Busy Days

What have we done in the almost two weeks we have been in Florida? We have settled into the life we live here. Gary has been to his painting group twice and Louise has been to her two knitting groups three times. We have shopped for food and things we needed and did not have. Mostly we have enjoyed the warm days, warm nights, and beautiful surroundings.

Yesterday was Gary's birthday. Louise made a cake, which we shared with David and Sherry.

They took us out to dinner last night at Olive Garden, for a really great meal.

Today we went back to the gym for the first time this year. We spent over an hour in the pool.

There is an ease of life here, no deadlines, no rush, just doing what we like when we choose to do it. No snowblowing! We are in beautiful surroundings and enjoying it!

2017 - A New Year

It has been so long since we have worked on the blog that we had to go through a whole process to get into it! This is a new year and we will do better with the blog.

As you can see, we are back to our January destination in Florida. We arrived yesterday and have settled in our apartment. It was a long journey from the snowy roads of Maine. We got to see every member of the family before we left. We had Christmas at home, then visited Jon and exchanged gifts, then left for Bob's where we spent two days. The kids are at an age where they are a lot of fun and we enjoyed our time there.

We left Massachusetts on Wednesday morning and made it through Connecticut with no problem. The traffic was a little slow in New York, but we made it to Scranton for lunch. We reserved a room in Chambersburg, PA and expected to be there by 3. We knew there was a big storm coming through on Thursday and we wanted to be south of it. We hit traffic around Harrisburg that was literally tied up for hours. We did not get to Chambersburg until 6:30. We ended up with a suite in a Clarion hotel.

When we got up Thursday morning there was a coating of snow and ice on everything. We started out again and had a wonderful day driving through Virginia. We got off I-81 and took I-64 across the state. It goes through the Blue Ridge Mountains and the day was just beautiful.

We had an uneventful day Thursday, and decided to stop for the night at Smithfield, North Carolina.
To our surprise, Sherry and David Cole had caught up to us with their RV. We went to visit them before we left for the trip south. Friday was South Carolina day. If we could eliminate one state from our trip this would be the one. The traffic barely moved all day. Apparently the roads in SC aren't able to handle the amount of traffic they get. It was a slow and frustrating day. We were most happy to see the Georgia border. Traffic flowed nicely in Georgia. We spent the night in Pooler, just outside Savannah.

Saturday morning we headed to Florida. Our landlords told us to come a day early if we wanted to, and we did. The sight of palm trees, blue skies, sunshine, and warm air was welcome. We arrived Saturday afternoon and are all unpacked and moved in. Gary put on one of his Christmas gifts, and we checked out the beach at Patrick AFB today. The feel of that sand under your feet, and the sound of the waves breaking create a feeling of happiness.

We are glad we had the time with family before we left. We are very proud of the family we have.
However, the cold and the snow are getting harder to take as we get older. We are happy to be here! Stay tuned and we will share our adventures!

Florida Life

Today is March 1. Our winter in Florida is down to one month. So much for keeping this blog up to date as things such as two weeks without a computer have interfered. However, it is time to update it and explain what we have been doing for two months. First of all we have not been having adventures and visiting tourist attractions. Instead, we have been living in Florida and enjoying it greatly.

This is the house where we are living, on the Banana River. It is a split level and we have the downstairs. It is comfortable and quiet and we are enjoying it greatly. Notice there is a fence in front of the house. There were three white pelicans (one of them broken) on the fence. The rest of the posts were empty. Gary has spent lots of hours getting a great suntan while designing and sculpting eight new white pelicans and repairing the three that were there. There was no mold or pattern, just handful after handful of cement. Each of them is different. They were painted last week and are now complete. Many people going past have stopped to talk to him about them.

Here he is midway through the process with the birds coming into existence.

And here is the finished product. There are 11 penguins in all.

And a close-up of one of them.
In addition to the fence, Gary has painted several new paintings. He paints on Tuesdays in Cocoa Beach at the gallery where he has been painting before.
In addition to art, we have been to the beach a little, although the weather has not been very cooperative. The ocean is beautiful, and to smell the air and hear the waves is one of life's pleasures.

As the weather improves we plan many beach visits this month.
Gary celebrated his birthday shortly after we arrived. Here you see his "cake."

Louise has been busy knitting. She has finished a sweater for herself:

Also a shawl as well as several smaller projects. She knits twice a week with two different knitting groups.

We have seen many manatees as the cold weather has drawn them into the canal to stay warm.

We have joined a gym and spend much time there. We are doing weight machines, water classes, and cardio exercises. Gary is doing two miles on the treadmill. We go at least every other day. So life has been busy, and we are happily engaged in social and physical activity. We have even joined our landlords in playing Bingo on Monday nights. There is an ease of living here that has made us happy this winter. There is no stress, the pace is as slow as you want to make it, and it is easy to find things to do. Gary is picking up watercolor supplies for a watercolor painting class he is going to teach for SAGE shortly after we return home in April. In summary, life is good!

Christmas with the Grandchildren

Over a period of three days we enjoyed Christmas with the whole family. These pictures will show some of the memories made.

Christmas morning included a gathering of family to open gifts. Here we have two of the grandchildren, Meghan and Ryan. The most exciting gift seemed to be the toaster oven that Meghan loved.

Jessica looks happy with her new hat, mittens, and scarf!

Next we moved on to Jon's. Here is a picture of Emily sporting her new Christmas sweater.

Finally we moved on to Massachusetts and want to share some pictures of Alex and Bridget.

Here we have Bob, Alex, and Bridget, each wearing a new sweater they received for Christmas.
Even Bridget's doll received new Christmas clothes:

The hit of this celebration was the huge truck from Uncle Matt. First we have Alex looking the box over:

Finally the truck was discovered in the box and the play began.

Alex was in truck heaven as his collection increased. We had a good time and feel very fortunate to have six wonderful grandchildren!

We Have Arrived!

This blog has been sadly neglected since last fall. Life has been busy and not very exciting. We have spent the last week in the car, driving to Florida. This afternoon we made it!

We are spending the night in Titusville in a hotel, waiting to move into our rental apartment tomorrow.

It was 86 degrees this afternoon, breaking temperature records set in 1926. We went out to see  the swimming pool, and believe it or not, people were swimming in an outside pool on December 31!

Gary also checked it out:

We are very much looking forward to a winter in Florida again! We will try to do a better job keeping the blog up to date. It just seemed like no one was looking at it, so we let it slide. It is New Year's Eve and we are going out to dinner! Stay warm and stay safe.

The End of Summer

August has been a lovely month with lots of warm, sunny days. We spend the last weekend of summer at the lake enjoying 80 degree weather in September. Andrew came to visit on Saturday and talked us into a new adventure - paddling kayaks on the lake. Neither of us had ever tried it before. Here are a few pictures of our afternoon on the lake.

This is the culprit who dared us to do it!

Here are Gary and Louise out on the lake.

Louise, quite out of character!

The lessons on how to do it! We finished our trip to the lake with a real end-of-summer activity - ice cream!

The Quik Stop II in Ashland has not closed for the season! Here is a close-up of a baby cone!

I've never met a baby who could eat two full scoops.

As the weather changes, the activities of fall take over. We have harvested most of the garden, and have been covering the flowers as the first frost hit.
For Louise her thoughts turn to knitting sweaters. On Monday we crossed the border to buy some yarn.

This is the Briggs & Little Mill Store in Harvey Station, New Brunswick.

The yarn was selected, washed, dried, and rolled into balls. Time to start the Christmas knitting!

The yarn all ready to start a new sweater! As the days get shorter and cooler, the activity changes.

Busy Weekend

It has been a very busy past couple of months for the Coles. The month of September is starting off with a bang as Gary has an art show and we make a trip to King's Landing.

 Gary has become the artist of the month at Northern Maine Community College. He has over fifty paintings on display in the library. Friday night for the Art Walk he had a reception.

 Many people came by to see his work and hear his talk about his artwork. It was great to greet so many friends and relatives.

Below you can see a close up of him and some of his paintings.

 

People had a good time and we all enjoyed some conversation and memories. We want to thank all of the people who made the effort to come, and made the night very special.

Bob came up Friday for the show, and on Saturday we visited one of our favorite places, King's Landing in New Brunswick. Gary was able to find a couple of the people that he has painted in the past.

Here are Bob and Louise headed to the King's Head Tavern where we had a very nice lunch. They are modernizing the village, including modern food on the menu for the first time. Gary had a hamburger! We never thought we would see French fries being served in the tavern.

 

The quiet rural setting was delightful on a beautiful day.

 

Usually we have visited this place in the late fall, but this year we got to see the gardens in bloom.

It has been a great summer and we look forward to a good fall season.