We slept a little late this morning, all the way to 7:30AM. It was about 28 degrees when we walked over to the hotel lobby for breakfast, so we decided to skip Silver Springs for today. Instead we decided to find the Catholic Church listed as the parish for the Villages. As we started the trip I was still looking for the address so we pulled over into an empty parking lot to enter our destination into the GPS. A police car followed us in and pulled up next to us. The officer just wanted to check if we were OK and she drove off as soon as we explained what we were doing. The thing about this is, we aren't even through the first month of 2011 and this is the second time a police officer has stopped to check on us. The first time was in the wee hours after midnight on New Year's as we drove from my sister's house to our hotel room. Both times Ray was driving and hadn't done anything illegal, so he's starting to think they are after him this year.
It took only about a half hour to get to St Timothy's, so we thought we were early. We should have suspected something when we looked it up on the web and found they have 6 masses scheduled each weekend, 2 on Saturday night, 3 Sunday morning and 1 Sunday night, plus 2 masses each weekday. St Timothy's is a big, well attended church. We arrived at 10:30AM for the 11AM mass and had a hard time finding a parking space. Inside, we walked around a few minutes before finding two of the few remaining seats. Shortly after we sat down it was standing room only. We estimated there were around 2,000 people inside for mass.
Despite the crowd, we both like the church. The priest was friendly and gave a good homily. The alter is in the center of the church with seats on all sides, but they also have 7 flat screen TV's strategically located on pillars around the altar. The projectionist displayed inspirational messages and info about the day's readings before mass, then alternated between showing music lyrics and live video of the priest and readers during the mass. The people seemed very friendly and, from reading the bulletin, it is a very active parish. Even if it weren't for all the activities the Villages offers, we felt we could keep very busy if we were to get involved with the various church groups.
After mass we drove down to Lake Buena Vista and had lunch at Fulton's Seafood Restaurant in Downtown Disney. This restaurant is one of the first that was built in this shopping area and is built like a river paddle boat. We had a good lunch with a very friendly waiter, originally from Boston. Lunch was followed by a walk around the shopping area where we made a point of checking out the Lego store and the Toy Story store, but didn't buy anything. Check-in time at Vistana is 4PM, so we left Downtown Disney about 3:30.
We haven't used our timeshare here in the last few years and it has undergone a major renovation since our last visit. They did a great job. The furnishings are classy, the kitchen has all new appliances, and the bathrooms have been remodeled beautifully. We have a 2nd floor unit overlooking a pond, so I am looking forward to breakfast on the screened in balcony tomorrow.
Once we got our bags into the room, we went back out to shop for breakfast foods and snacks. Since we had a big lunch we picked up some salads for dinner tonight. Ray is now contentedly watching the Packers/Bears NFC Championship football game while I write this blog. I'm not much of a sports fan, but I've got a good book waiting for me.
We don't have any plans for tomorrow morning so we can sleep late again. We have an appointment to tour the villages tomorrow afternoon and we are looking forward to that.
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