Sunday, November 23rd to Saturday December 10th.


Sanlan continues to be good to us despite unseasonably cool weather at times. Mind you today was in the 80's. Of course it is all relative! It’s much warmer than the snowy north. We have been enjoying the golf courses, bike trails and friends from last year who have been arriving daily for their winter in the warmth. We have been seeing armadillos on the trail and today John almost stepped on a little snake. He did quite a dance to avoid it!

It has been wonderful meeting up with people from home as well. Grant and Gisele were in the area for 10 days and it has been great connecting with them. We showed them around Sanlan, golfed, biked and visited. They had a condo about 15 minutes from here with friends from home but spent 3 nights with us on either side of that.

Joanne and Hedge were in Lakeland when we first got here so we got together with them and had a great day. Joanne and I biked and John and Hedge played 9 at Bramble Ridge right here at Sanlan. We had a nice dinner and you can see the great sunsets we enjoy. Not quite as good as Kincardine but it will do! What kind of tree is this? I don't know but is looks amazing this time of year. Thanks for the picture Joanne!

It is hard to believe we are into December. We got tickets for the Symphony this week and for the Moscow Ballet Nutcracker on the 21st at the Lakeland Centre. We saw the Orchestra last night and it was wonderful. They played Christmas music and the Florida Dance troupe entertained us along with a couple of opera singers. I think that is my Christmas present to John since he has never seen ballet or an orchestra and I haven’t since high school. There is a lot to do and see in Lakeland so we are not sorry we have come back for a second year. It will be hard to beat.

Plans are being made for Christmas dinner with a few couples who are not going home for Christmas. I have offered to do the turkey. I used the oven to make a meatloaf the other day so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I used the gas oven in the Sundance occasionally and this one is pretty much the same.

We have put up the Christmas lights on the dining tent and I have a couple of other decorations out. It still seems strange to see all the decorations among palm trees and in the hot weather.

Thanks to Grant and Gisele we went to Circle B. Ranch Nature Preserve about 5 minutes from here. They toured it when they were here. It used to be a cattle ranch but has been taken over by Polk County and Florida something or other. The land was a wetland before it was drained for cattle cattle grazing and now it is being restored to wetland again. There are thousands of gators and the bird population is amazing. We really enjoyed walking through there this morning. It gives you the feeling of being in the wilds of Florida for sure. The birds love this area maybe because there are so many lakes for them to feed from. Highlights were a bald eagle and a roseated spoonbill, but there were tons of others. I also saw an otter and a rabbit with reddish fur not to mention gators! Look closely to see this swamp monster!

You can click on a picture to enlarge it.