Football and Camp Winona

Day 29-30 –  October 29-30 – Deland Football, Camp Winona, Sunday Roast at the beach

Weather – We got some rain – but it’s still warm – most days sunny, some good surf

Sorry for the lack of updates – we’ve been pretty busy this weekend – back and forth between Deland and New Smyrna. Saturday was a bit of an accidently busy day. We had planned to catch up with Kristin and Jessica and their kids and partners in the evening at Camp Winona for a Halloween thing, but then in the morning Mac mentioned that he had tickets to the Stetson University football match in town, and it was the Homecoming game – so a big game for the team. So I jump in on that and we went into town to see the first half of the game (The Gators vs Georgia game was happening later in the day and there was a watching party planned for back at the house). Anyway, we drove on in – and the whole area around the stadium was buzzing with tailgate parties, and marquees and huge camper vans, with people eating and drinking and listening to live music in the car park (Parking lot). Mac being Mac just walked up to random people and said hi, although to be fair, he seemed to know at least half of them. I somehow found myself with a beer in one hand and a bbq pulled pork slider in the other, talking to the Stetson Basketball coach. It was pretty hot out in the sun – I think it was around 84 – and being mid day, I was getting fried. We spotted Scott and Karen Wiess, Friends of Kathy and Mac’s who I’ve meet many times before and we decided to head on in to the stadium to watch the kick off. There didn’t seem to me much of a rush to make it in on time, and I would suspect that some people might not even have made it in for the game… For a small private university of just over 4000 students, it was a pretty big crowd. The game was the homecoming game, and homecoming is when the various alumni reunions take place in the town. So, you would have the 10 year – class of 2012 coming home to have their reunion.



The away team crowd. Long way from Iowa 



The game itself was interesting, Stetson were playing a team from Iowa who hadn’t won a game, when we left the scores were even at 10-10 at the half. Stetson ended up losing the game.

Once game at home, Rusty, Chi and Wiley, along with Scott and Karen, all come over for the big game between the Florida Gators, a team that Mac played for when he was in college, and the number 1 ranked team – Georgia. We weren’t staying around to watch the game as we were off to Katie’s friend Kristin’s house in Deland before heading off to Camp Winona. Kristin and Her husband West live near the Stetson Campus in Deland, they have two Girls who Lucy has hung out with over the years, so it was great to see them renew their friendship and get dressed up for the Halloween event.


Camp Winona is a summer camp that Katie and her friends attended when they were kids – it’s about 25mins out of town, on a big lake in the woods. It looks like what we see of summer camps in movies – so that was cool to see. The event was run by the YMCA and was a pretty low key affair. There were hot dogs and popcorn, a hay ride, a haunted disco, outdoor cinema and trick or treating. The kids ran around and knocked on the cabin doors and collected candy and filled up their buckets. Lucy was really getting into the spirt of things, sprinting from one cabin to the next in a sugar fueled craze. All in all it was an enjoyable evening, albeit, a tiring one by the time we got back to the condo!

So that was Saturday, Sunday was a day spent at the beach and hanging out with Rusty, Chi and Wiley. I Suggested that we have a Sunday roast as we were all meeting up to swim in the pool and then carve pumpkins for Halloween. This whole Halloween thing has been bigger than Christmas. Anyway, it was another lovely day – quite warm, so there were plenty of swims in the beach and the pool. I made a roast chicken as it’s easy – and a few sides, and it was nice to hang out and just relax. The pumpkin carving was fu and the designs were pretty creepy – once you put a candle inside.





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