Florida Keys

By Uncle Hans 

Renee and I spent our Christmas on the Florida Keys.  Great weather. 80 and sunny each day. 

We drove, as crazy as that sounds.  It was 2060 miles, a little further than I thought.  The driving went well, good weather on the way down and no traffic problems.  We stopped at a Waffle House, which is a southern, fast food breakfast place.  It is inexpensive and a unique experience as the whole kitchen is exposed along with all the noise and chaos to the customer.  People seemed to like it.  I had a pecan waffle and it hit the spot...........

 

 


Our favorite place, however, was Chad's in Tavernier on the Keys.  We found this place in April when we were down.  A great deli like place that bakes all it's own bread.  Everything is so fresh and good.  They were closed Christmas eve and Christmas day so the only day we could go was the 23rd.  Too bad!

 

....................We found something from history:  Smoking in bars!   You are a "bar" if less than 20% of your revenue comes from food.  Several "restaurants" have attached off-sale liquor stores so they could bring their % below 20 and the patrons could smoke.  a cute trick.........

 


By Uncle Hans

Devil's Lake

This year we camped at Devil's Lake.  We have out grown our camper so we used a friends.  It is 33', has 4 bunks, and a slide out. It is a lot more camper then we are used to. I couldn't believe all the room we had.

 


 


 


 



After we were all set up we played a few games of polish horseshoes.

 


 



Well we start the day with omelets in a bag ( slider bags do not work for this).

 


 


Then it was off hiking.  There are many hiking trails. At the office we got activity books for the kids which gives them all sorts of things to look for.








 


 



We did some swimming and made some sand castles.

 


 


 





By Heather

By Uncle Hans

We stopped in to visit Grandma Jean at her new digs at Parkside Village in Green Bay.............





.....the place is brand new and a couple of blocks from Neil's and where her condo is.  Her room is nice, here she is talking to Hannah about a painting Hannah did for her.  Unfortunately, the camerman failed to get a picture of the painting..........





.....The bathroom is large and safe............





........There is a kitchenette, but meals are offered in the dining room if you don't want to cook...........





......The common areas are all decorated with knick-knacks from bygone years.  This is a display of handheld mirrors, all painted on the back.  Another spot had spats and buttonhooks...........





........Mom worked with a craft group a few days ago to make this blanket, which they are donating to the Green Bay homeless shelter.............

 



........this is the family room, where families can come and have parties for birthdays, etc.  Mom was telling me about the the deer which were playing out in the back which is open land back to a river.  She pointed out the deer preferred the cultivated and mown grass near the building, not the weeds which were further away from the building.........

 


.....Hannah found this gorgeous painting in the lobby.  It is downtown Paris and down with a oil paint and a spatula, not brush.   Very cool...........





.....every room has a shadow box, just outside her room in the common area, which is to display momentos.  Hers needs work so we are sending out a plea for little momentos.  This box can be easily changed and whenever she likes...............





.....all in all, we felt great that Grandma Jean has a nice place in Room 110 at Parkside Village.  



By Uncle Hans

Grandma Jean's Room

By Uncle Hans

It took us a while, but we have finally settled Grandma into her new quarters.  Neil and Kathy helped by bringing some pictures and mementos from her condo to make it more homey..........





..........her church at home helped out by sending a cassette tape of the service each week.  Try to find a cassette player to buy, however.  Like looking for a record player..........





 .........We pulled in the TV from the guest house.  But moving a TV is simple compared to moving a TV signal.  That took some bad language, stringing wire, and replacing the ceiling tiles in the basement..........





...........to watch TV, you need a comfy chair.  While at the second hand store looking for a cassette player, we found this beauty for $20.............





....we also found some puzzles, which Grandmas has conquered, one by one............





..........a couple of her mementos are noteworthy.  These are actual family crests that she crocheted from an ancient catalogue of Swiss family crests that Grandma Rechsteiner had years ago.  On the bottom are the family name, the Swiss crest, and the Canton crest for each family..........






.....We had to buy lots of groceries for Grandma.  Here Annie helps us at the store.  Grandma has enjoyed her time were with us.  Still, she wants to go home to her condo.  She has recovered from her fracture and a bout of nasty flu requiring hospitalization in  late Oct.  Neil and I have successfully wrestled with her ling term insurance company (we think), so she is nearly ready to move back into her condo to see how well that works.  The trial starts on January 8th.  Stay tuned.............




By Uncle Hans

Coyotes

By Uncle Hans

You never know what will appear out the big windows overlooking Cable Lake.  This early morning it was a pair of coyotes.  I think they were looking for the roadrunner.  The pictures were bad, out the window in poor light with a poor camera.........

 

 

 





.....after a while, we let Sam out to investigate.  There was a lot of curiosity, some playing, then Sam ran them off.


By Uncle Hans

Mermaids

By Uncle Hans

I found these two mermaids in my hot tub one recent morning...............






I asked them to do something that mermaids never do..............a snow angel.........





.......I wanted them to do it together as that would make a better blog picture.  but the little one would not do it until the big one did...........





.............I can't believe it, but she laid down in the snow and made a snow angel...........





.........She ran back to the warm water and started talking the little one into trying it.........





.......pretty soon, you know............





...................Monkey see.................





..........Monkey do!


      
 But then my alarm went off, so I got up and went to work......................

By Uncle Hans