This has been our second full year of retirement, and
wow, it has been a lot of fun. (By the way, if you click on the
pictures that have borders, a larger view will be displayed. If you find
pictures overlapping the text, just change the size of your browser's window
and maybe that will help.)
The Big Move
We sold our condo
in Islamorada Florida, and moved 4 miles further north to a rental house
in Tavernier in October. We sold our place for several reasons.
First of all, we got a very good price for out unit. In addition,
we think that property is unlikely to appreciate significantly in the Keys
in the near future for a variety of reasons, some of which include the
upcoming increases in Florida Windstorm insurance, the declining stock
market, as well as upcoming increases in assessments due to the installation
of sewage treatment plants in the Keys.
Betty is still plugging away in the real estate business.
She is still working out of the Islamorada Office of Schwartz
Property Sales, Inc. and has been having a lot of success
lately. When Bob isn't fishing, reading about fishing, or talking
about fishing, he spends a lot of time managing our stock portfolio,
surfing the web, and swapping jokes with a lot of folks via E-mail.
Our kids are doing well. David is living in Atlanta managing
a self-storage warehouse for an outfit called Devon Enterprises. His e-mail
address is nmdave@yahoo.com,
and I am sure he would like to hear from you.The
big news with Dave is that he has found a sweetheart. Her name is
Tammy Donohue. It looks like there will be a wedding at our house
in April.
Misty graduated with a B.S. in biology at UC San Diego
in June. After graduation, she continued to work in the San Diego
area on a research project she started as an undergraduate. In late
December, Misty packed up her belongings and moved to Florida to
stay with us until her plans are finalized. Her E-mail
address is
mistymistywhite@hotmail.com.
We
did a fair amount of traveling this year. In April, we bid on a cruise
at one of the on-line auctions, and managed to get a cheap trip to Roitan,
Belize, and Cozumel. While we enjoyed ourselves, Betty didn't enjoy
catching Montezuma's Revenge in Cozumel.
Early in the year, we lost Betty's mom. She was 97 when she died,
and lived a full life right up to the end. After we completed the
big move, we took a nice road trip back to New Mexico to see my mom up
in Bloomfield, NM, and in the process, we managed to have good visits with
Betty's sisters in Texas.
We had a good year fishing. We spent most of our fishing time trolling offshore for Dolphin, wahoo, and billfish, but later we took up Tarpon fishing. Now that we are living on the bay, Bob has been concentrating on learning how to fish the backcountry.
We are expecting David, and Tammy for Christmas. Don Sambol, Bob's college roomate, is planning a trip to see us in January, Misty has friends coming in early January and mid February, and Betty's sisters are talking about a visit in February. As you can see it is never dull at the White House.
Well, this letter is getting out of hand, so I had better
close. We hope your year has been fun, profitable, rewarding, and fulfilling.
We would love to hear from you, and we love visitors. As a matter of fact,
Betty would love someone to come down to go fishing with me so that she
wouldn't have to go so often! May this holiday season find all of you as
happy and healthy as we are.
Home/Work: 186 Harborview Drive, Tavernier, FL 33070-2662 (305) 853-5606
FAX/Email: (305) 853-9549 / whitej7@ASME.org