Busy summer

Well, it's that time of year, where you start to plan your summer. We don't have a trailer, so we won't be vacationing up north and Ralph isn't much into camping so that is out. So what will we do?

We've signed up for golf lessons, 16 of them to start :-). We'll be taking lesson's Monday and Thursday each week starting the last week of May through to the end of July. I've also joined the ladies league with Claudia and Melinda at Cardinal so I'll be golfing every Tuesday evening (9 holes). I'm actually looking forward to it.

At the end of August Ralph and I will be in Miami. We've decided to go to the Doral Golf resort and enjoy a few rounds there and enjoy the "heat" and warm weather for a week.

In June, I'm going to have an MRI done on my left knee. I've been experiencing some pain, that often wakes me up in the evening and occasionally during the day the knee feels like it's giving out. The doctor think's I've torn the miniscus so he wants to check it out further. It's either this, or the early onset of Arthritus. I'll know more in June. The MRI will most likely be scheduled for June 8 or 9.

We had a wonderful visit with Ron and Deirdre. The time certainly went by fast. It was nice to get reaquainted and we're glad that we had the chance to spend the time together...

Nose to the grindstone

That's it, the vacation is over and now it's back to work. Yup - we have to put our nose to the grindstone and get things done!! It was fun while it lasted and I'm glad we did it!! Hope you all have been doing well.

Definition: There are two rival explanations as to the origin of this phrase. One is that it comes from the supposed habit of millers who checked that the stones used for grinding cereal weren't overheating by putting their nose to the stone in order to smell any burning. The other is that it comes from the practice of knife grinders when sharpening blades to bend over the stone, or even to lie flat on their fronts, with their faces near the grindstone in order to hold the blades against the stone.

From 84F to 33F

Can you believe it!! We left and the temperature was 84F and when we hit Pennsylvania it was 33 and snowing. Ralph was driving in shorts and a t shirt and I had on capri's and a t shirt. It was time for a change of clothes. What a huge temperature change.

The drive has been nice so far except for when we hit the snow. The wind is howling around our window and it sounds like we are in the middle of a deep freeze. I hope it warms up tomorrow.

The tree's are all bursting When driving down I commented to Ralph that the white blossoms reminded me of Christmas lights. They are not as abundant as the pink ones and were often hidden deep in the middle of the tree's. It was really pretty to see and made the drive very enjoyable.

We had a fantastic vacation and we'd do this again in a heartbeat. It was relaxing and fun.

My ankle swelled up quite bad on the drive home. I'm seeing the doctor again on Tuesday and he's planning on taking some xrays to see what's going on. It hope it isn't anything serious. It didn't bother me too much while golfing, but at the end of the day was pretty swollen. It sure is taking a long time to heal...

Wachasaw East

What a beautiful day today. The temperature was nice and warm - somewhere between 74-78F. The course itself is very nice and very challenging. At times I found it quite narrow, but if you golfed "straight" you didn't have any problems. I had a tough time keeping my score down and I had to fight for some of the holes as I found this to be a challenging course. We enjoyed it though and had a great day. We spent the afternoon at the pool and relaxed. We're getting ready for dinner and then we'll come back to start packing. Tomorrow we start our homeward journey.

We played golf with two guys from Markham, Dave and Keith. They were nice guys with a good sense of humour. We had a lot of laugh's while playing. Ralph had a good game and scored a 89 and I score a 98. We're both happy with our scores.

Beach photo's

Here is a sample of a few of the pictures that we had taken. These are unedited but I thought I would share them. It was fun to do this...

Another Amazing Course

Wow, this week, we picked a few very nice courses. Willbrook Plantation is another one that we would highly recommend. It was busy, but you understand why when you see the course. It is well maintained, lots of beautiful flowers and challenging to boot. We saw alligators, turtles and lots of other feathered friends. We golfed with another couple from Maine - Scott and Barbara. They were both our age and we hit it off immediately. They have two children with their oldest the same age as Laura. We had a really fun time all together. That sure makes the game fun as well.

In the pictures you will see one of some tree tops - we all tried to "cut the corner" and shoot over the tree's. I couldn't believe it but my ball sailed over the branches and landed right in the middle of the fairway cutting off a major dog leg. It sure felt good.

Our scores were good and consistent with how we have been playing this week. Ralph shot a 94 and I shot a 98. I was happy.

Just as a reminder to ourselves and Teresa and Lawrence, there is a course just down the road, recommended by the locals which Ralph and I went to check out. It's called Caledonia - it was absolutely beautiful from what we could see.

The weather today was beautiful - mid 70's, with a bit of a cool wind. No complaints from us. It's been a perfect week so far and we're relaxing and enjoying ourselves immensely.

Tonight we'll have our pictures taken and then we're going to a golf social being hosted by Martins - Golf - it doesn't appear that the condo is doing this activity anymore so we'll see what Martin's is doing.

Rub a dub dub - two clowns in the hot tub

After an exhilerating day on the course, what better way to relax than at the hot tub. We had it all to ourselves. We couldn't believe our luck. We spent some time enjoying the pool and lazy river as well. Our muscles are sore and we're both pretty tired. It must be all the fresh air. Today there was quite a breeze blowing... I'm sure that helped as well.

Happy Birthday Anne

It's my friend Anne Kortleve's birthday today. We wish you all of God's richest blessings and we hope you have a wonderful day.

A great day at Long Bay!

What a course. If you have never golfed Long Bay - make it something to do as part of your bucket list. This is a Jack Nicholas designed course and one you will remember for a very long time. This course is designed for 2nd shot accuracy, or iron play. You have to have control of your irons and know where to place your shot. The greens and fairways are surrounded by sand bunkers and sometime water. It's unbelievable. You look at the hole and wonder where you are going to place your shot. If you think you can make it, don't try because if you miss, you'll be in a bunker and will have to face giant sand walls (sometimes you have to climb a ladder to get out).

Ralph and I just loved this course and will definately go back to this one.

We golf with two guys from New York - just below Cornwall. Chris and Pat were here with their families and were only golfing once this week. They were fun to golf with and we had a good time all together. My game was good, and I scored the best I've ever done by shooting a 96. Ralph shot a 94 today. I was thrilled that I was able to keep my shots mostly in the fairway and I think that this helped.

We weren't able to do our pictures today and they've been rescheduled for Thursday at 6:00 p.m. The weather isn't the best - it's very overcast and threatening to rain so the photographer suggested that we wait for another day.

Litchfield Golf and Country Club

Well, I'll start by calling my "game", the good, the bad and the ugly. We got to the course with about 30 minutes to spare. The club was packed all with ladies starting an afternoon ladies league. Ralph and I were worried that we'd have a slow round. It seemed very busy. We were paired up with two men - Bill and Irv. They were both happily retired and residents of the area. As we feared, it was a slow game - took us almost 4.5 hours. We still had lots of fun and Bill and Irv were really nice to golf with. We just had to go at a much slower pace. My game started off horrible. I can't say much more than that. If there was water or sand - I found them both!! I think I had 3 "8"s and 2 "7"s before I settled down. I ended up with a 103 and my back nine really helped my score. Ralph was playing well (shot an 86) although struggling a bit with his drive. We saw a small alligator and some turtles. The course itself was really beautiful with lots of Azalea's all around. Irv and Bill recommended several nice restaurants in Murrell's Inlet and we went to one called Bove's. It was quite good and the seafood was delicious.

Nice morning

While enjoying breakfast at the Sea Captain - we saw dolfins swimming by. Three of them. We went to get our cameras and hoped we'd see more. It wasn't to be. Oh well, we enjoyed a nice stroll up and down the beach collecting shells instead. We talked to someone on the beach and she showed us the shells she was collecting. I was hooked!! We found a few spirals and these shells called tube shells. I would never have known they were shells and would have passed them by. It was almost like looking for shark teeth!! The morning is beautiful.