Toastmasters Just to prove that Jim does have a tie, we got dressed up to attend the Tom's River Toastmasters club. One of our regular activities when we lived in Fort Lauderdale was going to our Toastmaster's club. We belong to EarlyBird Toasmasters #3659 of Fort Lauderdale. Both Jim and I have belonged for many years and have given many, many speeches. Here's the weblog entry from our last EarlyBird meeting. We love Toastmasters and promised to visit other clubs as we traveled around. All clubs welcome guests, and, this one was no exception. In fact, they welcomed us so heartily, that they asked us to volunteer for the positions of Toastmaster and General Evaluator! For you non-Toastmasters out there, that basically means we ran the meeting! Thanks to the training we've had in years of Toastmastering, I'd say we did a fine job. And it was great fun getting to know some nice local folks.

Paddle in the Bay The bay was so calm this morning, we couldn't resist. So, we grabbed a couple of Jimmy's kayaks and went for a paddle. Look close in the background and you can see our motorhome on the beach. We paddled north on the Bay to the jobsite where Jimmy is renovating a house. Anyone involved in home building or renovating around here is as busy as can be. For the last three years they've been saying 'recession? what recession?' How would you like to have this for your backyard? Then, we paddled back. Kayodie had a great time! He's still dry in the first picture, but it didn't take long before he was in the water. Hey! there's no alligators around here - so, let him swim. His cute little life jacket has a very handy handle to pick him up with and put him back in the boat.

Danny and Judy's Danny is Jim's brother-in-law by his first wife. Danny and Judy have been married 30 years. If you think you're rereading yesterday's post, nope, it's true - this is the second 30 year happy marriage I've written about. Isn't that nice to know it's possible?! They built this house when they first got married. Both Casey and Erin were born here. You can tell that they take pride in every detail. Here's Judy on the phone. Take a look at this phone ... it actually is a pushbutton, but the buttons are arranged around the dial. When the kids are gone .. I think this could be a great B&B! Here's the living room with Casey, Danny and Jim. And, here's the outside of the house. Here's Erin And, here's Judy with Erin's friend Michael

Walk on the Beach What a gorgeous day. These fences are all over the place and the planting in an attempt to keep the dunes in tact. Jim says he remembers many boy scout outings where their job was to plant plugs of grass in the dunes. Apparently this is about the best surfing on the whole East Coast, ooops, or should I say "Shore"? And, these jetties are placed at about 1 block intervals all up and down the beach. I wonder how much they really help in keeping the sand here? Notice the sand level on either side of the jetty. Jim and I figured we could make a little extra cash by renting Odie out to single guys who want to meet girls on the beach ...

31 years of happy marriage We visited Jim's high school buddy, Tom, last night. Tom and Betty got married shortly after high school and have been together and happy ever since. Their daughter Jamie, 16, is attending the same high school 'Southern Regional' that her parents (and Jim) did. What a trip listening to Tom and Jim reminisce about their science lab shenanigans and then have Jamie chime in with tales of her own. We were all laughing so hard it hurt! Their younger daughter, Emily was sleeping over at a friend's, so we'll have to wait till our next visit (we hope to get them to come to our home next week!) to show photos of her. Here's Betty and Jamie holding up photos of themselves at similar ages. I had to ask which one was which. They definitely look like photos of the same person. You can tell the one that was actually Betty at 16 because they made you wear that black drape for the class photos back then. And here's Tom. Hard to believe that he was the long-haired hippy rock-and-roll band member in the 70s. Now he's a professor at a local college and loves it. He teaches Electrical Trades and Integrated Cabling (video/voice/data/fiber optics)@ Ocean County Vocational Technical School’s Toms River Center