Wok N Roll with us...Bob and Teri Along with Atlas and Kalani

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Casa del Bientiempo (House of Good Times)- We Are All Moved in and Our Home is Coming Together

We are finally fairly settled into our new home. It is nice to have our favorite things incorporated into our home, have new friends to share life with and so many activities, that it is often hard to choose between so many things we want to do. Bob is golfing every week and Teri plans to take lessons when we return from our travels this summer. It will be a bit hard to leave all this behind this summer, especially because it is getting to be real pool weather and we have been really enjoying our pool. But there are still many places we want to travel to so we are off on our adventures in about a month.

We are headed to West Point, NY for a family reunion. From there this year we plan to head to Newfoundland, with plans to travel through the entire island over a period of two months. We plan to be back to posting on our blog during our travels, so stay tuned as more pictures and narration on our travels are soon to come.

In the meantime, we are posting a few pictures of our new home, after we have made this truly our home. Enjoy the pictures. We so love it here and love our new home too.

Florida Keys October - December 2015

We have spent from mid-Oct through the end of December in the Keys Fl. Our time here has been overall enjoyable,but in many ways bitter sweet. We mostly bedded down in state parks while here, and the Elks too. Most of these locations offered us oceanfront views and beautiful birds to enjoy. But during this time, Teri's Mom passed and Bob too had a visit to urgent care. Also during this time in the Keys, we entered into a contract to buy a house in the Villages, Fl that we are both very excited about(that will be a separate post).

We had planned to do a lot of diving while here , but with the many things going on it just did not come together and we dove just two different days during the two months. With all that was going on, Teri decided to just experience those dives and not take her dive camera along (so sorry that there are no dive photos on this blog). But all in all, while the passing of Teri's mother is sad, we are both moving forward.

For those die hard followers of our blog, we're not done traveling with the purchase of our home. Our plans, after moving into the Villages, is to still travel in the summer months(and possibly part of the shoulder seasons too). We will spend the remainder of our time in our new home. Our wonderful Tiger-boy,who is 17 now, will get to enjoy his own retirement, with a house that does not move for many months out of the year.

While in the Keys we ate so much good seafood, lots of Hog Fish, Grouper, Maui Maui and conch too. We really enjoyed the water views, sunrises, sunsets, variety of seabirds, iguanas and deer too, on Deer Key. Riding our bikes along the ocean front was beautiful and we visited a few of the sites in Key West too.

We so loved the Butterfly Conservatory, and the Little White house and Hemingway house were also worthwhile. There is so much in the Keys that this post has not done it justice. But we are very behind on posting so we will make this short in an effort to bring everyone more up to date.

Hermit Crab looking for a new home

Considered a nuisance by the locals, we really enjoyed this visitor
to our campsite

A wonderful visitor to our campsite

Sunrise from our campsite

Sunset from another one of our campsites

Deer Key Deer

What a beautiful tree! Read below.

Key West, FL

Little White House

Key West, FL

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

November 20, 2015 Goleta, California - A Special Tribute to Darlene Bjorkman

Darlene Bjorkman, Teri's mother at the age of 82, died peacefully on November 20, 2015 following a long illness. She was born in South Gate, CA on August 27, 1933 to Glenn and Peggy Coffey and grew up there with her sole sibling Glenn Coffey Jr.. She graduated from Washington High school in Los Angeles, CA and on August 25, 1951 she married Ray Bjorkman, who at the time was a train engineer. She continued on to study art at Pierce college in Los Angeles, California.

Together Ray and Darlene raised four children. Their married life had them living throughout California first in Burbank, then Sepulveda (now Mission Hills) and eventually Goleta. Darlene worked hard raising four children in those early years as Ray worked full time and also pursued and completed his Electrical Engineering Degree. She kept her four energetic children busy in the hot summer months in the Los Angeles area, and would often, alone, take her children on excursions in the family station wagon, with no air conditioning, to her favorite Zuma Beach. She loved the Los Angeles area where she was very active in the International Women's social and service organization 'Beta Sigma Phi'. In 1967, employment in the computer industry would bring the family to Goleta, CA where Ray and Darlene made their final home together and completed raising their four children.

While their children were in high school she worked at the High School jewelry and yearbook manufacturer, Jostens in Montecito, CA and in later years she worked for Friendship Manor, a retirement community in Goleta, California. She very much loved working at the 'Manor' and played a special role in the lives of the residents there who found her to always have a kind word to say or a smile to share.

Carmel-by -the- Sea, CA held a special place in her heart where she and Ray had spent their Honeymoon. Throughout their married lives they would return often to Carmel to tour it's various art galleries. She was artistic, very creative, and an avid collector of fine art.

She will be greatly missed by her surviving four children, ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren: Brad Bjorkman and his wife Nancy (Kristina -and her husband Scot and son Kenneth-, Kelsey, Katie and Dane); Craig Bjorkman and his wife Barbara (Erica -and her husband Albert, daughter Alyssa and son Zachary- and Danica); Glenn Bjorkman and his friend Tara Hunt; and Teri Werner and her husband Bob (Paul, Suzy, Ryan and Garrett).

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Suwanne, FL 10/15-18/2015

We were in Suwanne, FL for just three days. Day one, we committed to washing and waxing our home. It is a big job, was much needed, but we did get it done. We took one afternoon to paddle kayaks 6 miles down the Suwanne River. It was a beautiful day for a paddle and the RV park dropped us off with the kayaks at our beginning point.

We were treated to an eagle that soared right by us and the tree roots along the banks are always incredible to see. We had several 200 pound sturgeon fish jump out of the water around us. We were just glad that none of them landed on our kayaks. We also enjoyed getting to see the Drew Bridge, whose remains tower out of the middle of the river.

The Drew Bridge was purchased by the Drew Lumber Company from Brazil in 1899 for $15,000. This swing bridge was floated here from Brazil on a barge to its present location. The bridge was moved into place when needed by the railroad by manually turning a crank that was located in the middle of the bridge. The Florida Railroad Company continued to use this bridge until 1920. Tomorrow we have a short drive as we make our way to Wildwood, FL.