Whew..................

Christmas and the weeks leading up to it were great.  There was a lot of time with family and friends which is really what it's all about.  I was so appreciative of being able to spend a bit of time with both of my brothers down on AMI.  Although I wasn't able to see Jan we did talk for a while on Christmas morning which is a tradition and always very special.  I also really enjoyed a trip to Tampa to spend the afternoon with a very special Aunt and Uncle (Pat and Thomas) and cousins (Darlene and Tommy).  Unlike Beth's family which is huge, my side of the family is pretty small.  We spent a lot of time with the Ball family growing up, camping at Vogel State Park, visiting their house in Ocala or them coming to the big city of Mulberry.  Darlene is close to my age and Tommy is close behind so even though we lived a few hours apart we kind of grew up together and had some great times.  I look forward to seeing them again soon!
Beth and some of her friends have had a Christmas eve luncheon every year for the past 30 years.  It's organized by her best friend from the "Mulberry" years, Lori.  This year there was another fella attending so I tagged along.  Growing up in Mulberry everyone knew everyone (and knew their business) so I knew all the attendees and it was great seeing them.
Christmas day was the traditional.  Waking up at the Eason's in Plant City, presents exchanged, a big breakfast by Cindy and then lunch with her extended family.  "Extended family" is the beach house gang that is on AMI for two weeks every summer.  The main difference is instead of two weeks to enjoy everyone it's condensed into a few hours.  I guess it's similar to speed dating only it's speed visiting.  Thanks to the Henson family for hosting it at their beautiful house on the Manatee River.
Of course the highlight of the day was the kids.  Beth and I started it with Ben in Florida and ended the day at Sarah, Joey and SBJ's house in San Rafael which is just north of San Francisco.  It was a long but great day!
Today is our 6th day here and we've enjoyed visiting with them and taking care of SBJ.  A couple of days we took Sarah to work in Sonoma and did a couple of great hikes on some trails just outside of town.  Yesterday morning we enjoyed a great hike with Sarah along the San Francisco bay.  It was a "strenuous" trail with a few pretty steep climbs but the views from the top were magnificent.  Looking out over three bridges, including the Bay and Golden Gate Bridge with the city of San Francisco in the background was worth the effort.  Not only were we rewarded with great views from the top but the way back was mostly flat and along the waterfront which was really appreciated. The afternoon was spent at the Oakland Zoo.  James loves the animals and really got a kick out of all of them.
Now about that SBJ.  He's around 18 months old now.  He's as cute as he can be and is continuing to develop a fun and funny personality.  He smiles 99.9% of the time and makes some of the funniest expressions you can imagine.
One other thing about him, he can flat out wear out his Mimi and Poppy!   He's the human version of the Energizer Bunny and we love it!

At the Oakland Zoo

Look Ma, it's San Francisco in the distance

In the leaves at Sonoma Plaza

Mimi showing James the ducks.....and keeping him from jumping in the water

He fumbled a few times but he shows some potential

Loving his Ice Cream Cone

Hiking above the clouds in Sonoma.......actually it was just low lying fog

Trick riding his cool bike he got from Uncle Ben

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Tucker’s........and Cousin Eddie !

Looking back, looking ahead...........

We're about to put this one in the books.  2017 was a great one. There were lots of new adventures as well as revisiting some of our favorite places. 
We rang in 2017 with Sarah, Joey and Sweet Baby James.  Within a few days we were on the way to Barcelona for a couple of back to back cruises.  We hit some of  those old favorites in Spain, Italy and France as well as visited two new countries, Malta and Morocco.   A few months later we drove on the opposite side of the road across much of  the UK and Ireland.  Then there was an Alaskan Cruise, which seems to be coming an annual event.  After Alaska we covered a fair bit of Western Canada from Vancouver to Banff.   We took full advantage of Canada's 150th Anniversary which gave us free admission to all of Canada's National Parks. They have some really nice ones!
Summer was mostly in Florida, but we did escape the heat spending twelve nights in the great city of Chicago.  They really appreciate summer up there (the current temperature as I am writing this is 31).  There were free concerts and festivals all over town.  We also caught Jimmy Buffet & Huey Lewis, James Taylor & Bonnie Raitt, Chicago and the Doobie Brothers, the Cubs and White Sox. 
Late summer was the Canadian Maritimes (Eastern Canada).  Very different from Western Canada but equally amazing, especially the Bay of Fundy and it's 50 foot tidal changes, which were amazing to see.
We capped off our overseas adventures with the India, Nepal and Dubai (UAE) trip.  Three very different countries.  They were all new ones for us, all amazing and all hard to describe for very different reasons (especially India).
Mid year Sarah, Joey and James gave us a new reason to visit the San Francisco area when they relocated to San Rafael.  It is conveniently located just north of San Francisco and south of wine country (Napa and Sonoma).  Of course there were also a few great visits with Ben in Texas which we always enjoy.  These allowed us to catch up with friends and former colleagues as well.
When not traveling it was such a privilege for us to spend time in Florida helping out with Beth's mom (NaNa).   This is where we are now (current temperature @ 9:00 AM is 71).  She's so darn funny and witty.   Also, whatever trash talking I do to her while playing rummy she throws right back at me, usually while beating me to a pulp.
Ben flew in last night so we have him with us until Christmas evening.  He'll be heading back to Texas and we'll be heading to California for a second Christmas celebration.  The second one will be with Sarah, Joey and SBJ.  I wonder who will be the "star of the show" for that one!
There are a couple of adventures already on the books for 2018.  From California we fly to Miami for a 14 day Southern Caribbean Cruise.  Mid February through Mid March we'll be in Arizona and Utah and April we'll be in the Azores (Portuguese Islands) for three weeks.  Ben, Sarah and James are scheduled to visit us here in Florida in March which will be extra special.  We only wish Joey could join us but he'll be holding down the fort in California.
I wanted to attach a few pictures to this blog and opted to select one picture from each of the five new countries we visited this year.  One thing we continue to find is that wherever we roam the overwhelming majority of people are good, kind folks who just want to enjoy life with their families and friends.  Evil tends to rear it's ugly head every now and then.  Hopefully kindness will always prevail.

Malta

Morocco

India

Nepal

Dubai-UAE

 

Capturing the spirit of the season one festive event at a time!

Decorations, music, Christmas parades, they all go together to get us into the spirit of the season.  We've got the mantle around NaNa's fireplace nicely decorated.  We've whipped out a couple of nice renditions of some traditional carols.  They have all been sung in our best voices.  The ones that would make fingernails on a chalkboard sound like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 
To really get us into the holiday spirit there were a few events on the island this weekend that we were looking forward to attending.  Well............here it is Sunday night.  Sometimes things go as planned, sometimes they don't.
It started Friday afternoon when the City of Anna Maria (one of the three small cities that make up Anna Maria Island) was hosting a Holiday Carols in the Park event.   It was scheduled from 4:00-6:00 at a fairly new park on the bay side of the island.  We arrived a few minutes early, took our seats and waited, and waited some more and then a little bit more.  Santa, who it was advertised was going to "fly in" actually walked across the street after being delivered by a county sheriff.  There was music alright, however it was coming from an i-pad plugged into a speaker system.  The chairs for the "live choir" sat empty.  The good mayor kept assuring us that the choir would be there soon but after 45 minutes we gave up.   At least we had a glass of egg nog and a sugar cookie before we packed it in.
No worries, two more days and two more events.  Up Saturday morning was the annual island Christmas Parade.  We've witnessed this spectacle before.  It's typically a float or two, the local group of fun loving citizens dressed as pirates, a bunch of decorated golf carts, trucks and of course Santa bringing up the rear.  Unfortunately the chilly, windy and drizzly weather kept a lot of the participants away.  The parade which usually lasts about 15-20 minutes came and went in about 7 minutes.  We did get a bunch of colorful Mardi Gras style beads without having to lift our shirts a single time.
No worries, one more day and one more event.  I had read in the local newspaper that the Anna Maria Island Orchestra and Chorus were having a concert titled "The Many Moods of Christmas" at one of the local churches.  This one sounded like a "can't miss event".  It also sounded a little high tone so I put on not only my nicest pair of jeans but also a pair of socks.   We pulled into the busy parking lot full of anticipation.  The ad in the paper conveniently left out one little tidbit of information.  Tickets for this extravaganza were $25 each.  We're three retired people!  We don't carry around large sums of money like that on a regular basis.  To the best of my knowledge this was the first time any of the three of us have been denied admission to church (not really the churches fault in this case).
So...........here we are, it's Sunday night. We've had a bunch of laughs about all three of these attempts to capture the spirit of the season.  I think we've done it.  After all it wouldn't be Christmas without a lot of laughter! 

Good Looking Mantle!

Anna Maria Island Christmas Parade
You can rent this cart (minus the decorations) simply call 877-778-7264
https://gulfcoastcart.com/call-to-reserve/  

Come on now, seriously??????

I've always taken great pride in being a Native Floridian.  We lived three years in North Carolina right after we were married and spent 23 years in the great state of Texas. However if someone asks where are you from, I say Florida.  Most folks who end up here are from somewhere else.  More often than not they've migrated down from up north somewhere where winter starts in mid-November and goes until around Memorial Day.  They're mostly good folks although they do have a tendency to want to tell us how they did it up north.
We Floridian's can be a quirky bunch.  One of the things that we can really get quirky about is the weather.  We tend to deal with hurricanes, pop up thunderstorms, oppressive summer heat and humidity fairly well.  What we don't handle so well are cold fronts.  We tend to lose our minds.  It's kind of like it's our God given right to have every day from December through March to be in the mid-70's.  When it gets a little nippy things get a little strange.
The same cold front that brought snow to Texas and other places in the deep south is passing through Florida today.  It's windy, drizzling a bit and the temperature is hovering around 60 degrees.  Not a great day but not exactly Minnesota weather.............unless you watch the local news.
The cold front is the lead story with headlines such as "Bay Area Residents Brace for Cold Front".  We were particularly amused to learn that they are opening Cold Weather Shelters.  Yes, it's cooler than usual but were talking overnight lows around 50 degrees, come on now!

The reporter was standing in front of this bank sign doing a story on the opening of Cold Weather Shelters. 

Merry Christmas from coast to coast!

Sandman on AMI- It lasted about a week before an exceptionally high tide got it.



Sweet Baby James and his new buddy at the Oakland Zoo Lights