Friday

Well let the Christmas get togethers begin and the pumping up of the spare tire around my middle. First let me sau the weather has moderated and even this morning the temp was about 15 degrees warmer than yesterday. By the afternoon it was really nice with highs in the upper 70's and lots of sunshine but with a nice breeze and no stifling humidity. After the fowl wake up at 5 AM i managed to tune him out until 6 before rolling out to a hot cup of green tea, my quiet moments and then the proverbial bowl of boring oatmeal with a banana. I headed out about 7:20 for the rec on my(this was son Bobby's bike when he was kid) 20+ year old bike.

We had a good turnout with 2 courts going and lots of wet shirts, so the workout was a sucess. A couple guys are heading out for the season and will be gone several weeks as well as a couple are recouperating. I seem to have gotten over the trouncing last Saturday on the outside courts in Lakeland at the Senior Games. I will stick mainly to the inside play at the rec except for the outside play on the unique court at the Roaring Gap Club. That court is aluminun with a non skid surface and is completely different than the asphalt tennis courts, anyhow the 2 games(inside and outside) are completely different as well as the balls are constructed differently.

I stopped off at the library on my way home early to watch Sam as Amy was in a school meeting about where to send Ava for kindergarden and nancy had her Bible study at 10AM. Sam and I played outside in the backyard, he was having fun with the big mouth rooster while I fed my garden with some liquid Miracle Grow, then he rode tricycles and eventually ended up playing cars and trucks until his daddy came by to take him home. That Sam is becoming quite the jabber box and is just so cute. We will do our Christmas with them on Saturday as once again Tyler will be away with his job and they leave the next day he gets back for Kansas. They will spend Christmas with his family this year.

Nancy and I had a nice salad with left over chicken on top for lunch then we chilled until it was time to head over to Jill's folks(Brian and Susan)in Riverview for our annual domino/Christmas get together with them. We drove Pap's car so we could recharge the battery and give it a little work out since its not been used much since August. The traffic was awful with crashes and back ups on all the major interstates so we took a detour through Tampa and its still took us nearly 2 hours to go 50 miles, yikes come Spring. What am I complaining about as we are semi-snowbirds as well!!

The fod was very tasty with son Bob making a great bean soup with ham hocks; the ingredients were out of the normal realm but the taste was awesome. Lots of cold cuts, casseroles, dips, meat balls,etc as well as Nancy made her dewisheous chocolate with chocolate icing cupcakes(I had to refrain) for dessert. We managed about 3 rounds of double 15 dominos as the atmosphere was rather hectic with 3 grand kids on your laps and trying to get 10 adults to remember whose turn was next. We had a raucous time with Nancy once again creating impromptu lyrics to old melodies which had everyone in tears of laughter. She and Susan feed on one another and next year we are definetily separating the two of them, maybe into separate rooms as well.

It was nearly 11 PM before got back to Seminole, LATER