April Activities

Our winter bowling league ended this month and to John's surprise, on the last day when awards were handed out, he was given the award for "The Most Improved Bowler". I must say, he is a much better bowler than I am. I guess that is OK since I am a better horseshoe pitcher than he. We enjoy the competitiveness.

John had tubes put in his ears this month. Hopefully, this will help his ears to drain properly.

John and I attended a garden clinic sponsored by a local nursery. John has planted tomatoes and zucchini. He also planted two blueberry bushes. In our basement nursery, he is growing herbs and has starts of green onions, peppers, and zucchini. Just call him "Farmer John". This week we are scheduled to attend a container gardening session at the same nursery.

Earlier in the month, we attended a "Celtic Woman" concert in Columbus, Ohio. We thoroughly enjoyed it! The group consists of four women. One of them plays the fiddle/violin and really puts herself into it by moving around all over the place. The Irish music is beautiful!!

In the middle of April, we traveled to Cleveland, Ohio to attend a Glenn Beck performance. John's sister, Julie and her husband, Jim, opened up their home where we spent the night. Julie fed us a wonderful Slovakian dinner with poppyseed cake as dessert. We devoured it and before we left, she baked another one which we ate again with them and she sent the rest home with us. We really enjoyed being with them even though it was for such a short visit.

This past weekend, we traveled to Sellersburg, Indiana, for the wedding of Scott and Allison Sanders. Scott is the son of our good friends, Brian and Terri Sanders of Indianapolis, Indiana. It was a gorgeous wedding. The reception was held in New Albany, Indiana. We pigged out at the reception. Their wedding cake was cheesecake. My favorite!

On our way home, we met a good friend, Bob Wendling, at a restaurant in Hagerstown, Indiana and enjoyed catching up on the happenings in his life. His deceased wife, Joyce, and he were very dear friends of Kathy and John. In fact, Joyce, gave the eulogy at Kathy's funeral. Here we are at the end of a huge meal!

March at Home

John has been very busy this month as a belt broke on our washer. It was a real pain to replace it as he had to take the motor out in order to replace the belt. The washer works like a new one. We were glad we didn't have to buy a new one! It won't be long before our horseshoe pitching league will start. It begins the first Monday in May. We learned about a man on the east side of Columbus who makes portable horseshoe pits. We ordered two from him and traveled to Columbus to pick them up. On our way, we stopped at a pottery/ceramic business in Columbus and purchased 12 - 50 lb. bags of dry clay. Soon, John and I will be mixing it with water until it is the right consistency to put in the pits. These pits are like the ones they use at the World Horseshoe Tournaments. It will be so nice to be able to practice in our back yard preparing for the World Tournament to be held in Monroe, Louisiana this year.

We attended the Auto Show in Dayton, Ohio. As you can see, John is enjoying the Corvette Convertible and the Mustang. Dream on, John!

February in Florida

We left on February 8th for Florida. It was so nice to have Daisy's sister, June, traveling with us. On the way we stopped at Wally and Jen Judy's house in Knoxville, Tennessee where we spent the night. It is always nice being with family and catching up on our grandkids lives.




The next day we headed to Orlando, Florida, where we stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacations Resort for four days. We then drove to Bradenton, Florida and on the way we stopped in St. Cloud where we had registered to pitch in their horseshoe tournament. Daisy placed 4th winning a whopping $25.00. She pitched a 66.6% ringer percentage her first game but went downhill from there. Oh well!

We stayed at Scott & Terri's house in Bradenton for a week while they vacationed in Costa Rica. They had other house guests, their good friends, Merle & Joan, who were in a bridge tournament that week. It was nice meeting and visiting with them.

Daisy & June had a very good time getting together with their cousins who are permanent residents of Florida and others who are snowbirds. We enjoyed dining and visiting with them.

On Valentine's Day, we renewed our wedding vows on the Siesta Key Beach along with 300 couples. We celebrated our 5th anniversary!

One day we drove to North Port to visit our good friends Bob and Claudette Cramer who are snowbirds and are involved in our horseshoe club here in Ohio. We also visited our friend, Claudia Callicoat who resides in Sarasota in the winter but has a home here in Ohio.

We pitched in a horseshoe tournament in Bradenton. Daisy placed 3rd and won another $25.00. Whoopee!

We left Bradenton and headed to Marathon in the Florida Keys and stayed with Stephen and Linda Franko on their boat. What a wonderful time they showed us! Linda is an excellent pilot and took us for a cruise to watch the sunset. While on the cruise, John and Stephen, dined on stone crab claws and June and I enjoyed key-lime pie! It was great being able to see first hand what living on a boat is like. Both nights we played Mexican train dominoes. What a hoot! John and I are hoping to meet up with them again and sail with them from one port to another. Would that be OK, Steve and Linda?

It was time to head back up to Orlando to stay four days at the Cypress Pointe Resort. While there we learned that the Discovery Space Shuttle was scheduled to be launched; so on February 24th we drove to Titusville which was about 51 miles away to share this time in history. It was awesome! Heading back to the resort took us four hours to travel the 51 miles due to all the traffic but it was worth it.

From Orlando, we headed back to Knoxville, TN to Daisy's son's house to spend the night. Cole and Ty again gave up their beds for us. We had a nice visit!

On February 27th, we drove back home with lots of wonderful memories! Who knows where we will go in March?

January in New York City

JANUARY 2011

Wow! 2011 is starting out to be another year of travels!

John's Aunt Alice passed away at the age of 93. Her funeral was in New York City. Her daughter, Marialice; John's sister, Julie; Marialice's friend, Emily; John and I traveled together in our van with John and Marialice doing the driving. Marialice saw to it that we toured New York City as I had never been there. We all know that is what Aunt Alice would have wanted us to do. Aunt Alice had a life filled with adventures.

We took the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, went to Times Square, visited Chinatown, drove by Central Park, and stopped at the Rockefeller Center.

New York City had been hit by a huge snow storm before we arrived and they were still digging out as you can see by the cars covered by snow. They had a huge snow melting machine that was capable of melting 60 tons of snow per hour.

An ice storm was predicted for Ohio and we were hoping to make it back home before it hit. When we crossed over into Ohio it had started. It was a treacherous experience but we made it home safely at 4:30 A.M. Our van brought us through!