New Year’s Activities

Well, before I go into my review of the Town & Country RV Resort, which will be my next blog, let me recap the great week we had in bringing in the New Year.  Arriving on Sunday in the Lake Mary/Sanford Florida area to enjoy the bringing in of the new year with Marcia’s brother Dean, his wife Carol, her friend from Indiana who is also named Carol, their two sons Eric and Jammie, and Jammie’s girls Brantley and Mason, we started off our visit with Papa Murphy Pizza.  They had three, a Chicago Stuffed Pizza, a Garlic Chicken Pizza and a Veggie Pizza.  We tried all three, and loved the Garlic Chicken and the Veggie, but found the Stuffed Pizza to be just a bit too thick and doughy for our tastes...so it was only rated a 4 of 5 points compared to the other two which were 5 out of 5 points.  We sure love Papa Murphy Pizza!

On New Year’s Eve, we arrived over at Dean’s house around 11, enjoyed leftover pizza and fresh, just out of the oven Quiche, and enjoyed a lengthy visit which included their annual tradition of having a Lobster Dinner on New Year’s Eve.  Wow, I had not had a full lobster for I don’t know how long...definitely going back to my restaurant days in Sacramento which puts it back into the mid-1980's.  After dinner and more visiting, we headed back to the motor home around 11:30, dodging a stray deer which decided not to try to hop over a 6 foot brick wall, shooting back across the road right in front of us headed back into the woods.  After hearing many blasts of fireworks, and for once not hearing the many blasts of gun fire which I always heard ringing in the new year in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, we kept Skruffy as calm as possible, and we both crashed around 12:30 am.

On Tuesday we headed over to Dean’s around 10 am, and we all enjoyed the wonderful Sausage Grits which Marcia had made the day before, along with donuts which Eric had brought from the Publix Store (his place of employment), and the traditional Greek “New Year’s Bread”, also known as Vasilopita, which Carol had made a few days earlier.  Click Here to see the Wikipedia explanation of Vasilopita...but essentially there is a hidden, silver looking coin baked into the bread.  Slices are cut from the bread with the first slice for the oldest and on down to the youngest.  As luck had it, Brantley, the second from the youngest, got the coin within her slice...and as tradition says, Brantley will have good luck through the year as long as she does not spend the coin.  After finishing the 1992 DVD version of the movie “The Last of the Mohicans”, a great movie which I had not seen in full for many years, we all headed over to the motor home since we missed that opportunity to display our home on wheels during our last visit back in October. 

On Wednesday Marcia and I had a leisurely day, which was good for my ailing foot which was finally starting to feel much better.  In fact, I used a cane for most of Monday and Tuesday, but only used it for Skruffy’s first outing Wednesday morning.  Surprisingly for how much it hurt on Sunday, it was now feeling like a sore foot one would have after a long, hard hike...but perhaps just a bit more than that.  At least I don’t think this will last as long as I had first anticipated....hurt feet can take forever to heal since you just can’t stay off of them for them to heal properly.  That evening we met Dean, Carol and Carol over at the Hollerbach's Willow Tree Café , that German Restaurant in Sanford we ate at back during our October visit.  They were gracious enough to allow us to pick up the tab this time, and we all enjoyed a great, yet cold dinner.  Cold as in “people cold” and not “food cold”.  It was a bit chilly for Florida even for January...if it gets down to the lower 40's, most people down here are freezing....and I must admit that I put on long pants a few times over the past few weeks myself...which makes for about the 5th or 6th time since leaving daily employment back in April, that I wore long pants instead of short pants.  Oh, you gotta love this retired lifestyle!

On Thursday we again had a leisurely day, and then went over to Dean’s for a BBQ dinner and we watched the movie Secondhand Lions, a 2003 movie staring Robert Duvall and Michael Caine.  If you have not seen it, it is a must see...good, funny movie with a good story, and nothing to worry a parent with young children about.  There is a line at the end of the movie about Robert Duvall and Michael Caine’s characters which says something like, “They really lived.”  If you watch the movie, you will know what that means....and it is definitely something we believe in as we travel around seeing the great marvels which the Lord has provided for us to enjoy.

Friday was a drizzly day, and we headed back to Palm Harbor around noon, and arrived safely at home around 4:30 after stopping at two rest areas for a break from the heavy traffic, and the wet roadways.  We really enjoyed our week...and look forward to our next visit which we hope will be no later than our exit from Florida in April.