Living Our Dream

Heading North for Christmas

Pittsburgh, PA - Events of Monday, December 19 to Friday, December 23, 2016

On Monday morning (December 19th), we headed to Pittsburgh to spend Christmas with Lora, J. Michael and Lydia. As usual, we left the rig in Florida. As we started doing a couple of years ago, we again stopped overnight at the Hampton Inn in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which is just south of Charlotte. We used to drive straight through to Pittsburgh, but we found spreading the drive over two days is much less hectic.

Since Wauchula is a about two hours farther south than Bushnell where we used to spend our winters, the first day's drive was longer. Not only that, but our route now takes us through busy Orlando so we made sure we got on the road bright and early so we would get to Orlando prior to the height of the morning rush. There were a couple of slow-downs, but no major delays. We got to Rock Hill around 4 p.m.

We pulled out of Rock Hill around 7:30 Tuesday morning and took the bypass around Charlotte to avoid morning traffic. We pulled into Lora and J. Michael's driveway mid-afternoon during Lydia's nap. In actuality, Lydia rarely naps anymore; but she does go to her crib to play quietly for a while in the afternoon. It provides Lora with some much-needed down time.

Lora got Lydia up shortly after we arrived. We notice big changes in Lydia every time we see her. She now chatters like a magpie. Although we sometimes have a little trouble understanding her, we did get a lot better at it by the end of our stay. Lydia is also starting to learn to count, and she is learning to recognize both numbers and letters.

On Wednesday morning, Lora and Margery headed to Walmart with Lydia in tow to do holiday grocery shopping. They also made stops at Sam's Club and Aldi's. Later in the morning, Paul drove north of Pittsburgh to Cranberry to meet some of his former MSA co-workers for lunch. The guys had a good time catching up.

After dinner on Wednesday, Lora whipped up a batch of molasses cookies. Lydia was eager to help.

Lydia helping Mommy mix up a batch of cookie dough

Coloussy Chevrolet, where J. Michael works, had their Christmas party on Wednesday, so he was home from work early. We had an early dinner of pizza and hoagies from Hunner's Pizza, then headed to Phipps Conservatory located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh for their Winter Flower Show and Light Garden.

The gardens were a gift to the City of Pittsburgh by real estate magnate Henry Phipps in 1893. Paul has fond memories of Phipps because he went there many times as a kid with his maternal grandfather. We took Lora to Phipps numerous times when she was a kid, and we have gone to the Winter Flower Show several times with Lora and J. Michael when we have been in Pittsburgh for Christmas.

The conservatory is dressed up with Christmas trees, poinsettias and other holiday decorations.

Poinsettias and paperwhite narcissus

One of many Christmas trees

More poinsettias

Container planting with more poinsettias and other flowers

There are also vignettes with attractive holiday scenes.

Poinsettias in a holiday scene

"...and the stockings were hung by the chimney with care..."

Lydia is at the age where she is wanting to do things on her own. She wanted to take her own pictures, so Lora supervised her use of the family camera.

Lora supervising Lydia using the family camera

In the photo above, Lydia was photographing a Christmas tree with the figure of an ice-skating reindeer in front of it.

Christmas tree and skating reindeer

Santa visits the conservatory during the day on selected days. His chair is a favorite spot for photos at other times.

Lora and Lydia in Santa's chair

In addition to having the conservatory all dressed up for Christmas, Phipps also has an impressive outdoor light display.

Christmas tree in the outdoor light display

Another outdoor tree

Lora, Lydia and J. Michael

The camera continued to hold Lydia's interest, and she snapped more photos while we were outside. Looks like we have a budding photographer in the making.

Lydia taking photos outside

The outdoor light display includes lighted orbs.

Lighted orbs

New for this year are groups of lighted plastic rods lining one of the outdoor paths.

Plastic rods with multi-colored lights

Back inside, we warmed up as we finished our tour of the conservatory. We stopped for a couple of family photos on our way out.

J. Michael, Lora and Lydia

Margery and Paul

The Christmas Eve services at the church Lora and J. Michael sometimes attend are so crowded they have four of them - two on Christmas Eve, and two on the day before Christmas Eve (we call it Christmas Eve Eve). Since we always go to J. Michael's brother's house for buffet supper on Christmas Eve, we went to church on Christmas Eve Eve. Lydia wore a new Christmas outfit we bought her a while back while we were in Florida.

Lydia's new Christmas outfit

It was a nice Christmas Eve Eve service with many of the usual carols including the traditional "Silent Night" sung by candle light. We went back to the house for supper and an evening of relaxation. We'll tell you more about our Christmas trip to Pittsburgh in our next post.

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Merry Christmas!

We pray that the reality of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, fills you with joy and peace. How easy it is for the frantic activity of the season to obscure the true meaning of Christmas. Satan uses preoccupation, religious ritual, idolatry, over-familiarity and a myriad of other trappings to distract us. May we all make time to step away from the distractions and come to know Jesus or know Him in a deeper way this holiday season that we might abound in hope.

Wishing you the blessings of Christmas to you and yours.

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Errands and Eats

Wauchula, FL - Events of Friday, December 9 to Thursday, December 15, 2016

On Friday, we had some errands to run over in Bradenton, which is about an hour to the west. Anna Maria Oyster Bar has several locations in the Bradenton area, one which is farther north near Ellenton. That's the one we usually frequent because it is located right off I-75 and is easy to get to. However, our errands on Friday took us close to the Anna Maria restaurant near Cortez so we stopped there for lupper on the way back to Wauchula because Cortez our favorite Anna Maria location.

Anna Maria Oyster Bar near Cortez

The reason the Anna Maria near Cortez is our favorite is because they have tables that have sand and seashells embedded in them.

Sand and seashells embedded in the tabletop at Anna Maria Oyster Bar near Cortez

We again had fried clam strips ($9). Margery had onion straws for her side ($1 extra), and Paul had red potatoes.

Paul digging into his fried clam strips

Paul had another small project recently that kept him busy for a couple of days. For quite some time we had been occasionally getting water dripping from under the front cap of the 5th wheel. The occurrence was somewhat random; but since most of the time the drips appeared after a rain, Paul figured rain was getting in somewhere. He made several attempts to re-caulk a number of spots on the roof, some areas along the side seams of the front cap and also around the dryer vent; but the random drips continued.

When water recently started to drip more frequently even when it wasn't raining, Paul started to think it might be coming from one of the water lines that goes to the washer instead of from rain intrusion. Unfortunately, the way the washer and dryer are installed in the front closet, you can't reach or even see the hookup valves or the hoses for the washer without removing the dryer, and you can't reach the screws that hold the dryer in place without first removing the washer. Since there was no easy way to get to the valves and piping for the washer to look for leaks, Paul decided to cut an access hole through the wall that separates the front closet from the compartment where the washer and dryer are located.

A week or so ago, Paul got out his hand-held jigsaw and cut a hole through the wall. With the new access, the shutoff valves are within easy reach.

Easy access to shutoff valves

Paul stuck his hand in and felt the hose connections for the washer and found the one for the hot water was wet. He tightened the connection with pliers, and we haven't had a drip since.

To finish off the access hole, Paul put wood strips around the perimeter of the hole between the layers of thin paneling that form the wall...

Access opening for washer shutoff valves

...then added a door to keep things in the closet from falling through the hole and ending up behind the washer.

Door covering the valve access opening

On Tuesday, we had another errand to run in Avon Park which is about half an hour to our east and just north of Sebring. Margery had an appointment for a pedicure. Paul dropped her off and headed to Sebring to make a stop at Home Depot for some supplies he needed for another upcoming project.

Paul picked Margery up in Avon Park after her pedicure, then we headed back to Sebring for a late lunch at Dee's Place located in the downtown area. There is plenty of free on-street parking (we got a spot right in front) and a free public parking lot right next door.

Dee's Place

Dee's Place serves good diner food at reasonable prices. They are open from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m. (1 p.m. on Saturdays), and they are closed on Sunday. Lunch salads and sandwiches cost around $7. Regular burgers are $6.69 ($.40 extra for cheese), and he-man burgers (half pound) are only $.50 more. All sandwiches and burgers include your choice of fries, slaw, potato salad or macaroni salad. We both opted for he-man burgers with cheese and potato salad for our side. A half-pound burger is a big burger, but for only $.50 more we couldn't resist.

Margery with her half-pound burger

The burgers are all hand made and cooked to order. They were BIG, they were juicy, and they were delish! We'll definitely be going back to Dee's. After our late lunch, we headed back to the co-op to relax.

Paul put down vinyl flooring in the shed we had at Blueberry Hill to make it easier to sweep out the interior and keep it clean, and he wants to do the same thing to the new shed we just ordered for our co-op site. On Thursday, we headed out on another errand to Brandon, Florida, to check out the Lumber Liquidators store there. Lumber Liquidators sells discount flooring of all kinds including self-adhesive vinyl plank flooring, which Paul thinks will be easier to install than one-piece vinyl flooring he used for the shed we had at Blueberry Hill. We're not quite ready to buy the flooring yet, but we wanted to know what they had in stock so we will be ready to make our decision when we find out exactly when the shed will be delivered.

There are several Lumber Liquidator stores in the area, and the reason we chose to go to the one in Brandon is there is a Bahama Breeze located nearby. We had just gotten an email coupon for $10 off a $30 purchase at Bahama Breeze, so we decided to take advantage of it and stop for lupper after our visit to Lumber Liquidators.

The Bahama Breeze in Brandon is a small one, and it is located in Brandon Town Center Mall. The restaurant isn't at the outer perimeter of the mall like we thought it would be - it is right in front of the mall.

Bahama Breeze in front of Brandon Town Center Mall

Going to a mall 10 days before Christmas probably wasn't the best choice because parking was hard to come by, especially for a long-bed, dually pickup truck. We finally found a space some distance from the restaurant and squeezed the truck into it. Thank heaven for folding mirrors.

We had an order of Firecracker Shrimp for an appetizer. Paul ordered a Cuban sandwich with a cup of Bahamian Seafood Chowder, and Margery ordered a Smothered Pulled Pork combo, which comes with a cup of soup (she also chose the chowder). The pulled pork is served with chunks of chorizo sausage atop a bed of fried, cheese-stuffed yucca balls and topped with caramelized onions, guava barbecue sauce and cheese.

The chowder was excellent. We shared the Cuban sandwich and the Smothered Pulled Pork, which were also yummy. We topped off the meal by sharing a Chocolate Island, which was also delish.

Paul with our Chocolate Island

From Brandon, we headed back to the 5th wheel for an evening of TV. With the holidays coming up, things will be getting pretty busy so we probably won't have another post for a while.

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Letting Go

Wauchula, FL - Events of Wednesday, November 30 to Thursday, December 8, 2016

When we found out our name was at the top of the list for a site at the SKP Florida Resort in Wauchula, we had already committed to our site at Blueberry Hill for another year. Even though that meant we would be paying for two sites, the annual cost of the site in Wauchula is very reasonable so it wasn't much of a strain on our budget. We knew once we gave up our site at Blueberry Hill we would never be able to get the same site with the custom paving and landscaping back again once they gave it to someone else, so keeping the site at Blueberry Hill seemed like a good idea in case the co-op didn't work out for some reason.

By the time we had been at the co-op for about two weeks, however, we realized we love our new site, we love the co-op itself, and we love the surrounding area. The people at the co-op are great, too. Therefore, we started thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea to spend the extra money to keep our site at Blueberry Hill if we didn't have to.

Margery made a call to the manager at Blueberry, and he said giving up our site mid-year would be no problem since they had a rather long waiting list. Therefore, we headed to Bushnell on November 30th (we were paid up through then) to turn in our shed and mailbox keys and to load up the truck with everything we had left in the shed there and cart it down to Wauchula.

Getting everything into the truck was a challenge because in addition to a good many boxes and containers, we had two bicycles and a 4' workbench to load. It took about an hour of loading and re-arranging, but we got everything in the truck so we could make it in one trip.

We said good bye to some of our friends at Blueberry while we were packing the truck and also when we were on our way out of the park. Blueberry Hill is a really nice RV park, and there are some really nice people there; but we're sure we're also going to be happy at the SKP co-op in Wauchula.

On the way back to Wauchula we had to pass right by the Ellenton exit where Anna Maria Oyster Bar is located, so we stopped for lupper. We both had fried clam strips for $9. Margery had slaw and onion straws ($1 extra) for her sides, and Paul had slaw and red potatoes.

Paul digging into his clam strips

We haven't been to Anna Maria's for some time because we discovered Dan's Clam Stand in Crystal River that was much closer to Blueberry Hill. However, Anna Maria's is closer to Wauchula so we'll be going there more often. The good news is the clam strips at Anna Maria's are even better than we remembered and are as good as the ones at Dan's.

Back at the co-op, we started unloading the truck. Not only is the shed on our new site small, but it has deep shelves running down both sides. The shelves make it nice to stack boxes and containers, but they take away floor space we need for the lawn mover, the bicycles and the work bench. It's more crowded in there than we thought it was going to be.

Since the shed is so small and since it's also pretty old with signs of a few minor water leaks, we started researching new sheds a while back. A few days after we got back from Blueberry and saw how cramped the shed really was, we went out and placed an order for a new shed. We're not sure exactly when it will be in, but it will probably be early January.

One of the things that keeps cost at the co-op so low is almost everything is done by volunteers. When we had only been at the co-op for a couple of days, we happened to meet Ed, who is the head of the Buildings and Improvement Committee. When Ed found out Paul was an experienced do-it-yourselfer, he invited Paul to a committee meeting. Ever since, Paul has been working with a team of co-op members one or two mornings a week whose current project is repairing some water leaks at the back of the clubhouse. Over the last couple of weeks, the guys removed some of the siding so they could replace rotted framing and wet insulation. After all the leaks are repaired, the next project will be to replace dry wall and paneling inside.

Work on the clubhouse to repair water leaks

Another thing that has been keeping us busy is going to breakfast at the clubhouse every Monday morning. Volunteers prepare things like eggs, sausage, pancakes, grits, and sausage gravy and biscuits. Prices are very reasonable ($2 for two eggs and a sausage patty, for example) and the food is good. It also gives us a chance to meet people and chat while waiting in line for our food and while eating. After breakfast every week there are 10 minutes or so of announcements of events for the upcoming week, so it's also a good way to keep up with the latest news.

Last Thursday, we drove to Bushnell for Margery to get a haircut. She really, really likes her hairdresser there and wants to go back at least every other haircut while we're in Florida for the winter. Her appointment was in the afternoon so we stopped at Pancho's Villa for lupper on the way back to the co-op. Margery had a ground beef chimichanga and Paul had a chicken chimichanga. As always, they were delish as were the corn chips and salsa.

Paul with his chimichanga at Pancho's Villa

From Pancho's we headed back to the co-op for an evening of TV. We'll have another update soon so stay tuned.

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