Saying so long...for now

As in previous years we were blessed to have good neighbours. Bev, Jack and Shirley were walking buddies for Olivier, and Bev and Shirley were knitting pals for me.
Happily we don't need to say goodbye- just so long - we will be neighbours again next year.
Have a great summer everyone - we are looking forward to next year already.

Discovery liftoff

With only 3 or 4 shuttle missions left, it was well worth getting up at 5 am this morning to see a picture perfect liftoff of Discovery.
If only we could have hitched a ride - we'd be home by now!

Happy Easter

As we pack up and get ready to head North once again we would like to wish everyone back home a Very Happy Easter.
See y'all soon!

Almost time to head North

Last night we brought together all the elements for a great farewell dinner party - good food, great friends, lots of booze and delicious dessert.
Have a great sumer everyone - hope we can do it all again next year.

Busy day......lucky day

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny hot day which was great since we had two outdoor activities to attend.
First was the TGO Fun Fair which included displays by the local Sheriff's dep't, vintage cars and an opportunity for all the TGO activity clubs to show off their wares and do a little fund raising.
By noon we headed off down the road to the town of Christmas for their annual Bluegrass Festival- great music, pulled pork sandwiches, home-made ice cream and kettle corn.
We got back home to find a message on our answering machine - I had guessed the right number of golf tees in the jar and won a basket of red and white wines. We have 7 bottles of wine and 2 and a half weeks left to drink them - yeah, that's about right.
FYI- there were 724 tees in the jar!

Living in harmony?

This was an interesting and unusual sighting on the nature trail yesterday - a turtle playing chicken with an aligator.
Not sure what happened but my money's on the gator!

Happy St Patrick's Day

It's always nice to have friends from back home come and visit, especially when it's St. Patrick's Day and those friends are Irish (at least a little bit!)
Thanks for the visit (and the wine) Bev and Mike and enjoy the rest of your time in Florida.

We lost.......again!

We held our second annual Canada vs USA bowling competition this week. We traded Kathy back to USA where she belongs and picked up a couple of ringers from Trenton (or so we thought).
Well, it was not to be- we lost- but not as badly as last year and that's something to be proud of!
After watching the Olympics Dan thought we would do better if he swept Donalda's ball but even that didn't help!
But true to form, we did much better in the ice sports and when we went back to the TGO in time for Happy Hour Canadians reigned supreme!

The Village of Cocoa boardwalk

One of our favorite places to walk on a beautiful day is the boardwalk in the Village of Cocoa.
And if the pelican in this picture looks happy he should be - he ate most of my ice cream cone!

Crafty weekend

This was a great weekend for those of us who enjoy craft fairs. Today the streets of the Village of Cocoa were closed to regular traffic for their annual craft fair. We walked for miles and managed to find some great deals. Lunch was at a little bistro fashioned to look like Seinfeld's Soup Nazi joint. Joel - you would have enjoyed it!
And yesterday, here at the TGO church craft sale Kathy bought herself and me pin cushion rings. In this country I think it means we're engaged!

Another fire

It seems like every year my Blog has at least one fire story and sadly this year is no exception. There are a lot of rumours going around about what started this one but happily no one was hurt

Supper got a little cold

Last night we left supper on the table to run outside to watch the launch of a Delta IV rocket carrying a weather satelite into orbit. I'm not really sure what a weather satelite does but I do know that the weather is getting into the high 70's in a couple of days and that's all I need to know.

Special visitor today

Today was a beautiful sunny day so Kathy and Lainie were out for a stroll in their golfcart and decided to drop by for a visit.

Just like Hitchcock

I'm not sure why, but for the last couple of days the birds have been swarming around our place- thousands of them. It wouldn't be so bad because they don't seem to be noisy but there's poor Olivier - trying to keep the car clean!!!

Happy Birthday Joel

We didn't let the fact that Joel was thousands of kilometers away stop us from celebrating his birthday last night.
Hope it was a great day for you too Bud.

A picture is worth a thousand calories

Del broke 100 - I broke a nail!

It was too cold and wet yesterday for golf so Tina and Mel decided we should go bowling.
Unlike golf, however, the lowest score is not the winner- which was unfortunate for me!

La Bamba night

It was margaritas and Coronas all around when Tina and Melanie came to visit (and that was after 2 hours of Happy Hour at the TGO!)
I don't know about the others but I was celebrating my MUCH OLDER sister becoming a senior citizen today. Happy Birthday Soph!

'Interest'ing lunch

It might be true that banks down here are in a bit of trouble and the interest they pay may not be high but the Riverside Bank here at the TGO pays out annual interest in the form of a free BBQ lunch which is always popular.
A bit of a cool wind did not stop us and our friends, Caroline, Jim, Isabelle and Jim from enjoying the event.

Liftoff

What a difference 24 hours make. The sky was clear and starry at 4:14 am when the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off for it's 24th and probably last mission.
It truly is a once in a lifetime experience that we have been lucky enough to experience 4 times- and since our pictures don't seem to do it justice here are the local news channel pictures as well.

Houston, we have .......clouds!

We set the alarm for 4:00 am to ride down to the golf course to see the last scheduled nighttime launch of the space shuttle at 4:39 am. At 4:15 there was only a 30% chance of lift-off but we were hopeful (and already awake anyway) so off we went only to notice everyone else driving in the opposite direction. That was a definite sign that the mission was scrubbed due to low cloud cover. They are trying again tomorrow at 4:13 am- hope the Superbowl game doesn't go into overtime!

Citrus picking

After a colder than usual January with some nights of frost it is nice to see that February is bringing on a great crop of citrus.
We went to our favorite local grove -Heritage Grove- this morning and picked up 20 Ruby Ray grapefruits for $4.00. This is the first time this trip we have bought grapefruit- up until now we have been getting them from Dan's backyard!