Some More "FIRSTS

It's been a long week.......but things are starting to come together. Sometimes I wish we had never sold so much of our "stuff" when we sold our house last year. Some people would say getting new "stuff" is great.........but I'm not so sure.   The living room and patio are still bare.......but tomorrow I'm going to do some more shopping.

Last Thursday we went to a local restaurant for the FIRST time.  Al and Barb ( and I still don't have a picture of them!!) took us to Dock 633, which is located just across the lake from us.  A very casual "bar and grill" type place with daily specials, indoor and outdoor seating, TVs for the sports fans, weekly karaoke, and great food.   Rich had the fish fry and Al the Bacon Cheeseburger.  Barb and I had a bowl of the homemade loaded potato soup and shared a Chicken Wrap.  Great service, great prices!  We're going back on Wednesday for two for one Wings.

On Friday the boat was delivered.  Here are Nick and Rich bringing the new boat to our boathouse/dock for the FIRST time.   The boathouse was set up for a 20' pontoon - so adjustments need to be made to accommodate the 17' fishing boat.

Nick and Tonyia talked us into going out for dinner - so it was back to the Golden Corral.  We really like it there; but you can eat too much if you're not careful. Tonight I was very good; probably for the FIRST time.......enjoying my salad bar and veggies with a piece of baked chicken. 

Saturday was another trip to Sebring.  First stop was at the Precision Welding place where Rich dropped off a sketch of what he needed to have made for the boathouse.  Then it was off to shop for life jackets, anchor, horn, fishing line, fishing licenses and a little grocery shopping. 

Sunday we went out on the lake fishing for the FIRST time.    It takes us about 10 minutes to ride the canal from our dock to the lake.   Here are some pictures of the canal route and a few of the other houses/docks along the canal.    Top right is a great picture of another small canal/waterway that branches off of our canal. and bottom left shows where we go under the bridge (Catfish Creek Rd) to enter the main lake. 

And here are a couple of shots that give you an idea of the size of the lake ( this is just the south end of the lake).  It also extends east all the way  US 27.  

Here, we just passed under the bridge and this is the small private park for Placid Lake Residents that includes a boat launch. 

 A view from the south east corner of the lake.......

Rich fishing for the FIRST TIME!

A couple more views of the lake..........

Rich at the helm......

But it was I who caught the FIRST fish!  And don't you dare laugh at my FIRST.

And before we headed for home..........while not the most beautiful.... our FIRST sunset over Lake June in Winter...

When we got home we cooked on our new patio grill for the FIRST time.  I made a salad while Rich cooked the burgers. 

The boats today are so much different than what we had 35 years ago!  So we are still trying to figure out the GARMIN and the workings of the foot pedal for the trolling motor and all the other gadgets!  

And today I spent the day looking up Supplemental Insurance Plans since Rich will soon be the FIRST to join the Medicare family.

Krystal - I know you will be reading this...........We MUST make plans to get together.  We miss you guys!

The New Boat

Nick and Tonyia came back to visit this weekend. I put some rosemary seasoned red potatoes in the oven, made up a batch of deviled eggs, put the pot of water on to boil the corn and the guys cooked some boneless ribs on the grill.  Still don't have any patio furniture - so dinner was served inside.

We had been out on the Internet looking for a boat, and visited a few of the local boat dealers trying to decided if it would be a new or used boat, a pontoon or a fishing boat........So Many Decisions!

We had decided on a pontoon.  There was a 20ft for sale right here on Lake June so we drove over to check it out.  Nice boat.  The owner took all four of us for a ride  - a great ride - around the lake.  This was actually or first time on the water and we got to see just how very large this lake really is ( over 3600 acres).  Unfortunately ( or fortunately) taking the ride also caused us to change our minds.  We knew immediately that the pontoon was not what we wanted.  As nice as it would be to have one, and be able to take friends/guests out on the lake, it is not what want to use every day for fishing.......And fishing is why we moved here!

Nick found a boat out on Craig's List.  We called today to see the boat.........and we are now proud owners of this 2005 Fisher 170 Pro Hawk Fishing Boat, with a 90 hp  Mercury motor and complete with Garmin and foot pedal controlled trolling motor!  We should catch some great bass and crappie with this outfit!

The weekend..........

Onn Saturday, Nick needed some help from Rich picking up some wood from Home Depot down in Sebring.  They arrived that morning around 9am, and shortly after, the furniture for the family room was delivered.  The guys left for Sebring, and Tonyia and I headed for the grocery store.   She and I opened a bottle of Sangria and sat for most of the rest of the day playing Mexican Train.  It felt so nice just to sit and relax.  When the guys returned, Rich and bought a new gas grill for the backyard,  they got the sprinkler sytem up and running, hung out down by the deck, had a few beers and talked about buying a new boat and doing some fishing.   No cooking - we had Pizza delivered from Pizza Hut..........

On Sunday, our new neighbors across the stree ( Al and Barb) asked if we'd join them for dinner.

We visited with them for a short while, got to see their home on the canal and their boat.  They both love to fish too.  We had dinner at the Casa Tequila, a Mexican Restaurant about 1/2 mile from the house, right here in Placid Lakes.   After dinner they drove us all around the lake, showing us the short cuts to town, and the locations on the lake where we can put our boat in.    Very nice people - we enjoyed the evening.

Rich found some time (took some well deserved time!) to do a little fishing.  He just took his pole out back and fished the canal.   I finally cooked a real meal.........we had speghetti and sausage on Monday and I baked Chicken on Tuesday.

 Things are starting to come together.  It will take us some time to get everything the way we want in........but right now the most important thing is to find about an 18 foot pontoon to put in that boat house out back!

Today we took a ride up to the Placid Lakes Town Hall, where we paid our yearly dues for the Homeowners Association.  We got our welcome packet, a key to the Park where we can launch our boat and use the facilities, and learned about some of the activities they have going on at the Town Hall.   They have a big social club that does cruises, trips ( upcoming to the Dog Races), plans holiday parties and pot luck for the community.  Once the snow birds are back, bunco will begin, and they get about 30 - 35 people to play.  Tomorrow morning at 10, I am joining the group for line dancing. So it sounds like this had a little more going on that we had thought..........That's good news!

The First Week in our New Home

Well, like in any house you buy, you always find a few things you missed when you were "just looking".   We need to remember that this is an older house, built in 1980, so there are things we plan to add, change or remove.  Added to the to-do list this week (and everything comes after buying a new boat!) was putting exhaust fans in the two bathrooms, transforming the wall of shelves in the family room to a custom made wall unit for our new 55" TV, and taking down the built in desk in the 3rd bedroom so we can move our regular office furniture in.

I've spent a lot of time on the computer or the phone taking care of changing our address with "everyone".  We opened a new bank account at a local bank, changed all the automatic deposits, and set up the new automatic payments.   And of course unpacking boxes and trying to figure out where everything is going to go.

Probably the most frustrating event this week was the installation of Direct TV. We had an excellent technician.  But he went through so much just to get us hooked up especially having to make his way through about 12 inches of blown in insulation in the attic.  You can see where Rich took an old blanket to cover the clothes in the closet, because the technician had to enter the attic through the closet crawl space.  As you can see - once the door was opened, a ton of the insulation fell and pretty much covered the ladder and the closet floor.

I think it took him close to five hours (and that included a trip to Sebring for another receiver) before he was finally finished and all three TVs were working.

The rest of the week was more of the same.