January 8th - January 24th

We began the week by attending "First Sunday on the Beach"

It was a beautiful day....in high 70's...with sun shinning on the beach maling it look like diamonds were hiding in the sand.

This is a monthly event, with Solana Lake, Solana Shores and Shorewood joining together to share food, games and friendship.

They usually set up horseshoes and other beach games to play.

This month we had a live band so there was beach dancing!

Monday, I joined the water aerobics group in the morning, went bike riding with Guy after lunch and then went to Yoga class in the evening....a little too much exercise for one day!

Wednesday, the "Lunch Bunch" travelled to Melbourne and had lunch at The Green Turtle. We always try to visit a restaurant we haven't attended as a group before.....this turned out to be a good choice...

Thursday evening (after Yoga class) we went over to Vic and Jean's for a"Welcome Back" drink. These are our friends from Pa. (no pic..forgot camera) and we got caught up on all the news since we'd been together last winter.

Friday morning was the first Social Committee meeting of the year where we starting planning activities for the season. I volunteered Guy and I to host the first monthly TGIF.
We were invited to Happy Hour at Chris and Joe's that evening. Sally and Barney were there also....All 3 couples are from Maine.

Sunday we decided to take a bike ride around the Port.

stopping at Ron Jon's on our way home for a Pina Coloda...After all, we were thirsty after all that peddling....

Claire and Tom who hail from Wisconsin bought the unit in D Bldg. that we have been renting the past couple of years...They wanted to meet us so invited us to the Packers/Giants game. They are a really nice younger couple ...Claire and I bonded immediately when we discovered quilting was our passion....

Monday morning we headed down to Stuart, which is about 100 miles south of Cape Canaveral. There we met Mel and Betty who are vacationing in Hollywood.... We ate at a nice little restaurant, "Sailor's Return" which was at a marina.....where Mel and Guy sat drooling over the huge, gorgeous (and expensive) boats docked at their slips. Since they both had just recently sold their own boats, they were reminicing over their past adventures.

Guy wanted his picture taken next to "Duet" as his Friends KB and Nila also have a boat christened with the same name.

Tuesday Guy volunteers at the Elks in Cocoa Beach. They served a delicious Pot Roast dinner this week and several couples from Solana joined us to enjoy.

Vic & Guy

Joe and Chris on the left, along with Barney, Sally, Joe and Jean on the right.

Terry, Carol, Jean, myself on left with Vic and Marie on right.

On our morning walk on Wednesday, we came upon a small Dolphin which had been washed ashore.

People from Sea World were on the scene to take pictures and bring the Dolphin into the lab to see what had caused its demise.

Arlyn was riding his bike and stopped to help, along with Guy to load the dolphin onto the truck.

It's imprint in the sand.

Thursday, we had to bring in all our furniture from the balcony as they are going to paint all of the buildings in our complex.

We are hoping that this project will be completed before our February company arrives.....not a lot of room to entertain with this stacked all around.

The workmen pressure washing on our balcony. They will be putting plastic all over the doors and windows before the painting begins.

Thursday evening a Delta IV rocket was launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It was a next-generation military communications satellite which should begin serving troops this summer.

We were able to view this spectacular liftoff from our rooftop.

Friday was our 1st TGIF party of the year which was held at the Club House. Everyone brought either a soup or salad...we had about 46 people attend. These gatherings are always so much fun and everyone pitches in to help setup and cleanup afterwards.

Claire and Tom (new owners of D505) along with myself and Marie.

Tammy, Joan, Chris, Pat and Carol.

We got up early Saturday morning for our bi-monthly Beach cleanup session. Stopped at Portside Galley for breakfast, continuing on to the beach and then back for a quick shower before Steve and Linda arrived to spend the day with us. They are spending a weeks vacation in Orlando, enjoying being away from the cold in Pa.

There was an Art show in IndiaAtlantic, so we drove down to check the show and then have lunch.

Steve trying out a handmade rocking chair.

beautiful stained glass

and art pieces..

Sunday Guy joined Jim in IndiaAtlantic for B17-B24 &P51 Mustang Flyin and Open House. He is still kicking himself for not bringing the camera along so he could share pictures.
On our Monday walk on the beach, we came across a Lobster!!

someone did a great job of a sand sculpture....if you look closely enough, you can even see it's tenacles....

After running errands, we ended up at our ol' stompin' grounds...

Lunch at Coconuts in Cocoa Beach.

On our way back we watched the work in progress on the buildings....

It's really interesting to see how the cleaning and painting gets done.

Soon we will be all sparkly clean.....ready to show off our surroundings to our Winter company.

From Maine to Florida

It was a long stressful summer..when we got home from FL in May, our decision was to sell everything and move South. We sold the riding lawn mower, air conditioner, donated our winter clothes to the Church...I even weeded out my craft supplies....in July we had a huge garage sale! Friends and relatives came over to help us on that hot sweltering day and we moved a lot of "stuff"...Yes, we were packing up and moving on out.....

Things came to a screeching halt when our prospective buyer was having second thoughts due to the economy and we sat back and took another serious look at what we were about to do and after a lot of soul searching, decided it wasn't probably a smart move for us to make either....(for now)

So we bought back the lawn mower, suffered through the hot spell with remaining fans and I remodeled my sewing room, making use of the extra room I had created by my downsizing.

Nichole came to live with us until middle of December, we finally sold the boat and Meghan got the cutest little puppy that we fell head over heals in love with....Our lives did a 360, and we somehow got through it all and now we're back in Florida, dodging the cold Maine winter.

We left So. Portland on Dec. 27th, thanking the Lord that the weather was cold and clear and we had dodged snowstorms and/or icy roads.
The trip down to Fl. was a leisurely one, our 1st stop was in Egg Harbor, NJ, the 2nd day in Jacksonville, NC and then onto Myrtle Beach, SC where we planned a stop to see a favorite of ours , The Carolina Opry Christmas Show.

It was just as good as we have seen in the past.

The following day we made it to the GA/FL border, staying in Kingsland, GA. It was a clear shot down to Cape Canaveral the next day. The further south we headed, the warmer it got and we finally started shedding some of our layered clothing.

This will be our 4th season at Solana Lake and so it felt like we were coming home.

As we came through the gated community and rounded the bend to Building "B", there were our friends standing to greet us with carts and dollies, wearing "Bell Hop" signs on their shirts!

Our welcoming committee...no wonder we love it so much here...we have been blessed with making such good friends.

After a couple of trips up and down the elevator to the 5th floor, we began to settle in and get ourselves organized. This is a different unit we are staying in this year and it will be our home until May.

It was New Years Eve and there was an Open House at the Club House from 6-9, we managed to shower and find some clean clothes to change into and headed over. What a warm feeling to greet more old friends as they welcomed us back and we tried to get caught up on everyone's summer adventures.

It was a beautiful evening, warm with a slight breeze, and our goal was to walk the beach at midnight, but it never happened! By 10:30 we were both snug in our new bed and welcomed the new year in by sleeping through all the fireworks and partying.

Sunday we went out to breakfast and then stopped at WalMart to pick up a few staples like milk and bread. We were going to go out for dinner, but come time to eat, we were both so exhausted from putting things away, we opted for a pizza and ate it in front of the TV.

Monday was a "pocketbook-sticker shock" when we saw the bill after shopping for all our staples and supplies at the Commissary. It is amazing how many things you need when your "starting over" buying everything from sugar to paper towels.

Monday afternoon our Canadian friends stopped by to say Hi and Bye! They were heading back to the cold North on Tuesday after spending some vacation time here at Solana. Jack drew Guy another hockey picture, in hopes that his Bruins portrait like last year, wouldn't be a good omen for another Stanley Cup title.

Monday night we went to one of our favorite restaurants here, Fishlips. We had a Gift Certificate from last year that was about to expire and we enjoyed dinner with our good friends, Arlyn and Marie.

Now we've about settled into a routine. Going for morning walks, Guy helping take down the Christmas lights (which he hopes to help put up next year)

Thursday evening we went to a Birthday Dinner for Rich, given by his wife Brigette. (We were neighbors last year).

Saturday we dug out our plastic bags, headed for the beach and picked up trash, stopping to enjoy breakfast on our way.

We met our trash pickup competitors...they were uniformed and had better equipment than we did, but it all got picked up and that was the goal!

Sunday was "1st Sunday" on the beach, where the 3 condo associations gather together to enjoy and share a meal. There was music, beach games and lots of conversation.
The temps had climbed out of the 30's-50's from earlier in the week and into the high 70's so it was a pleasure to have to slather sunscreen on and go barefoot in the sand.

Guy and John setting up to play a game of Ladder Ball.

Music compliments of the John Hopf Band

Our life in the Sunshine State has begun and we have left all our troubles in the cold. Many of our Family and Friends have requested I start up the Blog again, so I will do my best to keep it current and hope you enjoy reading about our activities...please feel free to leave a comment or two for us.