A Whirlwind of Caves, Wolffs and Heisers..

First of all, the new header photo was taken in August 2005, and that is at Ortona South Army Corp campground near LaBelle FL…We will be staying there Jan 5th for 2 weeks…That was a very nice park , and it books up 6 months ahead in the Winter months…I got lucky and got a spot only 3 minutes after it was legal to book one…Seems like lots of Army Corp campgrounds only allow you to book 6 months in advance…kinda dumb, I think..but I’m sure they don’t give a hoot what I think!

I am going to make this blog mostly photos in a few collages…It is 5:15 PM on Sunday night, and the only family here now are McGyver and I…The Wolffs were the last to leave, and they pulled out toward Zionsville, IN this morning about 9:45…That was precisely when I began janitor, laundry and mopping duty…I also took down all of our Xmas décor, as we are hopefully pulling the Hiker outta here on the 28th…Tomorrow we will have some adult beverages with some more of Den’s family in the afternoon, followed by a stop at his brother-in-law’s in the evening. 

Xmas we are going to be at the Heiser’s by 7:30AM…bringing Casey’s donuts…to watch Taylor, Peyton and Cam open Santa’s bounty…Wednesday, we go up to Uncle Jr. and Jeanettes to help them get some groceries, and I have a 3:30PM Doc appt. in St. Charles…THEN, we will pull the Hiker up on the drive to finish loading and hopefully be on the road Thursday AM about daybreak…I have no idea how or when we will get the Hiker all packed..

  OK, here goes…

The party started Friday evening at The Olde Tyme Inn..Taylor babysat so Den and I could accompany our kids and spouses “out on the town” for a few beers and wines…As you can see, we had a great time!!

 

 

Left, is John Wolff, decapitating a bottle of champagne for mimosas on Saturday morning.  Look carefully at the knife in his hand on the upper left hand corner…He got the champagne VERY cold, then use the knife to cut off the end, cork and all…As you can see, it worked…The food being cooked was venison steak, and our son Kelly got his deer this season…so we scored some great venison..He marinated it, then wrapped it in bacon and pepperoncini pepper…put it on his George Foreman in the tailgate of the old blue truck, and we were in Venison Heaven…(so was the deer)

 

 

 

 

 

Above is just some of the great fun times we  had…and opening gifts in our living room by the fire….

 

 

The collage on the right was later in the evening Saturday..That crazy looking thing in the left middle pic is a remote control helicopter that Chris got as a White Elephant gift from Cindy…and her husband immediately took over playing with it in our kitchen…If  you look closely at the upper left pic, it looks like Cindy is wearing it in her hair….and she almost WAS!! John had it hovering everywhere…Oh yeah, I might take a moment to mention that Dennis asked Cindy where the helicopter came from..Turns out it came from the Rural King just a couple miles from here…Needless to say, McGyer, former pilot of a Cessna , now has his very own remote helicopter to play with on our trip..I wondered where he went this morning…obviously, to Rural King!!

 

So, that pretty much somes up our Christmas Cave-A-Palooza for the year of 2012….I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday like we just did…Food, family, fun and FABULOUS times!!! One more thing…if you haven’t seen the Xmas movie “Christmas With The Kranks”, go get it and watch it…Based on a book called “Skipping Christmas” by John Grisham, it has now become one of the new classics…at least at our house!!

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?” 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                ~Dr.Seuss, The Grinch That Stole Christmas