Our Florida social was a smash hit and we are grateful for Lori Bauer and her wonderful husband Kevin for hosting us in Palm Coast, Florida once again :)
With Chris and his wonderful wife Daisy in attendance, it was a blast having them the entire time.
We had a great time on Thursday just hanging out and relaxing while the weather was trying to cooperate with us. Even though we were waiting for a storm to blow through, the weather was wonderfully warm compared to the Oregon drizzle that I'd been experiencing.
Lori and Daisy as always had wonderful eats for us and there is absolutely no chance for dieting on this social!
Friday we hit the beach for a relaxing afternoon laying in the sun and hunting for seashells. We got our toes wet but the water was a little chilly for me and my daughter Joleen, who joined me and mentioned to me in passing that she won’t miss another one!
After we had the ample amount of time on the beach just to get lightly colored on our skin, we took for some shopping and amazing ice cream down at Flagler Beach. The group rallied together and we had a dinner at The Turtle Shack where the food was absolutely delicious and the entertainment of the gentleman singing was fabulous.
Conversations flowed and the energy was high, and I have never laughed so hard in my life. This is why I love being a Social Director, because of the people I get to hang around with and have those uplifting and beautiful conversations that can take me home and carry me over till my next social.
The relationships that I have been able to build by attending these socials are lifelong and priceless. I don’t think any of us got to bed any earlier than about 1:00 AM, so we took a little extra time on Saturday morning to sleep in, but not for long, smelling the coffee and the wonderful breakfast that was prepared by Lori who made us scrambled eggs, bacon, bagels, oh my… it was D-lish!
I no longer could lay in bed! Lori and Kevin have a paddle boat which Joleen and I took out a couple of times in hunt for gators. We actually did see a couple of gators off in the distance from where we were and my daughter was very excited about that.
After our fun in the canal, we went on a search for unusually wonderful hidden treasure shopping places where we ran across a place called Shantytown Village. Of course I fit right in, being a hillbilly from Oregon and all. We enjoyed some tasty treats which we all devoured before we even got to the next spot. We all had a wonderful time finding those hidden treasures for our souvenirs.
On Saturday night Lori put together a five layer HUGE amazing lasagna and a Cesar salad with two types of delicious bread that we dipped in balsamic vinegar and oil. We topped off dinner with angel food cake, ice cream and whatever else we could eat that was sweet. It was literally a meal fit for a King. The food was delicious and the company was amazing!
Even though our numbers were a little smaller, we had the time to enjoy some intimate conversations with Chris and his knowledge with crypto's. Watching the FNL Stable of NFT Horses run and win was exciting!!
Just when I think that I am completely exhausted,
Sunday morning comes and we are set for another fun filled packed day. Daisy made a fabulous breakfast consisting of potatoes, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and I don’t really know what else, all I can tell you is that I kept going back and eating on it every time I had a chance. It was that good!
After we all filled our bellies, we took off for another shopping day. This time around, we went to the European Village where Daisy works tending bar. The village is unusual because as you walk in, the ground level is full of vendors selling their goods and wares, so much fun!
Above the vendors buildings are colorful apartments. Inside the middle of the courtyard is your typical farmers market with some cannoli's and sweets that were absolutely fabulous!! Yes I think I gained some weight on this trip.
We made some new friends of Lori’s and had some great riveting conversation for a little while with them which was awesome. You know how I love to make new friends! After a little bit of time back at Lori’s we then met up with Bill Y, and had a very nice dinner at the Funky Pelican.
We had some additional people join us that were friends of Lori‘s whom we have now adopted into our FNL family. We laughed a lot and just had a very nice enjoyable dinner on our last night in Florida.
The surprise of the Social - As we were leaving and walking out the door of the restaurant, we were greeted by SWAT, with lots of local law-enforcement directing us very rapidly to get off of the streets and get to our cars and get out of there. While we were finishing up dinner, a bomb threat came in, threatening to kill everybody on the pier, which we were on and had a number of pipe bombs that he said he was going to blow up. So our last night in Florida was, and did meet my expectations of being so exciting and riveting that I definitely want to go back to Florida!! You can read more about it here:
We got to safety and thank you Bill Y, for the ride to our hotel that we booked on my last night in Jacksonville to be close to the airport.
I just want to thank Lori and Kevin, Chris and Daisy, for hosting us and making us feel like we’re the most important people in the world when we visit. The social went off without a hitch and we had the most amazing time!!
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