Class Pictures from the Sock Hop

Following the graduation of the first class from the new Florida Grande High School there was a Sock Hop in the Grande Room last night. During the evening's activities couples had their class pictures taken to mark the occasion.
Get a fresh cup of coffee and click here to see the parade. And remember, if anyone tells you Elvis has left the building don't be too quick to jump to conclusions - he seemed all too real last night.

Alcohol Powered Painters

The third "Attitude Adjustment" art class of the season took place in the Hobby Room recently. Like prohibition era brown-baggers on their way to dinner, the participants arrived replete with their favorite libations and with attitudes shaped by the day's events.
Within an hour or so, attitudes admirably adjusted, the room was a hive of artistic activity with a dozen demented daubers happily splashing their way around their canvases.
For more glimpses into this arcane underworld, click here.

Mumbo Gumbo, it's Mardi Gras again!

Mardi Gras can traced all the way back to the Romans but it was a French-Canadian explorer, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville, who landed on a plot of ground 60 miles directly south of New Orleans in 1699 and called it "Pointe due Mardi Gras." He also established "Fort Louis de la Louisiane" - modern day Mobile - 1702. In 1703, the tiny settlement of Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrated the very first Mardi Gras.
Like many events marking various religious calendars Mardi Gras has become somewhat detached from its roots and is now a valid reason to overeat and behave badly. FGs contribution - Gumbo and Dessert

Gumbo : American (Creole); soup or stew made from okra, onions, celery, and pepper, flavored with filé powder (powdered dried sassafras leaves), and containing chicken, meat, fish, or shellfish.

Check here for tempting, tasty Mardi Gras grub.

Larry's Excellent Adventure

In early February, Larry Cook, one of our very own residents and an otherwise rational being, was seized with an irresistible death wish urging him to jump out of an airborne airplane. Without more ado and having put his life in order off he went to Freeflight International Airport in nearby Coleman to look Fear in the face.
Turns out that Larry came to be a trendsetter with sundry other Granders following in his slipstream and hurling themselves out of airplanes over the last week or two. Come on guys, Congress may be doing a poor job but surely things are not that bad?
For more pictures of this epic event, click here.

Superbowl Chili Cook-Off

Super Bowl XLVI (46 for those who care) was the most watched television event ever in the USA with more than a third of the total population, 111.3 million gawkers in all, watching some part of it.
So, it was a competition between the American Football Conference champion New England Patriots and the National Football Conference champion New York Giants to decide the National Football League champion for the 2011 season. Say what now? The game was played on February 5, 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana and the Giants duffed up the Patriots 21–17.
More pictures here but not for the  faint of heart!