Cruise details

I thought I would write a more complete post of our cruise. As said previously, this was a real low cost cruise for us as we only paid $112.00 for 2 nights. The cabin was small and it was an inside cabin as expected. It would have more than doubled the cruise cost if we upgraded, but for only 2 nights we felt we use the small cabin. It was really small but then we only slept in it!! We spent most of our time on deck or touring the ship.

The first night on the ship was our 52nd anniversary and we had dinner in the more elegant dining room. They even brought us a cake and did a little singing for us. Later we went to the show and they had 2 good entertainers; a singer and a comedian. Later, and Carol and I did some dancing but she really got going at the faster steps as you can see.

We arrived in Nassau in the morning and we left the ship to walk and shop the downtown area. Carol also had some old Bahamian money that she exchanged for US currency ..... a whole $1.40 worth. We did not stay off the ship long since two others arrived and the downtown area got quite crowded. We were back on the ship by noon and then loafed around the pool area reading and napping.

The ship left Nassau at 5:30 PM and we were blessed with very smooth seas the entire trip back to Ft. Lauderdale. Before dinner we hung around the bar before and had some drinks. Carol had a glass of wine and Jim tried a Margarita sampler of 5 different flavors. It was good that the samples were small but in total they were at least one drink. After dinner that evening we went to the show again with a different entertainer/singer.

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale about 9 AM in the morning and we were were off the sip by 10:30 AM. We then went to a "tour" which turned out to be a time share sales presentation. We did get $50.00 to attend but had we know it was a time share, we would not have wasted their time ..... but we did take their $50.00.

We arrived home about 5:30 PM and got right back into the activities going on about the purchase of our community.

Lots of happenings

Wow, how time flies when you are busy as we are. I'll go backwards to fill things in.

We just got back from a 2 night cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Nassau in the Bahamas. We left on January 27, our 52nd anniversary ..... right, 52 years ...... It was good to get away for several days since we have been so involved in the purchase of our community from the original developer. It is going very well and we have enough to make the purchase in nearly record time. Even though the purchase has not "closed" yet we are about 99.99% sure that every thing will go through. There have been over 93 that have decided to buy into the co-operative out of the 221 home in the community. More will be coming along later.

So by about February 18 we will be owing our own own house AND the land it sets on. We had been renting the land from the developer!!

We got back Friday from the cruise and then on Tuesday we will take the motor home to Hillsboro River State Park near Tampa and spend 5 days camping with friends from Louisville. This has become an annual event for us and we really enjoy getting to see them each year.

The Saturday after we get back, Jim and his "crew" will be putting on the 4th Pancake Breakfast this season. It is a fun event and we usually get about 100 attendees. A crew of 12 guys do all the cooking, serving etc. and we have a great time.

Carol is now the Treasurer of our Homeowners Association following Jim as he decided not to run again. Jim has been deeply involved in his ship reunion coming up in April 2011. You can see that blog by looking his profile in this blog and clicking on the reunion link or going to http://dd531-reunion.blogspot.com.

In March we will be going to Jacksonville to evaluate hotels for the reunion At least we will have a short rest until we go on that trip.

Jim's foot has healed very well and he is playing racquetball regularly without any pain. The removal of the bunions or bone spurs have really made things better. Several trips t a urologist have found that apparently Jim's bladder is smaller than normal and is causing him to get more than usual at night. No prostate enlargement or blockage were found and on Monday he goes to see the final results of all the tests.

I will have to get a few pictures of our cruise posted next time. By the way the cruise cost only $112 for the 2 of us plus what we spent on the cruise for personal items etc. Not a bad deal!!

Contract Signing

On January 26, 2010 the contract for residents to purchase Riverwalk from the owner was signed at a meeting in the clubhouse. Scott Gordon, our lawyer directed the process and Bill Adams signed for the Homeowners Association followed by Donna Kornasiewicz and Penny Dicks as witnesses. Here are the pictures of the signing.

When the signed contract was presented to George Spector, he signed and the 1 million dollars of earnest money was wired to him.

Now we have to wait for the formal closing of the purchase which is scheduled for February 18. Everything looks very good at this point.

Home again - for a while

We left on Tuesday, Jan. 12 to go to the Tampa RV show and camp with other RV'ing friends. We had some very cool weather but the time spent with our friends was very good. We did look at new motor homes and once more were convinced we had the right one for us. Carol did see one she liked but I was not about to spend over $400,000 for a motor home .... and she agreed, thank goodness.

While there we had a planned schedule of who would prepare dinner and also who would do happy hour snacks each evening. There were other RV'ers with Freightliner chassis' that were parked with us so we had a lot of folks we had met before.

The show was big as usual and we were surprised at how many motor homes were indicated as sold by the end of the show. Maybe the economy is picking up more than we thought.

We also got a lot of free night camping deals at the vendors booths so we will now try to plan our summer trips around some of them. On of the good deals Carol won was a week at a campground near Key West for $199. The rates are usually $100 per night there, so I am sure we will use that one.

We got back home on Sunday and got back in to the full activity here at our community concerning the sale of the park to the residents (us!!). It looks like we are going to get enough residents to pull of the deal which will really be great for all of us in the community.

Tomorrow is bowling for us and I will be able to bowl now that my feet have healed well enough. I don't have any more excuses for bad bowling!!

Carol wins the elction!!!

I forgot to make a post earlier about the election at our Homeowners Association Annual meeting on January 5.

Some background first. I have been Treasurer for 3 years and my term was ending. Because of the amount of time I am putting in on my ship's reunion I chose not to run for another 3 year term. A lot of people were concerned since it seemed no one was interested in running and possibly having the treasurer's job.

Well, lo and behold, Carol decided to run!! There were 2 openings on the Board that needed to be filled and ..... there were only 2 candidates, Carol and a board member who decided to run for re-election. Two openings and two candidates!!!

Well it was a tough campaign, but Carol and the other candidate did win!!!!! Carol is competent in the use of Quicken and familiar with Excel, the two programs used in our financial system. It will be a lot easier to get her up to speed on their use since she will be close at hand .... provided she is elected as Treasurer. You see she is only a board member now. When the new board has their first meeting they elect the officers .... President, Secretary Treasurer etc. I know she is a shoo in for the Treasurer's job though.

Cold times in Florida

I can't believe we are having such cold weather so early in the season, but then every one is having the same situation. We don't usually have a cold spell last so long down here and it sure feel like New York to me. Tomorrow the HIGH is only supposed to get to 47 F. Now for us thin blooded Floridians, that's real cold.

I went to the doctor today and got my stitches out. When I told that I played racquetball on Wednesday, Walked 2 miles yesterday and then played more racquetball again today he was pleased I am recovering so quickly, though he was a little surprised that I have so so well.

Tomorrow is our Pancake Breakfast that I am the Chairman of. We have a few less tickets sold than the first 2 breakfasts but is still about 85 breakfasts we will be serving. It is a nice time for our residents to get together and socialize while having breakfast.

Much of my time the past week has been involved with the purchase of the park we live . The residents have an opportunity to buy the park since he has an offer. He was kind enough to allow a right of first refusal even though not required by law.

We had a meeting Tuesday evening to explain the details to residents and we will have several more in the coming weeks. It is confusing to most of the residents and I can understand that. But there is no doubt that if the residents own the park it will cost less to live here. Still a number of our friends just don't seem to understand it!! This is nearly a once in a lifetime opportunity and if we residents don't buy it then our rental rates will really soar out of site ..... meaning that the value of our homes on our rented land will drop and be difficult even more difficult to sell.

Some people would find problems and be negative if they won a million dollar lottery though.

We leave on Tuesday to go to the the Tampa RV show in Tampa in our motor home and camp with friends for about 5 days. The weather should get a little warmer and that will make the camping better. It will be good to get away from the stuff going on here.

Recovering quickly

A happy new year for me as my feet are recovering quickly and I have had no pain at all since the operation On new years eve, I removed the bandages and cleaned up the stitches and re-bandaged. The original bandages were beginning to chafe on my feet and were getting uncomfortable. They were also quite thick and I hoped that I could get into more normal shoes since we were going out for a new years eve party. However there was still enough swelling and with bandages I had to keep wearing my "moon shoes" as Carol called them. The shoes are really sandals with Velcro straps so they can fit any size foot.

I did put on black socks to match the shoes and it made the shoes be less visible for our party.

We went to the Venice American Legion and had an OK dinner of prime rib. It was a thin cut but reasonable tasty. The band was an OK band too and they played a lot of good dance music for old folks like us!!! Gus and Marilyn as well as Bob and Terry went with us also. We had some light Hors d'oeuvres and champagne at our place before going to the club.

It was a good enough party that we actually stayed p until midnight to greet the new year!!

We even went out on January 2 to dance to the music of Jay Smith, our favorite entertainer in the area. He was playing at the Punta Gorda Elks so we had dinner there as well as dancing until 10 PM. Pretty late for old-timers but we made it. The meals were all very good and we plan on going there more for dinner more often.

Today the doctor removed my bandages and said he wold like the stitches to stay n for a few more days. I have an appointment for them to be removed on Friday.