A fun Christmas

We had a great Christmas buffet at The Holiday Inn with Jack, Bev, Dave and Carol and then we all came back to our place for what I thought would be more food and drinks. Well, no one was hungry, even though Carol brought homemade apple pie and Bev made brownies. And I'm not sure you could call it drinking when all we had was water! But we had fun teaching Jack and Bev to play Dominos. Olivier ending up winning. Too bad though - in the spirit of Christmas we didn't play for money!

Jack and Bev

Bev's brownies and Carol's apple pie

The Perfect Gift

Carole found the perfect golf cart decoration for us which she found here in the U.S. believe it or not.

It was, however, Made in China!!!!!

We may never eat at home again

Although there is no shortage of great places to eat around here ( and we should know - I'm sure we've tried them all!) the one type of food we missed was Vietnamese. 

Well, no more.

The Viet River   opened up this summer and we decided to give it a try yesterday. It was great food, beautiful decor and excellent service. We will definitely be back.

Olivier made a good lunch choice

A great way to thank us.

Kathleen found a great way to thank us for the Tim Horton coffee and Coffee Crisp chocolate bars!

She must have been baking all day.

First of many

The first of what is sure to be many wash and wax jobs!

Everyone around here thinks we keep coming down to Florida with new cars because Olivier shines them down to nothing - they may be right!

Some of the decorations in our neighbourhood

 People around here seem to go all out with their decorations. I guess it is easy to do when you are not battling bad weather!

The Christmas Golf Cart Parade

Even though the golf cart parade passed down the street where we are living this winter we were pleased to be invited to the 'old neighbourhood' to enjoy the festivities with our friends.

No cold weather, no snow but certainly no shortage of Holiday Spirit!

Our friends and old neighbours

Even Magee was in the Holiday Spirit

The TGO choir was in great form

Settling in

We arrived on Friday and are starting to feel settled in. 

For me that means the clothes are unpacked, groceries are in the fridge and I've played my first game of BINGO.

For Olivier it means his favorite rum has been purchased. He bought  3 bottles (so far) -one to drink down here and 2 to bring back home (yeah, right!) I guess we can count on Sylvain to be there to greet us when we get there in April, right.

I know John and Leone are waiting anxiously to hear of my BINGO winnings but sadly I have nothing to report yet. 

Florida - here we come!

Hard to believe but we are headed South for the winter for the eighth year a row.
We have stopped for the night in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I am happy to report that it is  now +7 with no snow in sight which makes me happy. Olivier is happy that gas is under 90 cents a litre!

The last 'B'

With Bingo and Bunko over the last B was our 5th annual U.S. Canada Bowling tournament.

Team Canada had it's best showing ever and that's all I'm going to say about the score!

Rogers was our sponsor this year, even if they didn't know it!

This year we actually had people cheering for team Canada ( even though they were American!

Richard, the bowling lanes Manager trying to remain neutral!

Posing for our group picture behind each others flags showed the true spirit of our competition

With the competition over it was time to party

Lots of great food

and great drinks

and lots of fun!

Already looking forward to next year. 

Hot Cocoa - Florida style!

As our time down here is rapidly coming to an end and it is becoming more obvious that we will be coming home to cold and snow we decided a trip to the ocean would be in order.

So what could be better than hot Cocoa ( Cocoa Beach that is) for breakfast.

Food, fun and friendship

A typical Tuesday for me is to meet the ladies for lunch and then head over to the Manor to play Bunco, a really fun dice game.

As you can see everyone is smiling and happy - must have something to do with the fact the I won - again! 

President's Day

We thought the best way to celebrate President's Day was to gather up some of our friends and neighbours and have a BBQ.

It was also a good time to drink the huge bottle of wine that Steve gave us.

Judi's bucket list

Our friend Carol had a friend visiting for just one week and on her last day Judi still had an incomplete 'Florida bucket list':

1. Eat some good seafood
2. See a manatee
3. See a dolphin
4. See her first alligator

All was accomplished by eating lunch at Crackerjack's. A table right by the water gave her a great view of a manatee, a dolphin jumping in and out of the water just yards away ( sorry, they were too fast for me to get my camera out) and after lunch a drive to Merritt Island let Judi see several alligators out sunning themselves.

So, as I write this post Judi is on a plane back to Toronto, hopefully with great memories of her week in Florida.

Safe trip Judi. Hope to see you next year.

Can you smell them!

So we heard that most of you up North are cleaning driveways this weekend. 

And here I am stuck cleaning freshly picked strawberries. Doesn't seem fair does it!

Our neighbour needs to go loonie!

Our next door neighbour offered us the 'left over' money from her last trip to Canada.

Guess it's been a while eh Erin!

P.S. Yeah, I won again at BINGO this week! At least they pay out in U.S. greenbacks.

The Life of Pie!

A little known fact in Canada ( maybe even here in the U.S. )- today was National Pie Day ( honestly, google it if you don't believe me).

So naturally the Wednesday lunch gang went to the Village Inn home of the world's greatest pies.

Every Wednesday is free pie day ( check out the link) and they were fantastic.  

P.S. FYI Sylvain - I won at BINGO again!

and the gifts keep coming

Quite a good week for us. On Sunday Carol came by to share the basket of chocolates she won at the flea market.

 Then  Steve brought us this huge bottle of wine to thank us for feeding him after Sylvie and Nikko went home.

And then Olivier was treated to his favorite pie ( coconut cream) from the Village Inn when Kathy and Carol came for a spaghetti supper on Wednesday.

And I won at BINGO again!!!!

One happy gator

Gator don't have many friends down here so this one seemed thrilled to have the attention of so many turtles.

Then further down the road we found this little guy trying to join the others - he should get there by Valentines Day!

Back in full swing

So now that January is upon us and more and more people are travelling down here 2 of my favorite weekly activities have re-started.

Sharon welcomed the 16 women who get together on Tuesday's to play Bunco in her usual artistic and creative way.

And our Wednesday 'Let's do lunch' gang is almost all here but we decided to go out this past Wednesday anyway (there will be more of us next Wednesday).