Back in the sun

Christmas has come and gone since our last post and we managed to get escape Virginia without any difficulty unlike the 5 week delay last winter.  We took a leisurely pace down the coast and arrived in Clermont, Florida at the Thousand Trails park on Jan. 7th.  Many of our friends from last year and our autumn Texas trip were waiting for us.  Most of them wanted to get me back on the pickleball court to see how I was doing.  Luckily my skills are up to par and Val has surprised everyone with her skill on the court.  We took a night and went with Dean and Margie to Miller's Ale House for some ribs (I couldn't believe I ate a whole rack!) and then went to Downtown Disney to see the sights.  It was neat to see things like the giant Tinkertoys and the huge Lego sculptures including a sea serpent that came out of the water about 25 feet tall.  Unfortunately it was so foggy that we couldn't see the fireworks.  Maybe another night.

We are now in Wauchula, FL and will be here another couple of weeks.  We have three tournaments over the next eight days so I'll be anxious to see how the knee holds up.  That's a lot of playing, but I'm looking forward to it.  And Val is playing too, once as my partner, so she's excited.

Last night we went to dinner at Giovanni's in Wauchula with two other couples.  It was some of the best pizza we have ever eaten.  It was brick oven cooked with a thin soft crust.  Ours was tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and eggplant slices.  It's making me hungry just thinking about it.  Man it was good.

It's Friday and we've had some heavy rain this morning which is probably a good thing.  It's allowing us to rest our weary bones and catch up on things like this blog.

And as a side note on the kids (can I still call them that??), Emily is training to be a real estate rental agent in Queens and is doing quite well.  And Matt left for Trinidad today to start the National Geographic travel book on the Caribbean islands. He's worked really hard to prepare for the 10 week trip that includes something like 19 flights and I don't know how many boat trips.  But still... hard life huh...

And on one last note, Val's sister Joanie is making good progress!  Val talked to her this morning and she is walking for 5 minutes at a time on the treadmill and is going places without a wheelchair.  Awesome news!!!