Merry Christmas to All!

Our home for the winter is Elite Resorts at Citrus Valley in Clermont, FL, only 4 miles from our location last year. You may remember that we mentioned it in an earlier blog this year when we were scoping out the place. Paul, Anne, and Scott had gone with us, and we had selected 3 spots near each other. (Of course Scott had to cancel his reservation since he’d be staying in NC to battle his cancer.) Paul and Anne arrived a couple weeks before us and were happy to see us upon our arrival.

After Bill and Terri left on the 1st, I helped decorate the clubhouse, and then it was time to put up our Christmas decorations. The weather has fluctuated greatly since we arrived, some days in the low 80s, some days in the high 40s. One night after our decorations were up, the cool air outside and the warm air inside produced a fog on the window creating a nice wintry effect.
This resort has a number of activities with even more to come after the first of the year when the remainder of the snowbirds arrive. One activity is every Fri. night at 6 it's happy hour (BYOB) followed by gator races at 7pm. What are gator races you ask? Well, there are 6 plastic gators on a table each numbered 1 – 6, and bets at 25 cents each are placed on the gator you think will win the race. Two large die are thrown, and if for instance a 3 and a 5 appear, then gator 3 and gator 5 are moved up one space until one of them reaches the finish line. The pot is divided among those who had the winning gator so depending on how many bets were placed and how many have the winner determines how much you win. I won $1 the first race, but our friend, Ed, was the only one with the winning gator on the last race and won $15.70!

On Dec. 13 a Toys For Tots event was held here, and everyone was to bring a new, unwrapped toy and a dish to share while the resort provided 6 foot long sub sandwiches. The turnout was beyond expectations with plenty of food and loads of toys under the tree including 3 bicycles! Florida’s version of Mr. and Mrs. Claus were in attendance (Santa was in shorts), and the local fire dept. brought their hook and ladder to transport all the gifts. When it came time to load, everyone in attendance formed two lines facing each other, and we passed the gifts from the tree to the truck…what fun! As a special surprise ladder rides were provided to all who wanted. What a treat not only for the grandkids in attendance but several adults also took a ride. I had planned on going but when I went back outside after the 50/50 drawing was announced, the ladder had a glitch and they had to stop giving rides, but I hear the view was spectacular.











The following Sat. afternoon a craft fair was held in the clubhouse. I took my hand painted ceramic ornaments as well as some other none craft items but they were things we’ve had in storage that we thought might make nice last minute gifts. I was pleasantly surprised that there were 8 other vendors besides me but there was basically no advertisement for it, so customers were minimal. However I did sell a pewter snowman tray for $3 so it wasn’t a total loss.

Other than that Russ has been playing golf once a week with a group who call themselves the Travel Golf Club. They play on a different course around the area each week and right now there are about 50 in the group but it’s supposed to grow to about 100 after the first of the year. I’ve participated in the power walking class a couple times and plan to do more after the holidays including joining the water aerobics class (the pool is supposed to be heated!)

We haven’t been to the parks much this month mainly because of the huge crowds, but Russ and I did see Chita Rivera narrate the Candlelight Processional a couple weeks ago. She was as wonderful as last year and sang along with most of the songs. And after the crafts fair, Russ wasn’t feeling well so I went by myself to see Whoopi Goldberg narrating the Processional. Me and everybody else in the world it seemed! The standby line was longer than I’d ever seen, and knowing I’d never get a seat for the 5pm show, I staked out a spot behind the ropes at the very back of the pavilion. You can still see and hear but not quite as good. Whoopi did an excellent job for her first time and was obviously a huge draw.

And what better time to see the narration of the nativity story than on Christmas Eve. Russ and I joined the crowds for the Candlelight Processional last night, just missing being seated for the 6:45 performance but being first in line for the 8:15 showing. Our seats were right on the center aisle about halfway back, just behind the reserved seating…perfect (except I didn't have my camera). Guest narrator was award winning actor Edward James Olmos, who did an excellent job…very moving and he even sang along. He dedicated what he called “the greatest story ever told” to our troops and to the Disney family, as he was a close friend of Roy Disney who passed away last week. We concluded the evening by watching the special holiday fireworks and enjoyed a leisurely walk back to the car. A lovely end to a wonderful evening.

Hope your holidays have been merry and bright, full of wonder and delight!

Thanksgiving

The past few weeks have been busy which means we’re once again behind on our blog. We’ll start from where we left off and catch you up over the next couple of posts.

Our last day at Long Key we walked the beach as we had many times before searching for “treasures”. Though there are rarely any shells, we collected pieces of coral, dried sponges of various sizes, and a nearly perfect discarded shell from a horseshoe crab. Not sure what we really plan to do with any of it, but we had fun. That morning we found that quite a large number of jellyfish and Portuguese-Man-of-War had washed up on the beach from the previous night’s storm, and you definitely needed to be careful where you walked! Further down we noticed a couple large birds perched in one of the dead trees. As we got closer, one of them flew off, but the other remained and we discovered the largest osprey we’d ever seen.

Since it was our last night in “paradise”, we decided to start a fire in the pit that was provided with our site, and enjoyed a couple of Coronas under the starlit sky, listening to the water lap up on the shore. Later that evening we got the call about Russ’ mom.

The next morning, bright and early, we pulled out of Long Key and headed for Clermont, FL, our home for the next 5 months. We arrived late afternoon and were greeted by our neighbors, Paul and Anne, who had anxiously been awaiting our arrival (more on them later).

A couple weeks earlier Russ’ sister and her husband had planned a getaway trip to Walt Disney World to coincide with her birthday. They were to arrive Thanksgiving Day and leave the following Tues., and we had offered to pick them up at the Orlando airport. With mom’s failing health no one was sure if they were going to make it, but when she passed a few days earlier, they decided to go ahead and make the trip. After picking them up at the airport, we took them to the Grand Floridian Resort, where they invited us up to the room, and then invited us to have dinner with them. We started the evening with drinks in Mizner’s Lounge, raising a toast to mom, and enjoyed a marvelous dinner at Narcoossee’s, both places located at the hotel. Though it was Thanksgiving Day, there was no turkey on the menu, but that was fine with us. We simply enjoyed each other’s company, relaxing and catching up, as well as a fabulous meal, and ended the evening back at Mizner’s for a nightcap.

In all the years they have come to WDW, Bill and Terri had never seen the Candlelight Processional so we decided to meet at Epcot the next night to catch the 5pm performance with guest narrator, Isabella Rossellini. The story, music, and pageantry were wonderful as always, but Isabella seemed a little tentative. She’s an excellent actress, but this was her first time narrating the performance plus it was the first show on the first night of the Processional…maybe that had something to do with it. But Terri loved it anyway and wanted to come back another night (poor Bill was freezing as the temperature had dropped and he had worn shorts and had no jacket).

We didn’t see them on Sat., but they called to invite us for dinner Sun. night. This time we ate at Shula’s Steak House in the Dolphin Resort. Named for Don Shula, former coach of the Miami Dolphins, each Steak House is themed after the 1972 undefeated Dolphins and their “Perfect Season”, with part of the menu hand painted on an official NFL football and signed by the Coach (no, you don’t get to keep it). Of course, it was another fabulous meal especially the crème brulee that Terri and I shared!

Terri had planned to do some shopping at Epcot the next day and invited me to tag along. I met her at 11am at the Canada Pavilion and discovered that Bill had decided to join us. We went through every single store in each of the countries, stopping for pastries in France and margaritas in Mexico! We also stopped in Japan to watch one of Bill’s favorites, Matsuriza. These Japanese Taiko drummers are some incredibly talented women. We were done around 2:30 and drove back to the RV to pick up Russ and head for Steak n’ Shake. It was one of the places Terri wanted to go while in town, and since they had no car, we were happy to oblige telling Terri it was her birthday present. :-) We're always ready for Steak n' Shake!

Afterwards we dropped Bill back at the hotel and drove to Disney Hollywood Studios to see the Osborne Family Lights, another thing Terri had never seen. We arrived shortly before 6pm, the time the Spectacle begins, and stood with hundreds of others in the middle of Streets of America. At precisely 6pm, more than 4 million lights that drape nearly everything in sight came on all at once accompanied by Christmas music and “snow flurries”, and I wish I’d had my camera pointed at Terri’s face. The look of surprise and amazement was priceless. No matter how much you read about it, nothing compares with experiencing it! As you may recall, back in the mid-80s Jennings Osborne of Little Rock, AR, began decorating his home with lights after his daughter made a simple request for some, but that simple request grew each year into a display of nearly 3 million lights that could be seen from miles away. Unfortunately some of his neighbors complained, and in 1994 the AR Supreme Court ruled that it was a public nuisance. Fortunately WDW heard about the display and in 1995 brought the lights to Disney World. Many of the three-dimensional and motion-based displays are those originally displayed at Osborne's home. A few years ago the Spectacle was enhanced to include choreographed “dancing” lights that move in time to the music every 15 minutes thanks to the magic of more than 400 dimmers. About half an hour later we left to head back over to Epcot to catch that evening’s last performance of the Candlelight Processional, this time narrated by John O’Hurley. (You may remember him from Seinfeld and Family Feud.) Though the story is the same every performance, each narrator brings his or her own personality to it, and he did an excellent job. Now it was time to scope out our spot to watch the Illuminations fireworks with its special holiday ending, which makes it even more spectacular.

The next day Bill and Terri enjoyed her birthday together by themselves, and at 6am Tues. morning we picked them up at their hotel to return them to the airport. We greatly enjoyed our time together, and it was the perfect thing we all needed to celebrate mom’s life.