Saturday 1-18 Bake Sale and Dancing

Having fun

We didn't have a get together this morning because J-Five was having a garage and bake sale. Instead we went to Kripsy Kreme and bought a few doughnuts. Larry had read that Krispy Kreme was now making mini donuts with the calorie count of 90. When we got to Krispy Kreme the sign was on so we got a free donut. We looked at the mini donuts and found that they were $1.00 a piece and the regular size donut was $1.19. We passed on the mini donuts and bought two maple glazed donuts and two of the regular donuts. On top of that we received a free donut. Today was our first Krispy Kreme donut since we arrived in the Valley.

Visiting Krispy Creme Doughnuts

While we're in the Valley we normally go to the two major flea markets, Mercadome and Don Wes. Today after breakfast we went to Don Wes. We walked around and walked through vendors for about an hour. We stopped by the vendor that sells Western shirts and looked at the shirts. We were looking for two shirts that matched and had short sleeves. We didn't find what we wanted. We had a very nice time walking around Don Wes. 

When we got back at the Minnie I went to the club house, where the J-Five had its bake sale, They had two six foot long tables full of goodies. I bought a mini banana bread and a plate full of peanut butter Rice Krispy treats. Instead of lunch we snacked on these items.

Banana Bread and Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Then I worked my Solitaire Event: World Tour (30 games). I did 19 games before we went to our afternoon dance.

On Saturday afternoons Randy Dougherty has two dances, C2 and C1. For C1 We had 18 couples which was four and a half squares. Randy put us in weird positions, the C2 dancers that stayed for the C1 dance were also having problems. We had a super afternoon dancing to Randy and with friends.

By the time we got home it was time for dinner. After dinner I walked around for 45 minutes to get in some of my steps. 

When I got finished Larry was waiting for me. He asked if I wanted to go to Joe Saltel's Saturday Ice Cream Social Plus Dance. The dance started at 7:00 with rounds and 7:30 to 9:30 was the actual dance with one round in between tips. Joe had 39 couples. He was one couple shy of having 10 squares. They had 10 couples doing rounds. After the second tip Klondike Bars and Fudgesicles were served. Ron Woolcock did the cuing for the round dancers. Joe did an outstanding job of calling and making the dance fun. Betty did a great job of taking in the money and serving the ice cream. We had a fun time dancing plus to Joe.

Some of our plus dancers friends

Dancers enjoying taking a break

Round dancing to Ron

Joe Saltel talking to a couple of dancers

Ron Woolcock

When I got home I finished up the World Tour Solitaire game and did my daily challenge. We had an outstanding day.

    

Friday 1-17-20 Fabulous Friday

Happy Friday

I started the day out by doing a Solitaire Event: TriPeaks Mini, which had five TriPeaks games. It took me 8 minutes and 24 seconds. This put me in 25th place in my group.

Our first dance of the day was at Tropical Valley Acres to dance C1 with Bronc Wise. We had nine squares and no one sitting out. Bronc went over Triangles, Blocks and Triple Waves and Boxes. Bronc's dance isn't that complex but he is very smooth and fun. We had a great morning of dancing with Bronc.

For lunch we went to the Taco Bell that is near the Methodist Church we dance at on Friday. We shared a Mexican Pizza and Triple Layer Nacho.

After lunch we were back dancing Randy Dougherty's Freaky Friday Dance. He calls this dance Freaky Friday because he put the dancers in weird position and it's on Friday. A few years ago he had Wacky Wednesday, it was the same dance but held on Wednesday's. Randy is a very creative caller and can put you in positions that you would never see elsewhere. We love dancing to him because he is very challenging. He is so hard that you have to think all the time. I personally think that by dancing with Randy, he makes you a better dancer. We had exactly five squares. We danced with our friends from Marble Falls and other A dancers. We had a super afternoon of dancing.

When I got home I went over to the laundry and washed a load of shirts. While the shirts were washing I went back to the Minnie and relaxed.

Doing a little laundry

We spent the evening in the Minnie reading. I finished doing 16,500 steps. We had a relaxing evening.

Relaxing with a book

 

Thursday 1-16 C1 Dancing and Card Bingo

Hi, have a great day

After sleeping for 10 hours I crawled out of bed and made mini waffles for our breakfast. Then I started working on my Solitaire Event: Two Game Tango, which had 20 games (10 Klondike and 10 Pyramid). Today's event went a lot better, it took me 1 hour 26 minutes and 44 seconds. When I finished I was ranked 27th. In the morning I'll find out exactly where I ended up.

Yesterday one of our friends from Canada, Karen, asked if I would like a red, white and blue hat that flashes, I said sure. So in the afternoon she brought it to me while I was dancing with Joe, she was attending the round dance after our dance. The hat is super. It has three different settings, one where the lights flash fast, another one when it doesn't flash at all and another one where one light comes on at a time. She is in the process of cleaning out the house she has in the Valley because she and her husband are not coming back next year.

New hat

  

We spent the day dancing C1 with two great callers. The first dance was at 10:00 to Ross Howell. It was an actual dance. He added this dance to his schedule so the C1 dancers could dance to him. We had 10 couples, which was two and a half squares. This gave two couples an opportunity to rest at least one tip. We have danced with Ross many times but this was our first dance with him in The Valley. Ross walked us through a few moves we were having problems with. We had a super morning of dancing with friends and Ross Howell.

Ross Howell calling his C1 dance

 

Dancers waiting for the next call

Friends enjoying dancing to Ross

Friends having fun during the dance

We only had an hour until the next dance and it was across The Valley at Tip of Texas. We stopped by Burger King and had a couple of tacos.

The afternoon dance was a C1 Workshop to Randy Doughtery. We had 21 couples, which made five squares plus an extra couple. Randy cued us through a couple of calls we were having problems with. We were out one tip. We had more people at Randy's Workshop because some of the dancers were C2 dancers. In the morning they were dancing C2. We had a super time dancing to Randy and with friends.

In the evening I went over to the hall and played card bingo. We had 24 people playing card bingo. We played 12 games with the paybacks at 10 games $3.60 and the 6th and 12th had $6.00. I won the 6th game, I paid $2 to play so I came home $4.00 ahead. The first game had three winners so each got $1.20 but the rest only had one winner. I had a great time playing.

After card bingo I went home and finished my steps, which was 16,500 steps.    

Wednesday 1-15 Wonderful Wednesday

We started the day out by going to the J-Five Get Together. Once again it was a full house. They had a lot to cover considering we're not having a Saturday Get Together because the park is having a garage and bake sale. We had a special speaker representing an insurance company. She comes every year to give a pitch for people to buy some sort of insurance while they're in the Valley, she provided today's donuts. The board looked at the parks finances and decided they needed to raise a bit more money so they decided to raise the price on their suppers from $5.00 to $7.00. Next week there is a soup supper. We had a nice meeting.

After the meeting we went to Pharr South to dance A2 with Darryl Lipscomb. We had eight squares and a couple of extra couples. Darryl did a lot of fun stuff. The last tip Darryl called a mainstream song that he is going to record. He wanted to see how it danced. We had a super time with friends and dancing to Darryl.

We had an hour for lunch before having our C1 Dance. Larry decided to take me to Fazoli's. We shared an Italian Submarino, it was delicious. Fazoli's has terrific bread sticks.

At 1:00 we were back on the dance floor dancing C1 to Joe. We had 3 squares. Joe put us in different positions then we were use to being in. Joe is so laid back and he waited for the dancers to catch up. I'm glad he cued us through some of the moves because I needed it. We spent a great afternoon laughing and having fun with friends and Joe.

Joe said he had 20 squares at his morning plus dance. The square dance season here in The Valley is probably near its peak. There will be a few more people showing up over the next couple of weeks but by the middle of February people will start to trickle away.

In the evening I walked around the park for 45 minutes. Then I stepped in place to get the rest of my steps. At the end of the day I got 16,000 steps. After doing my steps I read until it was time to go to bed. I called it a night at 9:30, which is early considering I don't normally go to bed until 1:00.

Doing my steps

                              

Tuesday 1-14 Dancing and Bingo

We had a terrific day. The humidity was once again high but the clouds were gone.

We started the day out by going to Tropic Star in Pharr to dance A2 with Joe Saltel. We had 31 couples, which made 7 squares with three couples sitting out. It was a super morning of dancing. Our friends from Canada, Gorgon and Jeane showed up. Joe is always a pleasure to dance to because he is always laughing and having a great time. He makes the dancers enjoy the dance because of his personality. He worked on Zig and Zag, Zig is to turn to the right and Zag is to turn to the left. What made it hard was he did it as couples. He also worked on different couple concepts. We had an outstanding morning dancing to Joe.

Yesterday, when I was talking to Len I told him I would wear my pink cowboy hat if he would wear his cowboy hat. Well, I showed up wearing mine but he forgot his. He felt bad so we agreed to try next week. I got a lot of compliments on the hat so I won't mind wearing it again.

We had an hour for lunch so we went to What A Burger and shared a salad. While we were eating a couple we know from Ohio, Myrna and Ken joined us, they just arrived this week. It was a pleasure to spend lunch with friends.

After lunch we were back on the floor dancing C1 to Darryl Lipscomb. We had eight and a half squares. Darryl walked us through calls we were having trouble with. He put us in weird positions but it was fun. We had super afternoon of dancing to Darryl and friends.

In the evening I went across the street to the J-Five hall and played Bingo. We had a great turnout. The payback was 12 at $3.45 and 2 at $10.00. We played a lot of different games, the 2 that paid $10.00 was the blackout. It cost me $3.60 for three cards and I won one game at $3.45. I bought a diet coke. Diana and Ruth ran the Bingo, they baked cookies (peanut butter and oatmeal raisin) for refreshments. We played 7 games and then took a break. I had a wonderful night playing bingo. While I played bingo Larry read. We had a super day.  

Bingo night at J-Five

Monday 1-13 Dancing and Tom Wurth

Put on the fan, it's humid

The wind was down but the humidity was high. I had a bit of a headache all day because of the high humidity.

We started the day out by going to Peppermint Palace for Bronc Wise's C1 Workshop. We had eight and a half squares. Every week there are more and more people showing up. Bronc went over Chain Reaction and Concentric Concepts. He put us in all different positions for the Chain Reaction. Some positions were very confusing, Bronc had to go over these positions many times. The Concentric Concepts can be confusing because the center two couples do the call normally but the outer two couples have to do the move with each other. At times the outer two couples either have to walk backwards or forward to get into a line or wave, very confusing. When they're tagging the line they have to get in front of the center two couples. Bronc did a super job of teaching the concepts of both Chain Reaction and Concentric.

We had an hour for lunch before going to our afternoon dance. We stopped at Wendy's and shared a Spicy Buffalo Salad. We like going to Wendy's for salads because they have five different salads to chose from. It was delicious.

At 1:00 we were back on the floor at Pharr South to dance A2 with Darryl Lipscomb. We had exactly five squares. Our friends Gary, Sharon, Mary and Linda just arrived yesterday and are going to be here a month. Darryl introduced the group to different Counter Rotates. The dancers were struggling to see the concept because in the A2 level you only do one concept. When you get into the C1 level you're introduced to all the other Counter Rotates. When we were in the square we could help the dancers if needed. Darryl did a great job.  

By the time we finished doing two dances we're tired and all we want to do is go home and relax.

In the evening we went to see Tom Wurth at Bluebonnet RV Park. Tom Wurth performs Country, Gospel, Blues and Rock. He was raised in NW Iowa and lives in Nashville. He is a one man entertainer and is very enthusiastic. He sings a lot of songs the audience knows and encourages the audience to participate. At intermission the park served cake and a cup of coffee for a dollar. The park also sold ice cream bars and sodas. We had a very fun evening with Tom Wurth.

Blue Bonnet stage

Tom Wurth

When we got home I finished my steps, which were 8,000 steps. When I finished I had done 16,000 steps total. We had a very nice day.      

Sunday 1-12 Laundry Day

Sunny windy day

This morning was a little chilly. The sun came out and it became a beautiful 80 degree day, awesome.

Sundays are our relaxing day. There is no dancing. We didn't have any plans so I did laundry. The Minnie is small and we certainly don't have room for a washer and dryer. We are thankful that J-Five has a laundry room. It has six washers and six dryer. For each load it cost $1.25 to wash and another $1.25 to dry. About 10:30 I decided to do the laundry. The site we are camped at is really close to the laundry room so I walked over to do laundry. I was in luck, the washers were available and a gentleman was just finishing up folding his laundry. About 30 minutes later I went back to put my loads in the dryer. I had to wait a few minutes for the loads to be finished. Once they were done I loaded the dryers. As I was doing this another gentleman showed up to do laundry. I guess Sunday is laundry day for people. While waiting for the laundry to dry we had lunch. Then I went over and finished the laundry. I was finished by 12:30.

Doing laundry

Reading is fun

We spent the day relaxing in the Minnie. We read and napped. I did my daily challenges and The Solitaire Event: Two Game Tango. Today the two games were Spider and TriPeaks. Each game had ten games. When I finished I was 17th in my group of 100 people but it was early I won't know where I really came in until tomorrow.

In the evening I finished reading The Indigo Girl. It was a historic fiction book based on a true story of an sixteen year old girl who was put in charge of her father's plantation in South Carolina. It's about the relationship she had with her slaves and how independent she was. It was an excellent book. I ended up doing 16,000 steps