Friends, Christmas Lights, Condo Update

We have always said the best thing about our fulltiming lifestyle is seeing friends and family all over the country. It sure has been true on this stop. The steady stream of friends passing through South Florida continued this week with a visit with Richard and Valerie. We met them at our first Escapade in 2007 and have crossed paths all over the country. A few years ago they bought a beautiful condo in Charlottesville and sold their 5th wheel. After a couple years they developed a case of hitchitch so they bought a motorhome and are now part-timers.  

  Since we are buying a place and becoming part-timers we had a lot we wanted to talk about. They stopped for an afternoon visit of getting caught up and dinner at one of our new favorite places in Hobe Sound, Taste.

Friday we went out to eat at the Original Tiki in Fort Pierce. It was more time spent getting caught up on all our life happenings. 

After dinner we went to the Heathcote Botanical Gardens Garden of Lights. It was a great walk through the exhibit. Here is a stream of lights with an island and plants. 

The colored light shining on the palms made for an interesting display.

Valerie and Nanc. Valerie made sure we each had our own light necklaces to add to the show.

Not flowers but lights looking like flowers.

Treasure Coast idea of what winter snow is like.

Beautiful lights of flowers and a butterfly.

What a great flowerbed.

The Heathcote James J. Smith Bonsai Gallery is one of the largest collections of tropical bonsai in the United States.

Seeing them with lights was very cool.

A bonsai forest was one of my favorites. 

The blooming bougainvillea was another favorite. 

The art of bonsai is something that has always fascinated me. This is one of the best displays we have ever seen. We are going to make it a point to return during the day to see them.

They had a checklist with all the different animals. Here is a dolphin and a manatee. 

Great bicycle.

A swamp scene with a heron and gator. The Garden of Lights is well worth a visit if you are near Fort Pierce around Christmas. We had a great visit with Richard and Valerie and are looking forward to seeing them again down the road.

If it is Sunday it time for the Jupiter Jazz Society jam. This weeks featured group was a youth ensemble, the JazzPath AllStars. It is great to hear young musicians who are the future for keeping jazz alive.

A couple great string players. We were sad that this was our last jam for this visit, then we realized we are going to live just up the road and will be able to be here more often.

Opus was in need of a bath so we had Ron, a camper staying in Floridays, give him a good washing. This is the first time we have had someone else do this. I must be getting old.

MORE ON OUR BIG NEWS

We have been busy with tons of paperwork related to purchasing a stix and brix. It has been forty years since we have gone through the home buying process and we had forgotten how much paper work was involved before the place is ours. There was the home inspection, appraisal, title search, getting the down payment and mortgage, insurance and being interviewed by the condo association (we passed). 

Many people have asked what our RVing plans are going to be after we become homeowners. Right now we are in the Keys and will be here until February. We will drive the CRV to Stuart for the closing in early January. In February we will store Opus (not sure where yet) and live in our stix and brix. In March we will head to Betty's for our scheduled one-month stay and then return to Stuart for at least a month. In May we will do the snowbird thing, close up our home and slowly head north for the summer.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!!!!