Today we headed for Lake Placid, Florida. This quaint town is dotted with many wall murals & we were looking forward to seeing them.

One of the beautiful homes & grounds here.

We saw many orange groves. Most of them in this area are owned by one family.

On the way we stopped at a used car dealership that specialized in OLDER cars. Muriel & I weren't as interested as Tom & Jim were.


Some of the old cars... they looked in good condition for their ages but then... I don't know much about cars!












This is the clown school. There are many famous clowns living in Lake Placid & a lot of them went here.









2 of the student clowns. They said they were having a blast.








Tom is sitting outside the tourist centre. It has pictures of all the murals in the town & a we saw a video of the history of them. It was very interesting to see how they were done & what the criteria was.








A few of the murals... unfortunately it doesn't show up really well here

My favourite is the bottom left... it shows an eagle in flight.










Even the garbage cans are unique. This is just 4 of the many we saw.
















I had my picture taken with these bear statues & Jim got into a shot too.



At the old train station was this antique fire wagon.

After golf today, a group of us decided to go out for dinner. We went to a Mexican restaurant located in this building. We had a very nice meal here.





We are gathering outside the building.








What this pirate had to do with a Mexican restaurant is beyond me, but he stood guard at the entrance!

At least this one looked more Mexican.. he was inside near the bar. (where else would he be?)

This is our group. Great people who made us feel welcome.

We golfed with a group of people... 8 - 14 actually .. depending on who came out.

After a game, we waited for everyone to finish before heading to our various destinations/homes etc.

We got home from the show in Toronto just after midnight & packed up the van ready to start our trip to Florida in the morning. The weather was co-operating too.

Our first day gave us a bit of a scare/shock. As we were traveling down the I79, we came over a slight rise & there was a car with a trailer STOPPED in our lane. Tom realized that he was stopped in plenty of time & pulled around him. Thankfully there was very little traffic around. I kept watching in the side mirror & saw a red vehicle (I think it was a van) come over the rise. I didn't see him pull out like I thought he should & I figured he was going to hit the stopped car/trailer when he suddenly pulled out. WHEW... then, to my shock & horror, I watched as he lost control, spun around and then, as if in slow motion, he started to tip. OH NO!!! This vehicle didn't just tip over... it was suddenly airborne & flipping over & over & over! Tom said he saw the doors fly open & things flew out but he wasn't sure what came out. We pulled over & stopped, but could not safely back up that distance (by then we were a fair ways down the road) I called 911 on my cell phone to report the accident. Needless to say I was quite rattled by it & could not even recall my cell phone number. I was passed over to the State Police & they asked me if anyone was hurt. I told the officer that I figured there were some pretty serious if not fatal injuries but I didn't know for sure. I could not get that picture out of my mind for a few days & have wondered ever since how the person/people in the vehicle were. I've tried to find out by looking on the internet, but drew a blank.

Other than that, our trip down was uneventful & we arrived safely at Jim & Muriel's trailer in Florida on the 17th.

The next few days were spent catching up on all the news, looking around the park, playing golf, playing pinochle, etc. and watching the lunar eclipse on the 20th.



Muriel, Tom & Jim.. Jim is getting ready to start









Where did it go?








It's where?







After a hard day on the golf course... the guys took time out to study the inside of their eyelids.









part of the lunar eclipse

For a Christmas present Christine had given us tickets to see "Jesus Christ Superstar" at the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto for tonight. Since we were leaving for Florida in the morning, our plan was for Christine & Brianna to drive me in to Tom's work, then they would take his car home so they had it while we were away. Tom & I would have dinner then drive my van over to the train station & we would take the train in to Toronto . I think we should have checked out the train schedules first. We had our leisurely dinner, then drove to the station just in time to see our train pull away! We ended up driving in, but we found a good parking spot not too far from where we were going so everything worked out well anyway. Our seats for the show were pretty good & we did enjoy the show.

We got a phone call from Carolynn at 2:30 this morning. Dad had called her because Mom had fallen again & he couldn't get her up. Carolynn called Jenn & she went over to help Mom up.

We popped over to see Mom & Dad today to make sure Mom was ok & to find out why Dad didn't call us. They thought we had left for Florida already.

Brianna got her hair cut today. I didn't think she'd want it cut as short as she did, but she loves the new look














Later, Tom & I went over to Jenn's & Don's to look after Sarah & Zac. I forgot to take pictures until after bed time, so I peeped in & quickly took these. The flash made Sarah roll over but that was about all & Zac was still awake playing. Hmmm nite Zac!!!

Today I was looking after Paige & Chloe while their mom was out. After their quiet time they watched a movie.





This is the Barbie house we gave Paige & Chloe for Christmas. I didn't realize it was so big. It is taller than both of them!

They are so wrapped up in the movie

funny face!

Today we celebrate the arrival of a new family member, Brysyn. Congratulations Mike & Lisa on the birth of your son, little brother for Trent!

Today we celebrated two birthdays... Brianna's 8th (Jan. 1) & Zachary's 9th (Jan.2) After church, we went to the Swiss Chalet for lunch & then back to our house to continue the party.









The kids got to do some colouring while we waited for our lunches to come.





Uncle don is always the good sport.








Are these two anxious to get to birthday presents? You'd think they'd be tired of opening gifts so soon after Christmas!!


NOPE!











Zachary is holding up one of his favourite tee's & Brianna is showing off one of her gifts.



Blowing out the candles.














Chloe had a lot of fun playing with the balloons






Both Paige & Chloe were interested in my "Noah's Ark" music box.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We went to dinner theater at OH CANADA EH! with our small group. What a great time we had. The show this time was Charlie Brown & the actors were fabulous. The food was great too. After the show there was a small band that played some great music to dance to. The actors also had fun dancing & a lot of them are great dancers. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures during the show.









Left -- Ron & Kathryn

Right -- Jane & Roy

Me & Tom

Left is the band

Right are the actors in the play.

Today we had our annual family pot luck dinner. It was great to see some of our extended family again. I wish we would/could get together more often. We were missing 4 members this year.





Pictured from left to right starting at the top.. Brianna, me, Don, Chloe, Marshall, everyone sitting at the table, (Zachary, Jenn & Sarah together), Paige, Carolynn








Stacey, Ken, Terry, Pauline, Wendy, Megan, (Tena, Sean, Julia & Brendan together), Dad, Mom









Zachary, we are all at the table in the next 2 pictures, Sara with Tom, Chloe & Paige in their cute dresses, (Sarah & Brianna also had the same dresses), Brianna with Zachary, Megan & Sarah eating pie & ice cream, a cute pic of Brendan, Julia & mom Tena, & Zachary concentrating on eating his dinner.... I still can't believe he ate as much as he did!!