Christmas Letter 2011

Greetings this holiday season to all of our family and friends!

It is that time of the year to update you again.  Benji and Bailey turned 10 this year, but still haven’t slowed down much.  They still love to play ball, go on rides in the Jeep, and cuddle with us on cold days. Kurt still works at Skagway and I still work for Contryman.  We both volunteered at the
state fair.  One day we helped greet guests arriving at the fair grounds and the next day we greeted people getting on the bus.  I worked the next weekend as well.  We also helped get the rubber duckies ready for the duck race in GI.  This year, we were a little bit daring during our vacations.  I think we are trying to stay young and we think doing daring stuff will keep us that way.

In May, we went back to Pensacola Beach, FL. We did quick day trips into Orange Beach/Gulf Shores, AL for a dolphin cruise and Ft. Walton, FL for the Gulfarium during that vacation.  We tried our hand at parasailing.  Kurt was really scared, so I had to pretend to be the brave one or we wouldn’t have done it.  We had a great time parasailing and can’t wait to do it again.  We also were sitting on the beach and had the Blue Angels fly directly over us.  It was great to see them.  We spent every afternoon on the beach, sunbathing, building sand castles, playing in the water, and just relaxing.

In August, we went to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, TN. It was a nice place to visit, but we won’t go back for a long time.  It is very commercialized and geared for tourism.  While we were there, we went to the Bush Bean factory, Dollywood, Dixie Stampede, Hatfield & McCoy dinner show, met Cletus from Dukes of Hazard, and did many other things.  Our daring thing on this trip was to ride a gondola up to Ober Gatlinburg and then take a ski lift up to the highest point in the area.  We didn’t spend much time at the lookout as a bear had just been in the area and had done some damage to the restrooms and another building.  We wanted to ride horses in the Smoky Mtns, but locals were suggesting that we not do that because the bears were moving into the area much earlier than normal.

In October, we went back to Branson.  We went to several shows and played a few rounds of mini golf before it got really cold.  We spent one day at Silver Dollar City. Kurt zip lined the first day, but I chickened out at that zip line place.  It wasn’t the zip line that scared me, but rather the 100ft free-fall drop at the end of the zip line.  It took Kurt several minutes, but he finally stepped off the platform and landed safely on the ground.  Later in the week, we both zip lined from Inspiration Tower.  It was so much fun.

We hope this letter finds you enjoying the holiday season with your
family!

Merry Christmas  - Kurt and Bobbi