We had a Magical Week!

We spent a lot of time this last week at Mickey's House.  In fact, we received our 5 year pin for volunteering at the Children's Miracle Network Golf Classic.  The best part is that we have worked with the same "crew" for all 5 years.  So, it really is a reunion each year to see each other again.

The Trout and I drive a wagon/cart which we fill with cases of bottled water and bags of ice.  We divide the golf course into sections and deliver the water and ice to the tee boxes in our section throughout the day.  The ice and water is only for the golfers and caddies, so we do get up close to watch some golf.  That is the very best part!!

Readers have been asking me how the Trout is doing.  He is doing quite well, seven weeks out from surgery.  In fact, he was lifting the ice and water without problems so he is definitely on the mend.  The difficult part is that he will probably have to wait another seven weeks or so until he can swing a golf club, but we are thankful he is feeling so well.

We are glad to be back in Florida, because the weather is gorgeous.  I love this time of year when you can turn off the A/C, open the windows and let the cool air flow through.  After living over 50 years in the Midwest, it is so refreshing to enjoy warmer falls and winter.  Yes, we do cheat and get out of Florida in the heat of the summer, but that is what retirement is all about.

Guess Where We Went Today?

We spent some time this morning at Disney.  It is that time of year again, when we do our volunteering at the Children's Miracle Network Golf Classic at Disney World.



This is a map of the Palm and Magnolia golf courses which will be played this week.

It is our 4th year and once again, we are helping to deliver water and ice to the tee boxes for the pros and their caddies.  Today we picked up our uniforms and hats and tomorrow we start slowly with a training session in the afternoon.  Then, we have Monday and Tuesday off and then 5:30 a.m. until dark Wednesday through next Sunday.

As usual, Disney does everything first class.  These type of topiary displays are often seen at The Magic Kingdom, but they are also here at the Palm and Magnolia golf courses.

The golf courses are lush and groomed to perfection.  It looks to be a beautiful week for the golf pros to enjoy a last of the season competition.

And of course, the best part of all of being at Disney is seeing this little guy.  How can anybody not smile when they see Mickey.  We are looking for an exhausting and busy week, but it will also be a fun week.  I won't be blogging much, but will see you when it is over.

What a week!

What a week! Other than miserable cold rain on Thursday, we had a beautiful sunny week at Disney on the Palm and Magnolia golf courses. Some days were 12 hour days, others a little shorter. Starting work in the dark and ending in the dark was pretty typical. But, there is a spirit at Disney that makes all of this volunteer work so much fun.

There were over 900 volunteers for the Children's Miracle Network golf classic this year. Can you imagine organizing so many people to do their jobs, find their way around, feed all these people breakfast and lunch and still maintain a happy spirit?

The committee The Trout and I worked on "Water Service" is the group we have worked on for three years now. We have it pretty much figured out as to what needs to be done and when. As a matter of face, we have just submitted our request for the same committee next year at this time. I can't even begin to say how many cases of water and 20 pound bags of ice we loaded off of refrigerated trucks into our small carts and filled water coolers on the tee boxes. The water is only for the golfers and their caddies, but some of the golfers get friendly with the spectators and pass them out to family, etc. That just means more runs for us. We have to watch that we halt when the golfer tees up, hits out of the fairway and puts. Can be challenging.

The first two days the amateurs played with the pros. The excitement was around Johnny Damon who plays for the Yankees. He was enjoying himself even though his golf ball sometimes went where no golf ball should go. He had a large crowd following him and you could tell he was having fun.

There were quite a few spectators this year despite the fact that there were not a lot of big name players. We tend to favor Zach Johnson, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That is kind of our home where we grew up, so we are always for the local boys. Zach came in 9th and won quite a bit of money. What impressed me of this golfer was that as he was walking up to the tee box, with spectators all around, he says "Hi baby" to a young boy in a stroller. He is a very kind young man, not always thinking about himself.

Last night took a little longer for the game to end as there was a Sudden Death with 3 players on the 18th hole. Two went on to play the 3 par 15th hole once again and Stephen Ames won. He also won in 2007.

So, our Disney gear gets packed away for a year. We have earned tickets for the Disney Park and golf passes for the Disney courses to use in the next year. Now, the holidays and then in April we get ready for the American Pie Contest sponsored by Crisco which we will be judging for the second year. And so it goes....

It's volunteer time again

It's that time of year again. This will be our third year that we are volunteering at The Children's Miracle Network golf classic at Disney World. We drive a cart and fill the barrels on the golf tees with ice and bottles of water for the golfers. We start early...like 6 am and work until 5 pm. Since we have a 45 minute drive to Disney World, it makes for a long day. Our reward, being around great people, happy people, very talented golfers, and Disney World theme park passes and passes to play free golf on the Disney courses.

Going early we see wild turkeys, deer, and lots of rabbits on the golf course before it gets light. During the day, alligators are spotted in the ponds. We will be working Wednesday through Sunday, so the week does get long.

I hope you have a chance to watch the golf classic this weekend. We will...up close and personal. As they say to all the workers at Disney World, "have a magical day!" We will!!

The Pie Winners are Announced with Recipes

In case anyone is interested, the Crisco American Pie Contest winners have been announced and the recipes of the first place winners are available here.


We had such a good time judging the end of April, that we will probably do it again next year. PIE! That is as American as it can get.

Great American Pie Festival 2009

Where to begin! The Trout and I just came back from Orlando and the Crisco Great American Pie Festival where, together, we tasted and judged a total of 50 pies!! We each tasted 25 pies. How much did we eat? Too much! You would take a piece of pie that had crust, filling and topping and take a small bite of each and then all three parts together. I suppose in total, we probably ate one very large piece of pie.

There were 20 tables with 6 judges at each table. The Trout tasted raisin and new products and I tasted banana cream and coconut cream. These were commercial pies produced by Schwan's, Baker's Square, Lake Geneva Pie Company, Target, Kroger's, etc. Since I sat at a different table than the Trout, I will speak on my experience.

This was great fun!! We tasted about half the pies before lunch. We were really ready for a salty-type lunch which was salad, cold cuts and fruit. What, no dessert?!! Then after lunch we started in again, this time with a little less enthusiasm.We judged the pie on appearance before and after slicing. Then tasted and judged crust, filling, overall appearance and commented on whether we would buy this. The six of us decided that the banana pies were not very good. Several of the pies were a little short on bananas and some just lacked banana flavor. One pie that looked very nice, a banana chocolate brownie pie turned out to have a flavor that was not very appealing. The coconut cream pies were a little more appealing.

After all the judging which took about 4 1/2 hours, we could go into a room and see where the pies came from.

I talked to a contestant from Miami with a Cuban background. She is in the amateur contest which starts tomorrow. In this picture you can see how the cooking sections are set up. One of her entries is a guava cream cheese pie which looked very good. Last year she had 3 honorable mentions so she is ready for this year.

The Trout had an interesting gentleman at his table. On the right is Jim, who is a former chef and owner of a restaurant. It's people like this that really make the day a lot of fun.

Overall, we had a wonderful time. I hope we can do this again next year, but the next time we hope to judge the amateur contestants. They go all out with some wonderful pies. We met, Valerie, who two years ago won top prize with her cherry pie. This year she has 7 pies entered. The two that got my attention were black forest cherry pie and lingonberry pie.

We left the convention center, very FULL, but before I headed home, I just had to squeeze the Pillsbury Doughboy and the California Raisin. Want to join us next year? Come on down. Please pass the Alka-Seltzer!

Delivering the meals

The Trout and I finished our second run of Meals on Wheels a little while ago. We were needed to help out on an extra day. We definitely have a mixture of people to deliver to. Some are touching to the heart, some are just strange, but there is one sweet woman I actually worry about during the week.

It looks like she has been through chemo as she is obviously wearing a wig. She is frail and does not look well at all. But she is so kind. Today she grabbed my heart when after I had placed the meal in her kitchen, she told me that I was very kind to do this for her and then she said, "God is very pleased with you." Wow! That about blew my socks off.

We are both very surprised how fulfilling this little job has become. We actually did our route today without the map. Are we getting good, or what?

Tonight we are pretending to be in Alsace and having Choucroute for dinner. I plan on posting tomorrow.

A good day

Well, the delivering of Meals on Wheels went well. I can see why this is such a need in our community. Actually, for our town, this is the first time anyone is available to deliver the meals and they are so sorely needed to many individuals.

We could tell as we knocked on the doors and the people answered that they were happy to see us. It was a good feeling that we could help. It only took 2-3 hours out of a Tuesday morning and we did such a good thing.

On a different note, last November, because we were going to a friend's house for Thanksgiving, we bought a turkey for the freezer for only $.79 a pound. That is a good price. On Sunday, the house smelled like Thanksgiving. We had roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce and salad. I said NO to pie. It was enough for just the two of us. The Trout did mention pecan pie once, and I told him to forget it. We have been enjoying turkey sandwiches and tonight I made another favorite. Turkey Divan.

Steam broccoli and put in a buttered casserole. Add cut up turkey. On top of this combine a can of cream of chicken soup with 1/4 cup of mayonnaise, and a good pinch of curry powder. Add 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese and on top of this add bread crumbs and butter. (I usually freeze hot dog buns and grate them to make bread crumbs). Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. It was very, very good.

While growing up, we never had casseroles to eat, so this has always been a new trick for me. I rarely make them, but this is one time, when there is left over turkey, I love this casserole.

The Trial Run

The Trout and I have volunteered to deliver "Meals on Wheels" to 9 homes on Tuesdays starting tomorrow. Since this will cover a part of town unfamiliar to us, we did a trial run today. Made a few changes to make it more convenient and I guess we are all set to start tomorrow morning.

My mother-in-law received this service for several years before her death, and it just seems so right that we pay back all the kindness that was shown her. Wish us luck as we fly through town with the food mobile tomorrow.

Pie and other things

Whoa, might be a while before I let The Trout get on my blog again. :)

We were asked if we would be interested in volunteering at a pie contest in April sponsored by Crisco. We would have the job of serving, crowd control (ha) and other small jobs and for this we get a tee shirt and entrance to the pie buffet. Can you imagine the temptation? I am still thinking about this because it sounds like a month's worth of dieting to make up for this volunteering.

And then, there has been a disappointment with our hooking up with Skype. We did this to have more fun contacting the grandchildren and old friends, but The Trout was a little surprised when he was greeted by a bikini clad woman on line. Yes, he declined that friendship, but I am wondering just how all this technology works and how she got into our Skype. Why does someone always spoil the fun ?

The weather has taken a complete turn around here. Our terrible frost last week has now turned into 80 degrees and we are wondering if we can get by without the air conditioner. Florida can be unpredictable this time of year.

We went to Disney

It was a busy day. We spent the afternoon at Disney world for volunteer training. This will be the second year The Trout and I are volunteering for the Disney Miracle Network Golf Classic. We drive a golf cart and deliver water and ice to 5 tees on one of the golf courses. We get to be right in the action and there is always time to watch a few of the great golfers during their play.

No cameras or cell phones are allowed and we are directed to act like Disney employees, wear a uniform and hat and just have fun. We will be there from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. A busy time but it is also fun. A good thing to do for retired people!!