and today is Judy's 
birthday.  She started the day by doing water aerobics with the ladies in the outdoor pool.  The weather has been very warm in the 80s and sunny. 

Here's our 2016 winter home site, it's in the area we always select as we know many of our neighbors who always winter in this area of the campground.

We stopped by the beach and as usual......if you feed them they will come.  The snowbirds haven't arrived.....no cars in the parking lot!

This is the first egret I've seen perched in the top of a pine tree.  See him up there?

Patches is excited tp be back in Gulf Shores, can you tell? 

Soccer has come to an end in Michigan for Devyn's RUSH team, here they all are.  In 8 weeks the indoor winter soccer season starts.

Quincy and surprise visit with Ron and Lois

Once the windows were finished and the glue and caulk was dried we left for Gulf Shores.  We traveled to Quincy, FL and an overnight in a Passport America campground.  It was just an open field with hookups in a field behind a gas station on I10.  We were about to have dinner and there was a knock on the door........

Ron & Lois were on their way from MI to FL for the winter and coincidentally stopped overnight at the same campground!  We had a nice visit and also walked to the Burger King for breakfast before we both pulled out in the morning.  

Nothing like a Burger King breakfast in the auto supply  area!

Meanwhile in Atlanta someone has a new old toy..........

Hudson and Suncoast Designers

We have spent a week here.  This wasn't our plan but thanks to Matthew it's what happened.  Hudson is on the west side of FL just north of Tampa on the Gulf coast.  We were coming here for a 10/10 appointment to have 10 dual pane windows removed and repaired.  Over the years they have leaked and to various extends gotten dirty or foggy on the inside.

The first day here we drove back to Ocala to spend the afternoon with Bev visiting, she made a very good sloppy joe and tater salad lunch for us.
They had me back into their building as the weather was bad (some rain and wind from Matthew) so they could remove 5 windows and start working on them.  The rest were done outside as the weather cleared.  Matthew was not near as bad as forecast, I'm not sure all the forced evacuations were called for.  Bev said the wind was no where near 60 or 70 mph and there wan't much rain either in Ocala.

We had lots of time to explore, Judy easily found Hudson Beach where she and her mom use to go when mom lived down here. 

Meanwhile, back at the RV...........