Our Florida Christmas Tree

2008 The Year in Review

Winter and Spring 2008

What a year 2008 has turned out to be! When we retired at the end of 2006 we spun in circles for a while trying to figure out what we wanted to do. Then someone told us about The Villages in Florida. (thevillages.com) It's a retirement community in central Florida, about an hour north of Orlando. There are 72,000 retired people here so it is quite large, but what attracted us was the beauty of the place and the huge number of activities they offer. 33 pools, 22 golf courses, entertainment 365 nights of the year, clubs of every kind and you can go everywhere on a golf cart! We rented last November and it didn't take us long to find our new home! We were anxious to get down here to get moved in, but we had already planned a couple of trips for Jan. and Feb. Right after New Years we went with the Columbia, MD Ski Club to Sunday River Maine. (Martin skis, I just went because he needed a roommate.) When we got back we drove to Florida and hit the consignment stores to get some furniture. We could only stay until the middle of February because we had to leave with the ski club again for Switzerland and Rome!! (I told you this has been an awesome year!) Two days after returning from this trip on March 5 we got in the car and drove straight back to The Villages because the next day Scott and his family were coming to visit. And while they were here, Katie and Nick stopped by for part of spring break. We had a great time! Paul and his family visited in April and took a day to go to the Magic Kingdom. Of course they had a lot of fun too.
We planned to go back to MD in May, but we were having too much fun and when we checked the weather reports, it was hotter there! So we stayed in Florida until June. It's a little difficult switching between the two places, but it's always fun to see our old friends and our new friends.

Summer 2008

In June Martin and I drove from Florida to Maryland with two stops on the way. First stop was in Winston-Salem, NC to visit Scott, Jen, Clark and Spencer. We're so lucky that our grandsons live between MD and FL because it gives us chances to see them. While we were there we all visited Reynolda, the RJ Reynolds estate. From there we went to Cary, NC to visit with Paul, Tami, Camden and Parker. We had fun playing miniature golf and Camden was delighted when he got a hole in one!
We had some Florida friends come and stay with us in MD which we really enjoyed. (We really like having visitors, by the way.)

Maryland was beautiful last summer and we took advantage of some of the great sight seeing in the area. In August we drove up to Pennsylvania for my aunt's birthday party. We loved seeing her and lots of family we hadn't seen in a while. We managed to talk my parents into coming back home with us for a few days and they got to see Katie and her husband, Nick. By the middle of September we were ready to head south again, so we said good-bye to our Maryland friends and drove down with 3 bikes on the roof. (Martin has visions of turning me into a bike rider!)

Fall 2008

October was definitely a fun month. The most amazing thing was a five day visit from our very brave grandson, Camden. Only 6 years old, he flew by himself from Raleigh, NC to Orlando, FL. We were all a little apprehensive, but the whole flight went so well we will not hesitate to do it again. And we had such fun!! Since we picked him up in Orlando early in the morning, we decided to spend that day at Universal Studios. The rest of his visit included riding everywhere in our golf cart, swimming, shuffleboard, bocce, miniature golf, a movie and an afternoon spent with cousins who also came for a Florida vacation. My sister and her family drove up from their time share in Orlando to spend some time with us - a short but fun visit.

Right after Camden left, Martin and I took off for Utah, followed by a stop over back in Maryland. We drove to Pennsylvania to attend my dad's 80th birthday party on November 8! We had a great time watching him enjoy himself and visiting with family. Then we decided to drive back to Florida instead of flying so we could bring more "important stuff" down. 15 hours straight. So we are back here enjoying golf, biking, holiday parties, lots of fun activities. We will be here until the day after Christmas when I will fly to North Carolina to help Scott's wife, Jen, who is expecting grandson #5, and Martin will fly to Utah to go skiing. Seriously, this retirement is hectic... but we LOVE it!!