As most everyone knows, we got home the beginning of March, and thankfuly, the weather started improving. The snow disappeared quite fast and April came and went without so much as a flurry.

I went back to work and we hired a nephew, who is a contractor, to paint the whole inside of the house :-), the results of which you can see in the photos. You must understand that when we moved in here, EVERYTHING had REALLY ugly wallpaper so when we took that off, the best thing to do was paint the whole place beige/off white, or a variation on beige/off white!

What came of this latest change is thanks to nephew Petes ability with a paintbrush and Daughter Anns ability to see what something will look like finished, from a couple of paint chips...what a family we have! The only things left to do are some art work over the fireplace and the large couch in the living room.

In this process Paul decided that we needed to get rid of the shelves in the laundry room and he discovered IKEA, he thinks they rock. He got all the cabinets in the laundry room and installed them with just a little help from me. He has decided that IKEA is the genius of cabinets! Go figure, most newly weds had that figured out awhile back.

In between getting home, Joan going nuts with pain colors etc, Paul came down with an intestinal virus that none of the Drs could find, never got more than one room away from a bathroom and lost 21 pounds before it fixed itself. The specialists think he picked up a wierd virus somewhere and it worked itself through his system. We have no idea what, where or why. We only know he was sick, lost weight and now he is better!







I am back to work at the Y, Paul does a little bit of sales work in the building field, we see the Grand boys almost daily and we have decided that we are not going back to the panhandle of FL again in the near future (of course, with the big oil spill, that may be a very good move). We have not decided what, if anything, we will do during the winters. I guess we will play it by ear and see what happens.

In the meantime we will enjoy the MN summer, if it ever gets here, and just not worry about the winter till it gets here :-)

friends, Joan, Marsha and Carole
F16's, right after take off..
At St. Joseph's State Park

Paul
The final sunset of January

Well, January was NOT the best of months down here. This years weather leaves much to be desired, BUT I am thankful that we are able to be here.

We did a LOT of card playing and Wii game playing. Locals here say this is the worst weather since the 40's, I can believe it. We have been coming here since 1996 and I don't ever remember such a prolonged period of really rotten weather.

The highlight of the month was a trip to St. Joseph's peninsula State Park, one of my favorites. We also stopped at my favorite little shop in Mexico Beach. I got another bird for the yard at home.

We are now into February, which always goes fast, and hopefully we will get some sun :-), it would be terrible to go home with less tan than I came with.

I am still holding out about cutting my hair, some days I feel like a slob, but I will not cut it till I get home.

I have managed to put on 5 pounds, even with walking every day, sometime twice a day. That will take some working on when I get back to the Y.

We have v-chatted with the kids, one of the greatest inventions ever!, It is so nice to talk to all of them, kids, grand kids and great grand kids. Ain't technology great?

Not looking forward to the drive home, but it is a necessary evil of the trip. Will try to update this again before we leave.

New years Eve fireworks

The view I look at while doing dishes

Paul and I at the park in St Andrews, it was COLD

Shooting dice on New years Eve :-)

L-R, Marsha, Paul, Ron, Carole, KR, Bob, Luis, Judy

Another week gone and it has been COLD! Everyone gives me a bad time about complaining about the cold BUT, it is NOT supposed to be 26 degrees in Florida!

Because of the cold we haven't been doing much. We play cards a lot and when the North wind isn't blowing we go for walks. No pool time with these temps.

We ventured off to a place in AL that just opened a casino, not impressed. Did find a place called "Skins and Bubba's" that had some really good food. I am not kidding about the name. The food was Delicious, the name was a hoot!

Friend KR celebrated his 69Th birthday last night so we all went out to eat. I swear I eat more meals out down here than any other time. I will have to really put in extra time at the Y when we get back.

It is good to see our regular gang and we have added a couple more friends to the mix.

We miss the kids and friends at home and have decided that next year we will revert back to our 2 month stay. 4 months is too long.

Here is hoping the weather gets warmer for ALL of us. Talk next week

2010

Son in Law Tom and great grandson, Grady

Great grandson Gavin with Daughter Dee and Son in Law Tom

A cypress swamp, right in the middle of town, Blountstowm, FL
A friendly dice game, New Years Eve 2009

Fireworks off the pier, 12:07 am, Jan. 1, 2010

Happy New Year everyone. We are on the downward side of our winter trip. The November weather was spectacular, December was OK but not as good as usual. We are hoping that Jan. and Feb. will be better.

We have also decided that 4 months is too long, so we will go back to 2 months next year (if we get to do this again)

We had a wonderful Christmas with Dee and her family. I am totally shopped out! No one can shop for and find bargains like my Daughter Dee.

We have been doing the video chat thing with the whole family and it so great. On Christmas Day we got to watch Ann's boys tear into Christmas and it was almost like being there. Paul and son Bob chat weekly and talk about, what else, FOOTBALL! We highly recommend this to everyone.

When we got back here, the friends from WI started arriving, we are all here safe and sound and very happy to see each other.

There are 3 of the couples in our complex and the other couple is up the road a little.

We all got together to celebrate the new year and do what we do best, eat, laugh and play games. This year it was DICE!

It is starting out cloudy this morning, I hope this is not a harbinger of the next 2 months :-)

That is it for this week, I am really doing well at keeping this thing up!

I guess I'll try and get in a walk before the morning gets away from me.