Friday, December 26, - Since last post (Mission, TX)

 

What have we been up to since the last post?

Well our bikes were in bad shape so I had to make a couple of trips to the bike shop at the DonWes flea market. I needed to replace my front rim that I crunched between the truck and 5th wheel and Ginger’s bike needed some spokes and a rear brake cable. All are in decent working order now.

On Friday the 20th, Ed and Marilyn came over. We had a drink together then went to dinner at Cheddar’s.

Then drove to Hidalgo to see the 3 miles of Christmas lights the town puts on display every December. A very nice display especially for such a small community.Here’s a sample of what we saw:

 

 

On Christmas day Ed and Marilyn came over for a shared dinner. Not sure who did what but between Marilyn and Ginger we had quite a feast.

 

Boys and their gifts

Joyce and Roger were also originally included in our day, but Roger is in the hospital recovering from some extensive surgery. He has a long road ahead of him and we wish him well and ask for your prayers.

In between we managed to get the Boys groomed. Now they look presentable again.

Also I washed and waxed the truck aka the “Red Flyer”.

The weather has been really nice. Warm days in the 70’s or above and cool nights but on Christmas night the rains moved in and it has not stopped raining since.

Mike and Marion return today from their month long visit to their family in the Dallas area and Bob and Janet will be here in 7 or 8 days from their work camping stint at Amazon.com and a short visit to family in Monroe City MO.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone.

New Years Eve day Ed and Marilyn, Mike and Marion, Chuck and Coletta, and Ginger and I will be going to South Padre Island for some seafood, cocktails, and driving on the beach.

And in 2 weeks all 10 of us, known as the Misfits, will be heading to Houston for a 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean.

December 24, 2013 - Merry Christmas (Mission, TX)

 

I wish everyone a blessed holiday season.

Merry Christmas !!!!

Friday, December 13 - Mexico Today (Mission, TX)

 

We have had an easy week. Most of the week was cold and cloudy today is the only day we saw the sun.

Last Friday Jesse rented some movies and we stayed in.

Saturday I decided to go to the mall. Oh my goodness it was busy. I had to park really far from the entrance and then inside wall to wall people. I got what I needed and got out.

Jesse rented more movies and we spent the night at home.

Sunday morning we drove to:

 

They were hot and fresh and delicious! After we drove on to the Don-Wes flee market so Jesse could get a rim for his bike.

Monday we went back to the mall to exchange what I had purchased. Then we went on to Walmart to shop.

All these days have been cold and cloudy so we have not been outside except to walk the boys.

I had taken some pictures of the park earlier:                               Our site

Bob’s site is behind our bedroom slide.

Dog park and some of the rental cottages.

Playas and butterflies

 

On Wednesday our friend Roger was having some surgery, so we went and got their dogs and kept them most of the day. Hersey is the brown/black dachshund and Lily is the poodle. It was really fun and our boys liked having company.

 

I spent most of the day baking cookies and making nut brittle

Thursday we went to Kohl’s to get Jesse some clothes, stopped at H-E-B for a few things and Chick-fil-a for lunch.

Today we drove to E&M’s then on to Mexico. We had lunch at Arturo’s and walked around. I still find it very depressing over there, but it was nice spending time with our friends.

Once we were back in the US we sat with E&M at their place for a short while then I brought Jesse home to take care of our boys while I went to Joyce and Roger’s to feed their dogs. I spent some time with them outside then back home again.

Thursday, December 5th - Sound of Music (Mission, TX)

 

Tuesday was a fun day.

We met Roger and Joyce at Cheddars for lunch on Tuesday. Ed and Marilyn were also supposed to join us, but Ed was still not feeling well, so they stayed home.

Roger was waving to us when we walked in as they were already there when we arrived. The waiter took our drink orders and came back with our drinks. He wanted to take our order. We were talking so much that Jesse and I hadn’t looked at the menu. We asked him to give us more time.

He did and then came back and I still wasn’t ready and asked for more time. He said no problem. Then the next thing we knew another waiter came to take our order. I was surprised and hope I didn’t offend our original waiter.

We finally placed our order and everything was good and the company was great.

We asked R&J to come back to our place for a visit. They stopped at their place to pick up the fur kids, Lily and Hersey, and came over.

Our fur kids got along very well. Buddy kept cleaning Hersey ears and Hersey liked it.  Sorry I forgot to take pictures.

We spent a wonderful day with friends.

Yesterday I had a dentist appointment. I have been having some discomfort with one of my teeth. Well there is an infection, so he gave me some penicillin and I have an appointment in 2 weeks to have it removed.

We went to Walmart to fill the meds and to pick up a few things we needed.

At home we just relaxed for the evening and of course we watched Survivor.

Tonight is the BIG TV night for me.

SOUND OF MUSIC

This is one of my most favorite movies and when my children were small we used to dance and sing to it all the time. It was one of my most precious memories!

Monday, December 2 - 5 Years (Mission, TX)

 

December 1st  we have been full timing for 5 years!     My how time flies.   We are still enjoying this life style.

We are on our 3rd RV and our 3rd truck which may sound excessive for 5 years, but we now have the RV we wanted from the beginning..

 

We have not been doing much since Thanksgiving. Just trying to get some stuff done on the rig and vehicles. We had Mr. Clean Balde wash and wax the Kram-a-lot on Friday and for only $10 more (rig was $90) he did the car. Both look nice and shiny again. Should have had him do the truck but I didn’t so I will get that done in the next week or so.

Saturday we wanted to get dog food at Petco in Mission. On the way we drove thru Retama Village to see if anyone we knew was out and about. We quickly saw Mark Hall so we stopped to say hello to him and Dortha. They were doing chores so we did not stay long but we will see them again soon.

The strip center with Petco also had some other stores we wanted to take a look at and an H-E-B Plus. Should not have gone to H-E-B because I saw a 40” Samsung LED that would fit in the same space as our 32” LCD and  I just had to have it….and so I do.

It really has good a picture and sound but it would not fit on the TV mount from the 32” so I removed the mount and just set it up on the table stand. I have 3 months to figure out how to secure it.

We have been having AC problems in the little Mazda for a couple of months and it has progressively gotten worse. There was a refrigerant leak somewhere so this morning I took it to a local repair shop. Remy’s Auto & Truck Service and had them take care of the problem which was a leaking line. All fixed now and hopefully no more leaks.

Ginger put out the Christmas decorations today so we are ready for Santa.

Tomorrow we are having lunch at Cheddar’s with the Drays and Steinmillers and then coming back here to discuss Christmas brunch plans.

Thursday, November 28 - Thanksgiving Day (Mission TX)

 

Today is Thanksgiving. A day to be spent with family and friends. A day to remember loved ones that are not with us.

In the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy:

As we express our gratitude,

we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words,

but to live by them.

We spent Thanksgiving with Ed and Marilyn. We drove over to Llano Grande and ate at the club house with other friends Jan and Tom and their family.

The conversation was good and the food was very tasty. There were several different salads to start the meal with.

The hot food was sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, carrots, green beans, corn, mac and cheese, meat balls, pork roast and of course turkey. It was all Yummy.

For dessert there was pumpkin, sweet potato, cherry, and pecan pies.

After dinner we went back to E&M’s and relaxed and just talked until it was time to go home to the boys.

Once we were home we talked to the children and grandchildren. Wished them all Happy Thanksgiving, told them we loved them.

 

Kelsey sent me this picture in Lalia and I just had to share.

Have a good weekend!!

Wednesday, November 27 - Just Getting Caught Up (Mission, TX)

 

We have not been too diligent in keeping up with the blog. Facebook has kind of taken the sails out of daily blogging.

I will try and give a brief synopsis of what we have been up since September.

We were supposed to stay in Maryland till Oct 11 and then head to Coffeyville KS to work at Amazon for their “peak season”. Well we had to leave Maryland a week early because we could not tolerate those damn stink bugs anymore.  They look for places to hide for the winter and when the weather turned cold we got infested with them in a matter of days. They were so bad that when we brought in the slides to leave I had to get out the shop vac and spend an hour vacuuming them from the slide seals. Finally got all I could find and we headed out.

We made it to Coffeyville of Friday, Oct 11 but we did not have to report for orientation till Thurs the 17. We could have started a week earlier but we would have to work the 5:30am to 4am shift so we waited a week and visited with the Williams and Lehenbauers. The Lehenbauers and us were supposed to be on the same shift but they got the night shift and we still had 1 day off together… for a few weeks then their shift advanced a day and we had no time off together. Fortunately we still got to pal around with the Williams as Bob W. and us worked the same days and hours plus Barb was our dog walker.

We thought that having worked there before and being familiar with the job, Amazon, and the campground things would be a little easier this time but in fact they were worse. The weather was much wetter than 2 years ago and when it rains the campground is just full of mud and puddles. Not much fun when you have to walk the dogs after 10 1/2 at work or when you have to stand in 4 inches of water to get something out the basement storage in the rig. We did not really want to work there this year and were just looking for any excuse not to and finally we decided to just throw in the towel and give our notice. Our bad but we did not retire to work that hard.

So we made arrangements to get in to our site at Bentsen Palms Village early and we said our good byes to our friends and left Coffeyville on Nov 15.

1st stop …was Winstar Casino for 3 days of r n r. This is about the nicest casino RV park we have seen and that includes several in Vegas. And when you sign up for a players card your first night is free and $5 off the regular $25 fee after that. I even came out a winner though Ginger not so much but we had a nice birthday weekend for her and her best birthday present was having her great niece born on her birthday. Better than anything I could give her.

Laila Mackenzie

On Monday we headed to Hondo TX to check out the Alamo area Escapee park.

We stayed there a week for a 1st time visitor rate of $45 plus electric. We spent the week exploring the area thinking this might be a good place to lease a lot to use as a home base. After a week that did not look to promising. It’s a so so small park but really not too much to offer and constant noise from US90 and trains all night long. Office staff was not informative at all.

We did get to visit our friends Dan and Pat Sullivan and Kit and Jerry Bertlesen at Fort Clark Springs in Bracketville. Also made it to San Antonio to see the second installment of the Hunger Games. Both Ginger and I are fans of the books and the movies.

Once our time was up we moved further south to our site at Bentsen Palms. Today we visited with Roger and Joyce Steinmiller. They own a lot a mile up the road at Green Gate Grove and we saw their new pup Hershey and their new Mobile Suites.

Tomorrow it is back to LLano Grande for Thanksgiving dinner with Ed and Marilyn.

Well that catches us up for now.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

Wednesday, September 18 - 1st Week in Maryland (Freeland MD)

 

1st let me say Happy Anniversary to Beth and DJ!

So we arrived last Thursday. It was a hot trip across from the Rockies to the east coast, but we had no problems.

After we arrived and started to get set-up we had huge thunder storm. The thunder booms were really, really loud.

On Friday we took a ride to Hanover, PA and visited with Margaret. We all (the boys went too) got to meet the newest member of their family Skylar. She is a 4 month old peppy puppy, a real bundle of energy.

Saturday was Kelsey’s baby shower. I left camp about 9:15am and drove to Essex. I helped set up the room for the party and then guests started to arrive.

Then finally the guests of honor arrived. Kelsey and Baby Laila.

Kelsey received so many items for the baby, she will be a well dressed baby that’s for sure. Then she modeled her party hat.

Kelsey and her parents

Kelsey and Peter

Sunday we went over to Sondra’s. We visited with Sondra and Judy for awhile, then Sondra, Jesse and I went to lunch. We also walked around Trader Joe’s and found a few items to purchase.

Monday was going to be a day of just staying home and doing nothing. Then Mitchell called and he and Margaret were coming by for a visit. It was really nice to see them both and we sat around just getting caught upon  the the family news.

After they left we decided to go to the grocery store to stock up.

Tuesday we decided to take a ride around the area and stopped at Walmart for some supplies.

Yesterday we went over to Kelsey’s house to visit with her. It was really nice to be able to caught up and spend quality time together. She is such a special person and I wish her love and happiness.