Ling's 19th Hole

Been a long time since I have blogged on Ling's 19th. Hole, but here I am back after a couple of years.  Everything is going as usual in The Villages, with lots of new homes, and lots of sunshine and fun times.  We have gone on cruises and trips, and have had great times. Also,we have adopted, from two different shelters, two new kitties....they are black and white Pinky Lee and orange Dustirose.   Jana is going to Ohio at Christmas and I am going to the Dominican Republic, Hard Rock resort.
A fun time will be had by all. Aunt Nancy is babysitting the cats. Enjoy your holidays !! Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Jana, friend Bonnie, and Peg left The Villages for a 9 day road trip the first of September to Nashville, Vicksburg, New Orleans, Biloxi, and Destin. The first three days were spent at Bonnie's son's and Leslie's home in Five Points, a nice neighbrhood of Nashville, from where we were given the grand tour of the city, including, the Honky Tonk bar area, Vanderbilt, the Parthenon, Grand Ol Opry, and we also attended the AAA Nashville Sound baseball game.

The last few months have been busy ones in The Villages, as so many of them are. Surviving the holidays, and before the holidays, we have had great times playing Mad Hatter Trivia at the Rec Centers on Sundays and Wednesdays. We have also discovered a little bar that plays trivia on Mondays called Mojo's in Belleview.
The top picture is some of the gang out with Jana's parents, visiting here for 10 days in February. From the top of the picture, with Peg and Jana, going to the right, is our friend, Lynda, a retired Delta flight attendant. Wow, does she have some good stories to tell ! Then Bill and Joyce, and then there is Harriet and then Bonnie. Bonnie is one of the Mad Hatter trivia directors, and one of our friends that go to Mojos to play trivia. Before we went to the Lighthouse, she hosted a small cocktail party, which was so nice, and afterwards, we went to her lovely villa home to play poker !
Her mom, Harriet, a very young 91, sometimes subs on our Trivia Team. The Mojo's picture below, has our Mojo friends, Lynda and Joyce. Joyce is the other director of Mad Hatter trivia in The Villages, and we are holding the championship belt trophy that we have won quite often. Bonnie wasn't there that night, as she was on the Crown Princess cruise ship..yes, the one that returned early with the Norovirus. All are OK, and we are still having a great time swimming, golfing, spending a fortune on the cats, and enjoying our winter in The Villages.

Yesterday, we had a welcome visitor. Tom Link, one of my former students at Bennett Junior High, visited us in The Villages. Tom was one of our "gems" at Bennett. He was a short, skinny little 7th. grader, and so cute. In Physical Education class, while waiting to play an activity, or waiting for the rest of the kids to get dressed out, Jon Baumhauer and I always had Tom sitting between us. That way we could bore him with lectures about what we did at his age, and also , since he was so cute, one of us, at some point in the class, would grab him by the neck and give him some "noogies" and sing to him our version of the Durante hit, only we sang it as "Link- a- dink- a do!" Tom was also a good friend of Jana's brother Brett, and we have always kept up on each others' whereabouts. Tom visited us at Thanksgiving our first year here, when Brett and his wife Phebe, came to our home for Thanksgiving. We all had a good time. Tom lives in Orlando, and, from the beautiful white Lexus in our driveway, he is doing well. Our picture, here, is from last night's drinks and dinner trip to Cane Garden Country Club in The Villages. We gave Tom the grand tour again, since it has grown from 45,000 to 85,000 in the past 5 years. At Cane , we had many laughs and good stories, and Tom, now 6'3" and very fit, filled us in on his P90X program, which he practices faithfully...obviously a carryover from his love of his physical education class at Bennett...(hey, I had to put that in here !!) Nike, our 26 lb. Maine Coon cat, sat on his lap right away, and adopted him as his Uncle Tom. We all had a wonderful visit, and a fun evening.

Wednesday night, March 9th, was a special night in the Villages for us. Our former neighbors, and still good friends, Steven and Carol Matthews arrived from Ft. Myers, meeting Mick and Charlene Robinette, Jana and I at Cane Garden CC for dinner. Steve and Carol, Jana and I were the only residents on Brush Creek Drive for years. We enjoyed each others' company, biked together, and had many fun times, as well as crises, together. Mick and Charlene are now their neighborhood friends, as they all now live in the Deerfield area in Piqua. It was great fun catching up on everyone's activities, and all are doing just great. We all enjoyed the great food and view, and the 80 degree temperature. A fun and special time was enjoyed by all.

Our British friends, Irene and Jim, invited us over for a cooking lesson to prepare a true Indian meal. We had a chicken dish, spicy, with lentils and peppers, with lots of spices including my favorite, cilantro, with yogurt. A fine time was had by all, as we all donned aprons and made it a joint cooking effort, under Jim's direction. He took it easy on us, not making things too spicy, but just enough so that a couple of beers went great with the meal.
Jana and I met Jim and Irene through our quest for more information, before we moved to the Villages. Irene had a wonderful webpage about the Villages, as they owned here in addition to being stationed in Oman. I clicked on her webpage and we began communicating about the Villages. Later, when Jim and I retired, we met with them, finally, in The Villages for some golf, and we have been friends every since. They are leaving The Villages today to go back to their other home in Bury St. Edmunds, England. We will see them again in approximately six months !