Touch of Class

The crew is coming in a few days, here is what the biggest portion of the crew looks like

They look ready for a vacation

and we have to prepare the condo for the invasion ;).

First we make the beds so they have nice clean sheets to sleep in.  Smokie has to help smooth out the sheets

Got a little wrinkle here

Then he needs to check out the smooth texture and firmness of the sheets and mattress.

Ahh, just right!

Now we have to set up a sleeping spot for the littlest Prince.  This Pack-N-Play really does the trick

Pack-N-Play

Remember back in the day when we had “Play Pens”?  The legs were a little smaller and they didn’t have wheels, but they were sure a life saver when you could put the little munchkin in there and you could do some work done around the house and not have to worry about what they were getting into.  Although these Pack-N-Plays do fold up into a nice small size.

Smokie even liked it.

Kitty in a Play Pen

He thought it was pretty spacious and soft

Then we get the feeding area ready for the two little Princes.  Prince number 1 chair

Chair 1

Prince number 2

Chair 2

This one is for the short kid ;).  We just need to add some lines to keep the sheets in place and we’ll be all set.

One can never be too careful with a glass-topped table and people that still eat with their hands……sometimes ;).  The towels will hopefully keep the glass top bang proof.

Table with towels……check

Then we got the living/play room all set up

Soft place to play….check

Toys….check

Plenty of treats….check

Car seats in the van

Car seats…..check

And we’re all ready!

How many remember this boat that was in a slip at our Minnesota marina, Sunnyside in 2012?

Boat at Sunnyside

Well here it is again (we think)

Same boat 5 years later, for sale

This was in Craig’s list in 2017, for sale.  Think it is the same boat?  It’s for sale if your interested ;).

Here is a little eye deceiving piece of desk top foolery

Is this frog on top?

See the frog on top of the round thing?  Guess what?  It is not really on top

Nope, really inside

It is really INSIDE the round thing.  Pretty cool huh?  Good optical illusion.

Did you know that here in Cape Coral, your garbage bill is included in your property tax.  That means the city picks up your garbage.  Not only do they pick up your garbage, your recycling and your lawn or bush clippings they also pick up ANYTHING else.  As long as it is non-hazardous material.  We got rid of quite a bit of stuff that was left here when we moved in.

One of the neighbors, who had been renting out the place to at least 5 or 6 cars and 2 or 3 very loud parrots, were apparently given the boot.  They moved over the weekend and left this large pile of stuff.

Wowzer! That is a lot of trash! I hope they took the bird cause I see a bird-cage in that pile.

The city will come and take it ALL away.  Your tax dollars at work ;), or should I say, MY tax dollars at work ;).

Seems Smokie has found a new place to hang around in

Hopefully he doesn’t leave any hair LOL

Such a cute boy!

So who remembers Dick Tracy and the watch he could talk into?  Say hello to the new Dick Tracy watch of today   You can tell time, find out the weather, text people, write notes, have a stop watch and read your Emails.  It is pretty big but I don’t think my fat fingers would be able to work it properly.  I’ll stick with my watch that just tells time ;).

Finally, I have a brother that lives up north and owns/operates a small gas station/grocery, hardware, bait, tackle, neighborhood hangout store with his wife.  They have a couple of very dead times during their year.  From “the ice is too thin to walk on so you can go fishing”  to right before fishing opener.  Then after hunting season and before the ice is thick enough to fish on.  So they have a few months where you could shoot a cannon off in the store and not bother anyone.  So the picture below represents what they do to entertain themselves during these slow periods.

Fun at Bear Trax

What a fun crew ;), and Bear Trax is one of my favorite places to visit when I am up north!

That is the end of my odd little bits of information…..for now 

Cape Coral had it’s first Bike Night of the year.  This year we stopped for pizza and beer before we started looking at bikes.  It was a beautiful night, nice temperature, light breeze, wonderful!  Every year there is always something to catch my eye.  And the people watching!  Maybe next time I’ll just have pictures of the people.  All the biker chicks that really should check themselves out in a mirror before they leave home and look at themselves with their 65 year old eyes not the mental 20 year old ones LOL.

The first bike we came upon was this one

Too boxy

Kind of ugly if you ask me, no lines.  Now the next one had a cool emblem on the gas tank

Indian Bike

The next one we saw, a “Buddy”, wasn’t really a motorcycle, and I bet the guy had to wear a bag over his head because he was so embarrassed of his “bike”

Really a scooter

This goes for about $3000.  Ok, I guess if you want a motorcycle and da wife doesn’t want you to spend a bunch of money, you might have to settle for this.  At least it looks brand new ;).

We saw this bike that was changed to a tree 

  First time I have ever seen that before.  And look at his saddle bags.  Looks like he just got a new leather stamping kit and had to try every one out on his leather bags.

This one looked better in person

Ooooh, scary!

the eyes are actually lights.  It was pretty cool.

There is a church on this street and every time there is an event on 47th Terrace, they hand out free hot dogs and pop.  This year they had a little furry buddy outside   At least it wasn’t too hot for the poor guy in the bear suit.

Then I saw a couple of these older bikes

Looks pretty old

Looks even older

How’d you like to ride in that side car?  That seat looks reeeaaal comfy.  Then I saw one that was more my style

My kind of motorcycle

It even has seat belts and I could bring a couple of my friend along while Gary drove us.

Here are a few more I found interesting

Street legal bumper car

Is that a Chinese swear word painted on the side?

Watch those speed bumps!

I see this type bike every time we go.  I would be so afraid I’d catch the fin on a bump, I’d be afraid to drive it.  They have very steep driveways here.  Even with the van, we sometime scrape the bottom of the bumper guard going in and out of places.

This one has a car engine

A Ford limo

Not a motorcycle but cool none the less.  This is what we need when the kids and their crew come down for a visit ;).  This next one is not necessarily the bike but the old guy sitting in front of it

Japanese musician

You’ll find that guy all over Cape Coral at all the festivities.  The Bike night, the art festivals, the farmers market, we even saw him outside of Ace Hardware one day!

I did see a few other interesting characters…..

Cute Puppy

Here is an example of someone who should of checked themselves out in a mirror before they left.  What is with the sweat bans on the wrists?  He doesn’t look like he is working up any kind of a sweat to me.  He does have a cute dog though.

And these two……..  the lady standing next to the dude looks almost as scary as him.

I think the lady in blue is thinking “What have I done?!”  The scary guy’s date looks like she is checking herself out in her compact.  Do ladies still carry compacts?

Then there is this guy   It is a couple of days before Valentine’s day and I’ll give this biker guy credit for dressing up like cupid, diaper and all.  You had to pay to get your picture taken with him and then the money was going to breast cancer research.

One of the last bikes we saw was a Royal Enfield 

I do believe this was one of my “little” brothers first bikes.  Although his didn’t look this good ;).  On the way out we saw a CCPD car and plenty of them strolling in the crowd keeping the peace  

Another good bike night, but it is time to go home and pet the cat.

So the final guy came down to fit the lift to the boat.

Make it a little wider

The first thing he had to do was move those poles out as far as they could go.  Then we were ready to bring the boat in

Come to Mama baby!

The boat was a little too tight on the right side  We’ll have to move the bunks over a little

That made a difference but the white poles keep getting caught under the top I-beams when we lifted the boat.  We’ll take care of that

Hack saw to the rescue

That guy in white is Pete, our neighbor here.  He came down to help.

After cutting all the white PVC poles down, we finally got the boat situated on the lift and we were able to raise and lower it without any of the poles getting stuck under the I-beams

Now there’s a boat!

Whew!  That’s a big boy when it is up on the lift.  The only problem now is the boat blocks MY view of the house across the canal

Stupid boat

How am I supposed to keep track of them  now?  Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to keep track of the boat instead.

So once the boys were done with the installation of the lift and before the other guy comes to help us get the boat fitted for the lift, Gary decided it was a good time to soften up the back I-beam so in case the boat hit it, it wouldn’t chip any paint off or wreck the fiberglass.  So he went to the place where the lift was being sold out of and told him of his dilemma.  They offered a solution of a rounded dock bumper, but you had to buy 6 feet of it at a cost of $60.  So off he went to his favorite place for projects….Ace Hardware.  There he found a plastic hose about 2 feet long, cost…..$1.09 plus tax.  Good Trade!

Here is a better picture of the lift with the extra pilings now in place

Completed lift

Let’s start fixing that back I-beam.  First, we need a ladder so we have something to crawl out on  because we are NOT a monkey and there is no way WE are going to sit in the I-beam with our knees up to our ears.  Then we need a board to kneel on cause kneeling on those aluminum rails would not be good for the old knee caps.

Here we go!

As further protection we’ll add our knee pads, take everything out of our pockets and leave our hat on the dock.  Then we lay across the bunks  so we can reach the place we are putting the plastic hose on.  See how well it went on? 

Then we need to secure it with some zip ties but before we do that,

Ouch!

Man!  Laying on that bunk hurts!  Colleen!  Go get me a towel to lay on!

Nice and soft!

Whew!  Much better!  Now I can put on the zip ties

and then…..

Whala! All done!

After looking over our finances and graciously passing on my new bathroom, Gary finally got his lift.  We had several people come out to give us bids.  It is funny how each person has their own idea on what we needed.  A few said a 10,000 lb lift would work, one said he wouldn’t install any lift on our pilings as they were too small and another said we needed a 13,000 lb lift but we needed 10 inch around pilings.  We only had 8 1/2.  Gary came up with the idea of adding another 8 1/2 inch piling so we could have the 13K lift.  Eureka!  What a wonderful idea!  So a decision was made.

We signed the contract before we left up north with the understanding they would wait till we returned.  On January 2nd, our lift was delivered

Oh Boy!

Then we had to find a place to put the boat while they worked in our slip.  Luckily we have a guest spot  and our boat fits real good there.

The next day, two guys came out to install the lift.  Hmmmm, it only took one guy to take the old one down.   

These new guys had to first put two big boards out to walk across 

and put the lift on the piling.  Notice the third pilings are missing?  They are going to be air jack in later because they can’t get a barge in between the two dock fingers to drive the pilings in. (And of course I had to go do taxes so I missed that part and Gary was so busy telling them to straighten out the pilings that he didn’t get ANY pictures.  Man!  The coolest part of the insulation and we have no pictures.  I’ll have to get a better back up photographer 😉 )

Next they carried the cross bars down the docks 

and then they string the cable thru the top beam  

and then string the cable thru the bottom beams 

Once they were done with both sides….I was still at taxes so I had to rely on Gary for more pictures.  He got this one picture of the finished product

Finished lift

I found this picture of our old lift

Old lift

Can you see the difference between the two lifts?  See the one on the bottom has those big white boxes on the front poles?  That is where the motor is to lift the boat.  See the lift above it?  The motors are on the top of the piling.  With our boat, we have very little room between the poles so we couldn’t have those big white boxes, the boat wouldn’t fit.  See our nice aluminum bunks instead of wood.  So many upgrades.  As you can see, a much better more beefier lift.

So now that the lift is installed, we have to wait for the next guy to come to adjust the lift for the boat. So…..sit tight  

It is time for another boat trip with the Shore Leave group.  We are going to South Seas Resort.  I know, we’ve been to this place before but every trip is just a little different.

First of all, this trip was different because there were 20 mile an hour sustained winds with gusts to 30!  If your boat is not heading just right, you feel like someone is trying to rock you in your chair, but in a very violent way!  And these winds were predicted to last for the next 5 days!  Oh Joy, oh Joy!  Well, not much we can do, we’re committed, besides, there’ll still be drinking, lots and lots of drinking 

Second of all, and most important, Gary installed a new aerial for the marine ban.  We had a little whimpy whimpy whimpy aerial,  see, I’ve circled it.

Now we have a MANLY aerial.

Circled aerial

See those two aerials slanting back?  Those are for fishing….see that real tall one? The one I circled?  Now that is a MANLY aerial.  We start off with a 8 foot extension and then add a 8 foot regular aerial for a total of 16 feet!  Wowzer!  That will make any man jealous.  We decided to try it out on our way to South Seas.  At first, all we could hear were people taking in Spanish.  Great arerial, I told Gary, we’re picking up Cuba!  Gary was impressed and happy with his installation.

When we arrived at the marina, there were two guys there to help us tie up.  That was good because we were on the side of the dock where the wind was pushing us away from the dock.  We tipped them good ;).  The marinas down here are good for the first mate, you only have to toss them lines and they do all the tieing off.  Keeps me from having to jump off the boat, always a good thing in my book :).

This resort came with all the amenities, pool, beach, plenty of places to walk.  Too bad it was too cold to use them but we were still able to sit in the sun and enjoy each others company.

There we a couple of boats there called Palm Beach Motor Yachts.  http://palmbeachmotoryachts.com/   here is a picture of one

Palm Beach Motor Yacht

We figure it was a 55 foot, a mere 5 feet bigger than the Navigator, and the price…..$2,450,000.00.  Don’t let anyone tell you boating isn’t affordable.

As the weekend progressed more and more of those boats showed up, a total of 8 all together.  Woozer! That’s $19,600,000 worth of boats, all in one marina.  I guess they were having a little get together like we were.  Do you think they tip the dock hands more than we do?

You can see by these flags how windy it was while we were at South Seas

Baton down the hatches

While we were sitting around enjoying the sunshine and sucking down some drinks, the marina had a cherry picker truck come in to take down the resorts Christmas lights that they put up on their palm trees every year.  The owner of this truck did this for a living.  Decorating and un-decorating tall things.  What they did first was they had a guy on the ground that started to unravel the lights from the bottom up, as he unraveled them, he cut them off in 6 foot strips and dropped them on the ground.  Then another guy in the cherry picker started from the top of the palm tree and unwound the lights from the top down and cut them off at 6 foot intervals then let the lights drop to the ground.  There were 4 or 5 other people that were picking up the lights and rolling them into little balls.  I’m not really sure why they bothered to roll them into little balls because they certainly weren’t going to use them again but they seemed to enjoy themselves.  We figured it was cheaper and easier to just buy new lights every year than to take them down, store them and make sure they worked again next Christmas Season.  I guess that is where my dockage money goes  

We did go out to eat at a nice restaurant on Friday night while we were at the resort called Doc Fords.  We took a trolley down to the end of the resort.  There was a little strip mall there and the restaurant.  Doc Fords had pretty swanky meals and drinks.  Gary ordered a brandy Manhattan on the rocks (for those of you that don’t drink, that means brandy with sweet vermouth over ice cubes ).  The drink came in a martini glass with no ice and it tasted funny.  When the waitress came back, Gary told her he wanted it on the rocks, so she took it back and brought it back in a short glass with ice in it.  He also told her he had never had a brandy Manhattan that tasted that way.  Apparently they didn’t have any brandy so they made it with blackberry brandy.  Hmmmm, kind of an interesting flavor and one he won’t repeat anytime soon.  The dinner I ordered was a salmon with sautéed mushrooms and spinach.  I was trying to get a fork full into my mouth when I dropped it.  It didn’t fall on my shirt thank God (cause that is usually where my food falls when I can’t seem to hit my mouth), I couldn’t see where it went so I figured it just fell on the floor and I wasn’t going to pick up that slimy mess so I just forgot about it……till I got back to the boat

Euuuu!

What is that disgusting thing on my shoe!  Looks like a clam with seaweed stuck to it!  Oh….it’s my mushroom.  I guess I’ll have to pick up that slimy mess after all  

When we woke on the final morning, the winds hadn’t died down but it looked like a beautiful day

Pink sky at night, sailors delight, pink sky in the morning, sailors take warning

According to that saying, looks like it is going to be a little rough going home and it was.

Before we left though, we helped our friends on the other dock untie and push off.  They were parked across from those VERY expense boats and the owners of those boats didn’t leave much room between the last boat and the gas dock for our friends to get out.  The owner of the last VERY expense boat was on the back of his boat, trying to look busy.  I know why he was there, he was there to make sure none of the boats leaving hit his.  Been there, done that.  So when we helped our friends leave, we made dang sure they didn’t hit any of those boats.  A small scratch would probably cost several hundred thousand to fix.  Ouch!

After all the people on the other dock were on their way, we shoved off for home.  The wind wasn’t going to get any better so we figured we might as well see what’s out there.  Yup, it was pretty windy and wavy.  We found a couple of our windows had some leaks in them when the water splashed over our bow.  Looks like another project for the Captain.  Oh well, that’s boating for you.  Keeps the Captain busy and out of trouble.

We have an annual meeting for the condo association….annually of course.  And we just had it in January, we had a discussion about the insulation that blew out in the hurricane and the cost to blow in new insulation.  One of the unit owner was complaining about his high energy bills, so a decision was made to put more insulation in the attic of both buildings.  I had already received a bid of $1,000 for just one unit.  “What!?” one unit owner exclaimed.  “I can do all four for less than $500 and it will only take a few hours!”  Most of the other unit owners agreed that was a wonderful idea and some even volunteered to help with the process, including Gary and I.

So…..we buy 33 bags of shredded paper and they give us the blower for free.  Ok, how tough can this be?  We’ll have this pounded out in a couple of hours.  Let’s get going

Kirplunk

Lets just shove this whole bag of insulation in the machine…huh….nothin is happening….guess we put too much in too soon…stop the machine, pull out the chunk we put in, of course it doesn’t come out in one piece like it went in….Colleen!  Go get some garbage bags!…..there, it’s all out.  We’ll just put in smaller chunks….what?  It’s clogged?  Already?  What the heck?  Stop the machine, try to get the hose unplugged, find out there are big chunks in the hose.  Shake the hose out.  Turn it on and try it again.  What?!  It’s plugged again?  This goes on for a few more times till they decide there must be something wrong with the machine.  Let’s load it up and take it back for a different one.  After an hour delay they are ready to try again

Little by little

They decide they need to open the bag and “scratch” very small pieces off the paper block so the machine doesn’t clog.  This works fairly well till they have another clog.  They figure out there is a hose under the machine that gets clogged really easily.  They have to tip the machine upside down, bang the machine, take the bottom plate off, unscrew the small hose, break out their air compressor, blow out the hose, screw the small hose back and start all over again.  This happens about every 1/2 hour.  Sometimes they get the machine to unplug by taking off the hose and turning on the machine so all the insulation blows all over the stairs

What a mess!

Some times the two guys in the attics, Gary being one of them, need to change positions so they need the machine to be stopped.  Of course no one can hear the other so we need a middle man to shout back and forth

STOP! STOP! STOP!

I was going to be the smart one.  This was ridiculous, I’m thinking, these machines shouldn’t be clogging so easily.  There is an 800 number on the machine, I’ll call that.  I get some woman on the line, not that I don’t think women could handle this or anything but anyway, we start our conversation.  She first identifies which machine we have so she can pull out her trouble shooting list.  She first tells me it has to be plugged into a dedicated 220 outlet.  Like a stove or a dryer I ask?  Yes she says.  But we have it plugged into a regular extension cord I say, it can’t have a 220 plug on it.  It needs to be plugged into 220 to make the blower work optimally.  But, she says, it’s OK to plug it into an extension cord but the cord can be no longer than 50 feet.  I told her again I don’t think it has a 220 plug, she said yes it does.  She said we should also tip it upside down and bang it to loosen the insulation and thereby unclog the machine.  Ok, I say, we’ll give that a try.  I hang up on her and figure that lady had no idea what she was talking about so I just let the boys handle it their own way, it seemed to be working.  So much for thinking I’d be the smart one  

After taking all day and Colleen learning some new swear words, they were all done. After cleaning up the mess, I asked them how many wanted to do that again…..I didn’t get too many takers  

Cost of insulation $350, cost of machine rental $0, team building at the condo association = Priceless.

I hope your eyes have returned to normal after that last parting picture in the last blog  post.  Man…it took my eyes a week to recover 

After 6 weeks of corrupting the Grandkids, and before mom and dad kick us out, we decided to keep them from turning into juvenile delinquents, we had better go.

Brrrr

Besides, as you can see, the weather was taking a nose dive.  We figured we better get the hell out of Dodge.  Speaking of “getting the hell out of Dodge” and “shuffling off to Buffalo”, did you know some people have never heard those saying before?  I used the “shuffle off to Buffalo” once and they asked me if Buffalo was where I lived.  Of course I have never heard the Ohio phrase “shit fire and save the matches”.  That is kind of like a comment you would make when your amazed at something similar to the phrase “holy hoot” or “wowser!”.

On the way home, Gary decided to get rid of his furry face

Fur man

He grew the beard to keep his face warm while in the tundra.  He tried a goatee

So serious

It is kind of weird that he has more gray hair in his beard than on his head.  Well at least we are lucky he HAS hair on his head  

Well it was a pretty boring ride home, as you can tell.  No snow storms, no icy roads, just a few rain storms, not that we are complaining mind you.  It sure beats hitting a deer on your way.

Rain storms are always good on the way home in the winter.  They help clean off the snow, sludge and salt that accumulates while you are visiting the Northern Icy Lands.  Even the cat enjoyed the ride home.  No barfing, pooping or peeing on my coat…..which I was most grateful for.  You can see below Smokey is very comfy in his little bed, glad to back where he can chase his Florida Mice

Home again, home again.  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?

When we arrived home we checked the place out a little bit, making sure nothing had changed.  But look what we found

Our old buddy

Our little buddy the frog that survived the hurricane has obviously had a problem.  He has turned GREEN

Green Frog

I see someone was busy while we were gone.  Do you think the green suits him better?  I think he enjoyed being a frog of a different color.  But he does still look content to sit on that rock.

We did made it home just in time for New Year’s Eve.  Smokie jumped on the couch and assumed his normal position

What you lookin at Willis?

Then his second favorite spot is

Am I blocking your view?

For New Year’s Eve, this was my drink of choice.  I am told it is called an Irish Butterfly.  Good drink for an Irish lass, don’t ya think?

1/3, 1/3, 1/3.  Yummy, but you can only have one

That night we enjoyed New Year’s eve around the pool

Pool side drink

and said a prayer for all you people stuck up north.  Ya all stay warm now, ya hear?

So…want to know what kind of fun things we do up North to amuse ourselves while we are freezing out butts off?  I’m sure you will be glad to know what they are and will be anxious to try some of them yourselves.

#1 – Watch a video on how astronauts poop up in space

Watching a video

The little guy looks enthralled, I know I learned a few fun facts.  Leave it to Grandpa to teach the little ones important life altering facts ;).

#2 – Play with play-do

It’s good for the concentration

How long has it been since you played with Play-do?  It is so much fun to squish that dough between your fingers.  Work out those frustration!

And the finished product not MY finished product

all I could make were little balls or snakes 

#3 – Babysit the grand kids

Keep em corraled

This is how we keep the grandkids from escaping.  The Captain stands, or should I say sits, and watches the entrance and then we get the super heavy hockey bag to block the rest of the opening.  We were mostly trying to trap in the little one.  Cause he is fast and we can’t catch him.  So you just put on a good cartoon and the kids are set.  At least for a few minutes.

#4 – Decorate a ginger bread house

All the fixings

See the Captain amuse himself with SnapChat?  Something else we learned on our trip up North.  Such fun!

Finished Product

Pretty!  But messy when you smash it.

Then the next fun thing was taking a potato masher and smashing the Ginger Bread house.  Make sure you keep your vacuum handy.

#5 – Watch a sick kid for 3 days

I can hear him…

We watched one of the munchkins for three days.  When it was nap time, I took a nap downstairs and Gary said he lay right here so he could hear the little guy cry when he woke up.  Guess what?  The little guy was crying, I heard him in the basement, I came up and took this picture and asked Gary if he could hear the little guy crying, He’s Crying, he says.  Maybe it’s time to see that audiologist?????

#6 – Bake cookies you can eat

I’m a good cookie baker!

Once you pick out the fur, they aren’t half bad.

#7 – Read educational books to your Grandchildren

A good read

Can you read the name of that book?  It’s called “What is Poop?”  Ya see, we have to start them young  .

#8 – Then there is the ever popular, visit to Santa!

How do we get ready to visit Santa?  We go to Caribou a coffee and then make ourselves look like cute reindeer.  We don’t even have to wait in line because we made an appointment!  So we sit down and have a little chat with Santa

Telling Santa what we want for Christmas

Then we pose for pictures

Someone’s not happy 😦

Santa looks like he is posing for a magazine Mr. Hefner owned, doesn’t he?

#9 – Walk around Mall of America

Lego Land

And while you are there you might as well visit Lego Land and have some lunch.

#10 – Go visit another Santa – just to make sure he really knows what you want

Still not happy with that bearded man but at least Dad is here to protect him.

#11 – Do projects around the house

A little bit more to the left

And teach the Grandkids how to hang things

#12 – Watch the cat shoot lasers out of his eyes

Look into my eyes…..

#13 – Teach the Grandkids how to watch TV in a box

Nice and comfy

#14 – Go visit Family WAY up north

Two Dog night…

where it is so cold they have to use their dogs to keep them warm during nap time.  Then you get to go to see your big brother’s latest past time

GMC Motorhome

He’s having a ball fixing it up and we can’t wait for a camping trip.

#15 – Watch white swans sit with their butts in the air on a partially frozen lake

Milacs Lake

Doesn’t take much to amuse the feeble here in Minnesota, don’t cha know…..

#16 – OPEN PRESENTS!  FOR THREE DAYS IN A ROW!!!!!

You got how many gifts?

The Grand kids, not us  

The dog got so tired, she just found a place to take a nap

Sweet Dreams

Lucky dog!

#17 – Introduce the Grand Kids to Honey

Jim Beam Honey

Just kidding….don’t get your undies in a bind.

#18 – Watch an adult hold up a kids taco truck

Gimme all your tacos

#19 – And last but not least

Cape Coral Santa

Be glad you are not if Florida to witness this…..my eyes!  My eyes!