KEN IS TEACHING PICKLEBALL AGAIN!

Ken has been helping out our good friend, Sally, while she and Stan are in Michigan. Sally has been teaching beginner Pickleball here at Peace River this winter. While she is gone, Ken has been teaching the game to anyone interested in learning.

Here he is with a group of novice players (not really beginners). He really enjoyed being back on the court again, even if he did not play himself.

After the lesson, we had a Pickle Pinning Ceremony for them. They were thrilled to receive the pickle pin. (Unfortunately, wemissed the picture.)

ROYAL LIPIZZAN STALLIONS OF AUSTRIA

January 15 –The Winter Training Headquarters of the Herrmann’s Royal Lipizzan Stallions is in Myakka City, FL, only about 45 miles from TT Peace River. Who would have guessed!! As a part of the training program, informal shows are staged frequently, open to the public. For a mere donation, not only can you see the show, but, you are welcome to visit the stables to get up really close and personal with these magnificent animals. You may remember the story of how the Royal Lipizzaners were rescued from Hostau, Czechoslovakia during WWII by General Patton’s troops as Russian forces were closing in. Now their offspring are here!!

Ken and I went to one of the shows last year and what a thrill it was. This year, Ken went with Stan and Sally to see one of their shows.

Ken said the original Herrmann had only daughters. Consequently, only girls trained and rode the horses. That tradition has continued. Males in the family can work around the horses, but do not train or ride them!! Interesting. Note, only female riders below.



The Lipizzaners are know throughout the world as the “dancing horses”. Here the famous Airs Above the Ground.



Lipizzaners with dark hair or mane have not yet matured. At maturity, the horses are pure white.

The current owner of the Royal Lipizzan Stallions. She is the granddaughter of the original Mr. Herrmann. The stallion performing the stunt is young (note the mane). The stallion on which she is mounted is over 30 years old!!

The Grand Finale!!

UTE, GUENTER AND EIKE

Many of you will remember Ute, Guenter and Eike from Germany and living in their motorhome. Ute developed a thriving business selling her painted silk strings. Eike was a tall drink of water and we all watched him develop as a teenager and Pickleball player. The family now lives in Carlsbad, CA, which is North County San Diego, 45 minutes away from TT Pio Pico or TT Wilderness.

Recently Ute asked me if I could use our Blog to extend an invitation from them to their traveling friends to please contact them when planning to be in that area. They would love to see you.

Following is a nice e-mail we received from them, commenting articles on our Blog.

Hi all our friends,
I wish we where there. We did not see Dawn and Carl for a long time and I cannot remember when we saw Travis, this was so nice to see him on your blog, please say hi and tell all a lot of greetings from us. We are doing very well here in San Diego North County and we love the weather. We hope to go up Northwest in July to see at least some of our travel friends. We are not going east for a while, that’s for sure. As long we have the business we will stay west. Eike is not traveling any longer with us, because he is busy with the college. He is doing really good. Please keep us posted.
Love and Happiness to all of you
Warmly
Ute, Guenter and Eike

Silk Painting is Fun
6965 El Camino Real Ste 105 #268
Carlsbad, CA 92009
Phone: 928 607 2765
Fax: 760 448 5765

Ute@silkpaintingisfun.com

[EDITED] GRANDSON, MICHAEL, NOMINATED TO 2009 GOVERNOR’S SCHOOL

I, Faye-with-an-e, must have a latent smart gene buried somewhere deep within! Who knew?? This smart gene recently manifested itself through my grandson, Michael, who was nominated by not one, but three, [OOPS. His mother reminded me, it was not three, but four!] of his high school teachers in three different subjects as a candidate to attend the 2009 North Carolina Governor’s School -- A school for the best and brightest upcoming high school seniors in the state!! The nomination is only the first step. The actual Selection Process involves essays, interviews, etc. Nominees must pass each step of the Selection Process before actually being accepted to attend the school. While the Selection Process has not been completed, Michael is still in the running!! We are SO PROUD!!

Michael is a terrific, well-rounded young man. He maintains an excellent points average and is among the top students in his class. He is a star player on both his high school and local league baseball teams, with aspirations of becoming an Atlanta Brave! Not only that -- this past summer, he won a Guitar Hero competition in his home town, Goldsboro, NC. Way to go!!

LOVE YOU, MICHAEL.

[Michael's mom said his dad always thought the smart genes came from him. Silly man!!!]

FAYE DOES LINE DANCING!!

Since I can’t play Pickleball with a bad hip, I’ve taken up line dancing. Here at Peace River, we have line dancing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. At Torrey Oaks, about 10 miles up the road, the same teacher, Jenny, has classes every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Whenever possible, I go to all of the classes. One thing we do in these classes is repeat, repeat, repeat!! I can now do the Electric Slide to anything from The Electric Boogie to Elvira to The Funeral March!!!

As you can see, I’m the only one here who knows how to do “Alley Cat”!! HA HA Actually, you know me -- I was posing for the camera and everyone else went on with the dance!!

I think this is SO FUNNY!!! You Seasonal Campers at TT Chesapeake Bay will appreciate this. Especially you, Brad, because you know how hard I worked to learn those line dances last summer!!

[For background information, Brad is a Seasonal Camper at Chesapeake Bay who has lots of awesome audio equipment. He frequently set up his equipment on Friday nights and played music just for fun and for his friends. We all gathered at the cement pad (once a Pickleball Court) near the horseshoe pits and danced to Brad’s music. The following dance is one we did three, four, five times every Friday evening all summer long!!]

On with the story. Our teacher, Jenny, is a little “flakey” at times, but she is funny. Last Thursday at Torrey Oaks, she told us that Ron, who plays musical instruments and provides music at their dances on Saturday night, asked her what she knew about the Stupid Shuffle – someone had asked him if he could play it sometime. Stupid Shuffle? No, she had not heard of it! But when she was looking through some of her papers later, she came across the name “Cupid Shuffle” that someone had asked her about. She went on line and got the dance steps. So, she said:

“We are going to learn the Cupid Shuffle! And after reading the steps, I agree. This really should be the Stupid Shuffle!! I have never seen anything so stupid! All you do is Hully Gully to the Right [Step right, slide left, repeat], then Hully Gully to the Left [Step left, slide right, repeat]. Then you do four Heel Stands [Right heel forward, then stand; repeat with left, and right, and left]. Then you have to make one-quarter turn to the left using EIGHT counts!! How in the world do you use eight counts to turn just one-quarter turn?? I thought about marching little steps, but that doesn’t work. Maybe you do it like this (and she demonstrated some kind of funny foot movements as she turned). Now isn’t that the most stupid thing you’ve ever seen??”

We tried walking through her directions. Finally, she stopped. “Does anyone know who this Cupid is anyway??” No one answered. I spoke up – “He’s a Rapper!” A RAPPER?? “Yes, I said. “And the song goes like this:”

I rhythmically chanted (uh, rapped) and demonstrated the dance: THERE IS A NEW DANCE AND IT GOES LIKE THIS -- TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT. TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT. NOW KICK, NOW KICK, NOW KICK, NOW KICK. NOW WALKING BY YOURSELF, WALKING BY YOURSELF [as I made tiny little baby steps, using eight counts to turn one-quarter turn to the left] and began again -- TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT. TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT. NOW KICK, NOW KICK. . .

Everybody laughed. “Oh, that’s so cute!! Oh, That’s such fun!! I really like that!!”

And so, we (THEY) learned the Cupid Shuffle!!

Thank you Chesapeake Bay campers for teaching me how!! I still have not conquered “Boot Scooting Boogie”! But, JoAnn, I can now Waltz Across Texas!!!

Saturday night, we joined our good friends, Cis and Joe (front left) at Torrey Oaks for pot luck dinner and a little entertainment and, of course, line dancing!

Here we are doing the Electric Slide (again)!

HAPPY HOUR AT STAN AND SALLY’S

January 11 – This afternoon Sally and Stan hosted another Happy Hour for all of the Pickleball Players.

As usual, we had a large group and lots of goodies to munch on. We get together like this fairly often at different sites. It’s a lot of fun and easy to do. Someone decides it’s time for a Happy Hour and extends the invitation. Everyone brings their own drinks, chairs, and hors d'oeuvres to share with the group. Lots of FUN!!

On this occasion, we had something special. A couple Pickleball Players (Steve and Jessie) also play Dulcimers. They brought out their instruments and provided some music for our enjoyment.

Then things really got CRAZY!!!

Jessie and Sally played the Spoons!!!

Stan went into his "Ham Bone" routine!!!

The rest of us just enjoyed the fun!!!

Ken and me.

Judy and Lee.

John and Rosa.

Sis and Paul.

Leigh and Pete.

Renate. Heinz was helping a neighbor and could not be here.

Dawn and Carl.

Dawn and Carl brought over their photo albums that had pictures of numerous Pickleball Players from all of the Thousand Trails parks where they had played. It was more fun sitting around and comparing notes on all the players that each of us had also met!!! Norm and Marti, Spike and Linda, Wayne and Nancy, Del and Jerry, Carolyn and John, Guenter and Ute, Marion and Tom, just to mention a few. Many of us at the happy hour also had our mugs in the albums! What fun!!

Faye's Cream Puffs for Jane - I knew Jane really liked my Cream Puffs that I had taken to an earlier get-together. I figured she would be at the Happy Hour at Stan and Sally’s, so I made Cream Puffs just for her (and everyone else, too). The recipe is really easy – you get it from the back of the Stella D’ora Anginetti cookies bag in the specialty cookie section of the grocery store.

Yep!! Jane still likes my Cream Puffs!!!

Jim likes them, too!!!

Thanks Everybody for a great time at the Happy Hour!!

FUNNY GORILLA STORY ABOUT STEVE

A little background. With a lot of new Pickleball players around, Ken has been ordering and selling Pickleball Paddles made by Spike, a friend of ours out in Arizona.

One day, the trim on one of Jessie’s paddles pulled away from the paddle itself. She called Ken to see if he could glue the trim back in place. Ken said, “Well, I guess so. I’ve got some Gorilla Glue over here.” Jessie and Steve showed up on our door step. “Why, that’s not one of MY paddles,” Ken stated. “I know,” said Jessie, “but, I thought since you make paddles, maybe you would not mind gluing mine for me.” “I don’t MAKE the paddles, I just sell them,” Ken told them, “but, I’ll try to glue it for you.”

He got out the Gorilla Glue and they began to glue the trim back in place. A characteristic about Gorilla Glue is that in order for it to work, the area has to be wet. So Ken wet the area thoroughly and they applied the glue under the trim and used rubber bands to hold it in place until the glue dried.

Steve told the story later at Sally and Stan’s Happy Hour. After leaving us, he had stopped by the restroom. He felt something a little sticky on his fingers, so guess what?? He washed his hands!!! The Gorilla Glue went to work!!! Steve’s fingers stuck to everything!! He said, after using the toilet, he could NOT get rid of the toilet paper!!! He tried everything, but it was STUCK!! I can just see him now!!! What a laugh we all got out of that!!!

DINNER AT THE CELTIC CROSSING

January 10 - Jim and Jane, our friends from England, recommended an English Pub on Main Street in our little town of Wauchula, FL. So, a group of us went for dinner at The Celtic Crossing. It was a really neat pub, decorated with an English flair.

A great time was had by all with plenty of Fish and Chips, Shepherd's Pie, Breton Chicken, and all kinds of tasty English food. YUMMMMMM!!!

[Jim is at the head of the table; Jane is standing.]

Thank you, Jane and Jim, for the recommendation!

We had a great time!!