Our New Hometown?

DeBary Florida.

We pronounce it like this; "Duuuuuh Berry". It sits in Volusia County in the east central part of the state. North of Orlando and about 30 minutes from Daytona Beach and the Atlantic ocean. This city has only been incorporated since 1993. Not sure what that means down here because up north you are either a town or you are not. Not sure of why LaRay picked this area, but is a nice area. The only thing that we don't like so much is all of the random violence, and I do mean random. There are a lot of sirens all around. I told Lisa not to worry about those unless you hear a helicopter overhead. That's when you know that it is close.

We are familiar with this area since we have made many trips down here to visit LaRay. He was always a good tour guide, always showing us around and the many things to do and see here. Plus the "Mouse House" is only an hour away.

We have been in our new house for over a month now. I say "Our new house" because it is new to us but it is actually Lisa's and her sister Heidi's (I am just the freeloader). This house actually belonged to Lisa's father who passed away in September and now we have moved in to take care of his wishes as the Florida legal system grinds along painfully slow. With homeownership comes lots of upkeep. So every day we pick one or two chores a day to get done. We have been doing so much cleaning out and throwing away of stuff. Our garbage men I think hate us. One thing nice about this city is that there is no limit on what and how much you can throw away. So we are really taking advantage of that.

We have always told him how much we like his house. It has a nice floor plan and the back pool area is awesome.

Kitchen with a breakfast nook off to the side.

Living room looking into Lisa's office and a dining area to the left.

Screened in pool area with the "Roach Motel" on the left.

Street view. Yes, we have our own palm trees.

"Big Red" in the cleaned out garage.

Side of the house with our broken fence.

Another view of the pool area which I love.

Pool area. Heidi really went to town on the plants that went crazy.

We still have two more large projects to get done. The roof and the fence. Someday.

On a personal note. We have been going thru Lisa's fathers's belongings that he had in his closets, garage and in the attic. Going through old photos and papers and realizing that he was someone who didn't share a lot with his family. It is like finding out that we really didn't know him at all. We found all of his pictures from when he was in Vietnam. We knew he was there but have never seen his pictures of it. He loved to golf with his buddies. Roman and I have golfed with him many times when we visited. I found certificates of him getting "Holes-in-one" from different courses. I can just imagine the celebration after getting those. He also loved going to the Daytona 500 races. It looks like he would go with his buddies every year for about 10 years in a row. And I don't mean going and sitting in the cheap seats. VIP passes in the infield. What an experience that would have been.

Pipka Santas. Apparently he loved those also because we found about 25 in his attic. The photos stuffed in boxes of his family and of him growing up along with high school yearbooks. We are just learning more about him now which we would have loved to talk about it when he was still alive.

That's it for now. We would like to wish everyone a "Happy Thanksgiving"!