Winter in Florida 2018

When I get ready to post on this blog, it makes me realize what a good life I have carved out for myself.  This is my 9th winter in Savanna Club (the name of my 55+ community) in Port St. Lucie, Florida.  I have made friends in here, at church, and have kept up with dive buddies from long ago.  I'll just share a few highlights from the winter/spring of 2018.

Women's Club "Basket Meeting"

This is one of our best fundraisers for the year.  (The Woman's Club donates to many causes, focusing on local charities.)  

What is a Basket Meeting?  Ladies form themselves into groups and each group creates a basket with a theme.  They get together at someone's house to plan, shop, and execute their idea.

Themes include anything from gardening to cosmetics, to chocolates, to movies, to beach accessories, cleaning items, to first aid items, to pet items.  It's always fun to see what clever themes and catchy titles people come up with.

One of the especially popular ones is Dinner Around the World, which includes gift cards for various restaurants.  Ladies also like the wine and cheese baskets.

At the meeting, you buy tickets, go around and view the baskets, then drop your tickets into bags by the baskets you would like.  Then they have a drawing.

There are over 300 gals in the Women's Club, which makes for lots of fun and games!

Sweetheart Dance

Every February the Social Committee hosts a dance to honor all the couples who live in Savanna Club who are celebrating their 50th anniversary during the year.  This year we honored 8 couples (although there were a few more who didn't choose to participate).


Here are the Social Committee members who helped put on this lovely and elegant celebration.  I am way down near the other end.

It's a lot of work but we always enjoy seeing the beautiful decorations and sharing this monumental occasion.  In this day and age, it's quite an accomplishment to stay together for 50 years!



Hattitudes Paint with Attitudes

I am in two Red Hat groups.  One has 26 members, therefore I call it my Little Red Hats group but their real name is the Hattitudes.  On February 22, 2018, we Hattitudes painted with attitudes.

In 2015 we went to another place like this.  Here are my two paintings - the vertical one is the 2018 one. 

It's not the finished product, but the process that is fun.  But, if I ever have a chance to do this again, I don't plan to paint another black palm tree!

Sunday Lunch after Church

I go to the First United Methodist of Port St. Lucie in Florida.  This is my 8th winter in Florida as a snowbird and I have made many friends at church.

I met Judith Beckman in my UMW (United Methodist Women) Circle.  Here we are at Grandpa's Diner after church.  We both had eggs Benedict (Gary's favorite!) 
 

Meeting Dive Buddies for Lunch

Gary and I met Julie and Russ Manhold, my longtime dive buddies.  We were in the same Undersea Adventurers dive club in Ft. Lauderdale back in the 1980s.

Gary and Russ hit it off and we had a delightful lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in West Palm Beach.  Gary and I had plans to take the Diva Duck tour after the lunch but that fell through because someone (me) didn't do her homework.  They are not open on Mondays!

Soooooo....... we met Russ and Julie again for another lively lunch!  When it came time for the Diva Duck tour, the company cancelled it because it was too windy that day.  Looks like a third lunch might be in order when Gary comes to Florida again. Oh, well........

The Elliot Museum

We took my two dear friends, Bobbie Steinberg and Norma Pennie, for a little day trip.  We went to the Elliot Museum on Hutchinson Island in Stuart.

The Elliott Museum was built to honor Sterling Elliot (1852–1922), who was a prolific inventor.  He held more than 125 patents, one of which was the "knot tying machine."  The museum has permanent and changing exhibitions, including baseball, bicycles, over 90 cars and trucks, and many, many more more.

One of the neatest features is a unique robotic racking system with 50 vehicles displayed.  You press a button for the car you want to see, it gets the car and brings it down onto a turntable.  

The Elliott Museum has one of the largest collections of historic Ford Model A and Model AA commercial vehicles in the world.


These are some of the highlights of the winter/spring of 2018.  Hope you've enjoyed reading this half as much as I enjoyed living each event.

Mail Thief

It was a Friday evening just before Valentine’s Day 2018.  I was visiting my neighbors, Jane and Gene, when a knock came at their door.  There were 2 security people from the Post Office (with guns) and they were holding 5 of the 12 Valentines that Jane had mailed that morning.

It seems that one of the part-time mail carriers had opened Jane’s valentines.   Jane had stickers for her grandchildren so the thickness of the RED envelopes (the RED indicates it’s a card) probably made the thief hopeful that there was money, a gift card, or a check inside.  (The gift cards can be used in pawn shops to get cash.)

Now for the next part of the story: 
My friend, Norma, who lives in our development about a mile away, arrived to her home that same afternoon to see about 9 police/security cars and a man on the ground with handcuffs on. 

It seems that this guy had been a suspect so the Post Office “bugged” a letter.  When it was opened, it set off an alarm.  When they approached his mail truck, he had a lap full of gift cards.

Jane had added tape when she sealed her envelopes and you could see where her tape had been opened and had replacement tape placed on top.  This guy was even prepared with scotch tape!

I saw our regular mail lady the next day.  She said this guy had quite a jail record and had been in rehab.  This last time, he bragged that he had completed rehab and was “dry.”  She said he had always seemed to have sob stories as to why he needed money and she had given him money at times.  She always wondered why he kept getting hired back

In the past my mail lady had mailed checks that were stolen and “washed” – meaning they changed the amount and who the checks were to.  She says that registered (or certified?) was a safer bet but even that is handled by people along the way PLUS, it costs over $20 bucks to send a letter!  

She also pointed out that we sometimes go to main mail boxes to mail things because we think it will be safer.  However, those boxes are picked up by human mail carriers.  Think about it, the guy who stole the things from the individual boxes here also had a key to all the main boxes.

It’s a shame to feel unsafe mailing something through the United States Post Office, isn’t it?

Happy 2018 from Florida

Gary came back to Florida to visit me the week of New Year's.  We went to a New Year's Eve party at the theater here at Savanna Club where we sat with my neighbors/friends, Jane and Gene Pinson.

 Happy New Year!

Small World

This is a small post but it's such a small world that I want to share it with you.  On Christmas eve I sat with Michael and his mother, Verle Slifer.  I posted this photo on Facebook.

Shortly thereafter, friends from my home in Harrisonburg replied that when they lived in Maryland, they went to church with Michael and Verle!  What are the chances??

Halloween 2017

Gary drove me back to my little house in Port St. Lucie, Florida and got to experience some of the Savanna Club activities.  I'm not big on too many dinner dances but Halloween is the exception.  People really get into the spirit and think of such incredible costumes.

I wore my Mexican skirt and Gary wore a guayabera shirt.  We are standing with a couple of very scary characters.  

Warning for Krista:  The next picture is going to be too gory for you 

but look if you can because this costume is really unique.

The Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

I don't know where they bought this but it was really, really gory and fun!

We were at a table with Diana and Stu Kauffman.  They had created sandhill crane costumes.  Check out their painted legs and their heads were created with milk jugs.  I'm crazy about sandhill cranes so I especially liked these costumes.

Time out for a little science lesson:

My day is made when I see a few sandhills around. 

The coloration on their heads is quite unique.

 Hurricane Irma followed by the rainbow and pot of gold.

The Nerdy Professor

 This is one of my all-time favorites:  Cotton Candy and Popcorn

Wendy and Judy said they used yards and yards of pink tulle!  Their husbands were good sports, too and they also gave out free popcorn.

BONUS:  Here's my blog post from 2012  
Click here --->  Staid Halloween - Senior Style

 If you want to have some Halloween fun and laughs, Savanna Club is the place to be!

Cruise to Canada

Gary surprised me with an invitation to go on a cruise to Canada in October!  Krista, Gary's daughter, and her friend, Cheryl Nottingham, joined us.

We drove to Washington, stayed overnight, and left our car parked in the hotel's parking lot.  We flew to New York and were met by people from the ship.

(Click on any photo for a larger view.)

 Our route went from New York; to New Port, Rhode Island; 

to Boston, Massachusetts, to Bar Harbor, Maine; 

to St. John in New Brunswick, Canada; to Halifax, Canada; 

and back to New York.

Our first formal night.

Dinner on our first formal night.

Our first excursion was on an American Cup sailboat.  There were nine tourists, two deck hands, and a captain who loved what he was doing.  He had us share where we were from, how long we'd been married, and the secret to staying together.  When we told that we were not married but in a romantic relationship -- everyone oohed and awed!

There were photo opts everywhere we turned!

One of the highlights of the trip was supposed to be the fall leaves.  There wasn't much color this year but we did see some.  Once again, we struggle to try to take a selfie!

Going to the Northeast includes some excellent lobster.  We were glad that the servers came around and got the meat out of the shell for us.  Oooo, it was soooo good!

I was fascinated with how they prepared the dessert presentation.  First, they had different colors of icing in "mustard bottles".  They drew the design on the plates, then placed the item "just so."  Needless to say, they were fast!  And we were fast to sample as many different desserts as possible!

Cheryl and Krista were great travel mates.  They pretty much went their way but we always had dinner together and sometimes other meals, too.

This is the photo that we liked the best because we were both smiling with twinkling eyes.  The truth of the matter was that we were muttering about what a STUPID pose this was!

Gary and Krista do enjoy their cruises and I will gladly go most anywhere they suggest!    

p.s.  The good news is that we didn't gain weight.

Celebrating Year 72 for Gary

We celebrated Gary's birthday with Krista Suter, Bonnie and Winston Weaver at Rocktown Kitchen in Harrisonburg, VA.

Is this not the CUTEST guy?  

And he's just as kind, sweet, smart, fun, and gentle as he appears to be.

Happy 72nd birthday, Gary!