Steiger/Gillespie Christmas Day

Dick found this water at Publix - perfect for you know who!

Laurie Jane - hostess and chef extraordinaire :)

Dylan had a stocking to explore.

His first gift was - ta da! - an iPhone!!

We were so happy that he had an iPhone that we all called him.

I'm sure that Tom is recommending some really good apps.

Host and Hostess with the Mostess !!

Brave Tom brought this all the way from China!

Chip's first moments with his new grill - Merry Christmas!

Traditional Christmas Day

Chip has to work on Christmas Day, so our family is celebrating Christmas tomorrow. Chip should get here around noon tomorrow. This is the first time that we've ever not celebrated on the Very Day - but it's really not so hard. Since Dylan is now such a grown-up, it didn't bother him either.

 Laurie made us a terrific turkey dinner, with such a beautiful table setting - I'm so sorry I didn't get a picture of it. The dinner was scrumptious, and we appreciated all of her hard work and hospitality!

 While the turkey was cooking, we took the opportunity to do some Christmas caching near her neighborhood. Laurie wanted to show us a tricky one, but Dick walked right to it - it was a kind with which we are very familiar. She took us to three all together - it was a beautiful day, lots of fun, and the turkey bird was roasting peacefully in the oven while we were gone.

After dinner and clean-up, Dylan, Tom and Jana tried their skill at Jenga - it's as much fun to watch as to play.

As Dick Strolls Through Town

This morning, Dick went walking around downtown Stuart. It's fun to see Kilwin's and Harbor Wear right next to each other - makes you feel like you're back in Traverse City.

Well.....almost:

Later on at Laurie's, Tom and Dylan had a bunch of fun playing Halo on the xBox -

I watched for almost an hour - no, really - but then my eyes felt bloodshot, so I left the playroom!

Christmas present to our family from the Hardy family :)

Cookies from Kathee:

Terrific looking U of M ornaments - Go Blue!

A Kind of Irreverent Christmas Card

Kind of?

Dick's Dip/ Descendants

This morning Dick drove over to Publix to do some walking and to pick up some caches in that area. He saw many of these muscovy ducks - apparently some people feed them, and they have no fear of humans. They're not the prettiest duck you'll ever see! He says that they are the only ducks in the U.S. not related to mallards. The native Americans were the first to domesticate them.

I stayed here and walked around the building, along the riverfront, and ended up at our condo's little pool with my Kindle.

Our Gate:

Fountain number 2:

When Dick got back, he joined me poolside and took a dip in the pool - he said it was warmer than the summertime Bay.

 

 It would have been nice to spend more time around the pool, but the hedge trimmers came to trim all of the hedges, and it was so loud we retreated upstairs. We had to close the windows upstairs for some peace and quiet.

 Laurie and I went to the Treasure Coast Mall to see George Clooney in Descendants - such a sad, sad movie on so many levels. It was worth seeing, but the men would have hated it. It was a five tissue movie. I especially enjoyed the Hawaiian music and the beautiful island scenery. 

 Even though we were full of popcorn when we got back to Palm City, we had a slice of pizza and watched an episode of Burn Notice - then it was time to come home.

Kit Gifford

My best friend in high school was Freda S.  Her big sister Kit put up with us very nicely.  Today Kit passed away in Honolulu, which has been her home for several years.   Kit and Freda's dad was a widower, and a typesetter at the T.C. Record-Eagle.  When we were in Junior High together, Freda's Dad married my teacher for grades 5 and 6 at Union Street School, Evelyn Wiltse.

 Rest in peace, Kit.  I believe you had a good life.

Kit Gifford

 Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Dec. 22, 2011
Kit Gifford, 78, of Honolulu died in Honolulu. She was born in Traverse City, Mich. She is survived by husband Bruce, daughter Janet G. Brown and sister Freda Sprietsma. No services. No flowers.

Roosevelt Bridge/Roosevelt Cafe

Laurie dropped Tom off at our condo this morning. For their morning constitutional, Tom and Dick walked over the Roosevelt Bridge. It was an uneventful outing - except they did have to wait for the drawbridge on the way back. When Laurie came back, we opted to go to lunch at Splash down the way - but it was closed! So we had lunch at the Roosevelt Cafe, close to the bridge and right next door to the Park Ave. Grill. We were the only customers for most of lunch - the food was really good. After lunch, Laurie and Tom helped me upgrade my iPhone to 5 so now, if I'm on wi-fi, I can text Tom free while he's in Australia and China. Yaay! Chip cooked us hamburgers for dinner - very yummy - and then we all watched the first half of Social Network.

Sailor's Return

Slept in really late this morning - maybe it was the Nyquil. I'm trying to nip a cold in the bud. Then I got up and fell asleep again in the recliner. Nyquil sure must be powerful stuff. Laurie called and we planned to meet at the Sailor's Return for lunch. I made reservations for five outside, because it's such a beautiful Florida day and it's fun to watch the boats go in and out of the marina.



When they got there, Tom said there was a chance he might have to go back to San Diego before Christmas because there's a laser problem and they need him. Holy cow - he could wind up flying across the country every day this week. We shouldn't have chosen a restaurant with the word "return" in its name!

 We had a great lunch with beautiful views, and planned to meet back here at our condo afterwards. By the time they got to the condo, Tom had heard that he does NOT have to fly back to San Diego after all - whoopee!

Blog Blues

I have spent most of today trying to update my blog.   Blogspot has changed, and my current browsers aren't quite up to the task, especially when it comes to pictures.  I downloaded Google Chrome, as blogspot recommended.  Fine.  That works, but it's just as clunky as the old blogspot - plus they have changed some of the features and there are no instructions as to how to make it work as well as it used to. It's all by guess and by gosh.

 I think I'm doing quite well to have figured out as much as I have, but I'm still having trouble with editing and pictures.  I'm hoping that it will all become apparent to me as time goes by.  Maybe.

  Wrestling with blogspot took up the whole morning and lunch time up until around 2 p.m.  Dick was pacing like a caged animal, so we had an outing to downtown Stuart to finish up the Tour of Stuart cache that we all tried on Sunday, but got rained out.  It was a fun walk along the riverfront and the information was easily available.  We signed Basswood and also Sharkie Crew because they did 90% of it on Sunday.

After some errands and a couple of other caches, we went to the Park Avenue Grill for ribs - came home to put the leftover ribs in the fridge, and went to Laurie's house to see Tom and Dylan.

 Laurie and Tom had been Christmas shopping down in West Palm, and Dylan had school and tennis.  We had fun hanging out with them - Dylan had really good news about his mock trial project - his group won!  And the teacher said that he had the best questions.  He has exams for the next three days, and then he'll be on Christmas vacation.

Tom kept getting phone calls about Cymer's laser projects.  Some calls were from San
Diego and some were from China - about two separate laser types.  See - Cymer just can't get along without Tom!

Party Day

Tom has arrived!

 We got an early call to stop by with donuts, so off we went to Dunkin Donuts for an assortment, and then of to Laurie's for breakfast.

 Tom has some great stories to tell about China - and I have a feeling that we'll hear more as time goes by. My favorites involved the Chinese attitudes toward Westerners, who are so rare as to be objects of great interest and are treated with unusual respect. He has a daunting schedule. He's here for Christmas, leaving for Melbourne, Australia on the 27th, and from there back to China until Jan. 18th. 

Dylan's birthday party is scheduled to begin around noon. Kyle, Peyton and Toby are coming to play xbox games all afternoon. Chip and Laurie have re-arranged the living room to accomodate two TVs and two xboxes. Dylan loves his fedora hat, so Laurie has a fedora for each of the boys, including Grandpa, Chip and Tom.

 Dick and I exited before the boys got there, and returned around five o'clock for sandwiches and cake. It was really entertaining to watch the boys play - they're really a lot of fun. We all wore hats - Tom let me wear one of his and Laurie wore one of Dylan's. The result was kind of a strange looking group!

Happy Birthday Dear Dylan

Even though the birthday party is tomorrow, today is Dylan's real birthday.   He's playing today in a tennis round robin at the Martin Downs Sports Resort, where he takes lessons.  Cyrus, his instructor, is a graduate of Ferris State!

 Today Dylan played with Luke, Pedro and Tasia - he performed well - made some really good serves and some great strokes for points.  We can see a bunch of improvement since last year.

 Dick and I had lunch at the Club - chicken quesadilla and fried green beans! It was yummy.

 When we got home it was time to open presents! Such fun - it's always the best part in my opinion.

 We went shopping with Laurie to the Italian Market to get some of their homemade clam chowder for Dick and Dylan. The rest of us had chicken and baked potatoes. Thanks, Laurie.

 She's picking up Tom tonight at the West Palm Beach Airport around 11 p.m. Hooray for Laurie - we'll be sleep by then - we'll see Tom tomorrow:)

Flanagan's

Good dinner tonight at Flanagan's.  I had grilled salmon - couldn't eat it all!  The jovial waitress found out that tomorrow is Dylan's birthday, and had everybody come and sing for him - he took it with a lot of poise. Then she brought him a huge free dessert, and took 10% off our bill.  I think she liked Dylan.

My Dad would have been 104 years old today! Thinking of you, Dad.

The Lobster Shanty

Today we drove up to Cocoa Beach to have lunch with Chris and Dennis. They chose The Lobster Shanty - and it was a great choice. It was a super lunch, and lots of fun conversation. It turns out that when Chris and her first husband were at Penn State they were quite well acquainted with Jerry Sandusky and his wife. Chris's husband was on the coaching staff as well. Chris said she spent a lot more time with Dotty than with Jerry, but that she never felt totally comfortable with him. I guess she could pick up some bad vibes back then.

 We always have such fun with them, and today was no exception.

 We overdid it a bit on the way home. We drove up on A1A the whole way, and it took us a bit longer than we had expected. We ended up with about an hour in the dark and in rush hour traffic. We were pretty tired when we got home. Several caches were found along the way:

  At The Edge Again   Visit Log We couldn't figure what was going on today. The parking lot was packed but there was no one on the beach. Where did they go? Unfortunately, there were a couple of guys sitting at a table near the cache. How do you explain the need to search the trees? Went into CITO mode and picked up trash and put it into the receptacle. The baggie was torn so we replaced it. Took nothing but the trash, left a finger puppet, signed log and replaced as found. Thanks for the fun.

 12/15/2011 You found Six Inches Down   Visit Log We hate micros! The tube hanging from the fence by the parking lot, the nano on the stop sign by Publix, the key holder slapped on the guardrail, the film can on the lamp post,
etc. However, when the owner takes you to a beautiful place, when they putforth
the extra effort to create a unique container, when the coordinates are precise and don't force you to inspect every bush, branch, stick, and vine within a 50 foot radius, we thinks it deserves a favorite. Thanks for the cache! We loved it. Signed log and replaced as found.
 12/15/2011 You found A Day At The Beach #1   Visit Log The passing muggle probably is still wondering what that old geezer was doing passed out on the deck. Unusual hide. There are no trackables in the cache today. Took nothing, signed log and left with cramps.
 12/15/2011 You found Welcome to...Merritt Island Two   Visit Log We looked high and low, here and there, up and down, but we couldn't find the flowers. Signed log and replaced as found. TFTC
 12/15/2011 You couldn't find Corn Dog Gone Bad   Visit Log Hard to believe that we are the only folks to seek this one since the 7th but it is what it is. Skunked
 12/15/2011 You found President Harding's Oceanfront Lot   Visit Log We came up to Cocoa Beach today to have lunch with another retired history teacher and his professor wife. The other day we picked a TB out of a cache. It wants to go north visiting military installations and memorials along the way. We tried
for the AF base but struck out. Here was a cache that was large enough and had a
historical message as well. A quick and easy find, we signed the log and left the 
bug and our pathtag. Thanks for providing us with a spot to drop the bug.      

The Lake

One of our favorite activities in Florida is to drive over to Lake Okeechobee. The scenery is beautiful, the locks, piers and scenic overlooks around the lake are fascinating, and there are always new caches to discover. This year it was just the two of us, so we mostly just did geocaching. Ate lunch at a place called The Lodge at the Lake. Our elderly waitress reminded us of Carol I., and hovered around our table. It was like having lunch with your mother. A nice day.

Found it 12/14/2011 You found [Traditional Cache] Look-Lock-Lake Visit Log OK so it's only a micro but - It brought us to a pretty spot we've never seen before, it showed some effort in disguising and placing the container, and I didn't pick up a fresh agglomeration of burrs and other clinging seeds all over my pants and sox. Signed the log and replaced as found. Thanks for showing us this place. (This is me playing with my phone while waiting for Dick to get back from the lock. He had Luck @ Look-Lock-Lake!)

This is the lock - Dick is actually in this picture somewhere retrieving the cache. iPhones are fun.

Found it 12/14/2011 You found [Traditional Cache] Team:CHETT Rocks!!! Visit Log Sure would like to know the history of the rope. Signed log and replaced. TFTC Found it 12/14/2011 You found [Traditional Cache] Plowboy Heaven - Okeechobee Style Visit Log Never saw that descriptive term before. Found tube, signed log, replaced as found. TFTS 

Found it 12/14/2011 You found [Traditional Cache] Welcome To Okeechobee Visit Log We parked, we grabbed, we signed, we replaced as found and drove on. 

Found it 12/14/2011 You found [Traditional Cache] "Time" to Eat Visit Log After reading the previous log we weren't optimistic but we were hungry so we gave it a shot. In fact we did find it right in the obvious spot, landscaping or not. Signed the log, replaced as found and went to lunch. We can recommend the breakfast bar.

Found it 12/14/2011 You found [Traditional Cache] Debbie's Diner Visit Log We picked up a coin yesterday that wants to go to the Bonita Springs area. This is as far west that we will be going before January and so we came over today. Our first target was a DNF but this was our second choice. Dropped off the coin, maybe someone can pick it up and move it farther west. Left our card and pathtag. Thanks for placing a cache that we could find and use. 

Didn 12/14/2011 You couldn't find [Traditional Cache] Country Roads Visit Log Came over today with a coin to drop off. This was our original target. Found the road but both our GPS and our iphone were bouncing all over. Checked the clue and just got more confused. Oh well, found an alternate. (We couldn't find that cache, but this is a picture of the "country road" and it's right in the middle of the town of Okeechobee!)