New Years Eve

We went out to dinner, I had the good shrimp tacos.  Then we came home and watched the movie Brenda had lent us "Sherlock Holmes", which we enjoyed.  At midnight we had some shrimp cocktail and a bottle of campaign while watching the New Years celebrations on TV.  There were many fireworks, one display - probably at Disney - was very good.

Friday with the tourists

We went shopping today, Target - Sam's Club - Camping World, etc.  All were located in the very busy tourist area.  There are people around for Disney World and Universal Studios, for football games and basketball games, and just because they like crowds I guess.  The parks had to close for awhile yesterday because they were at capacity - ride waits were 2 -3 hours.  I would turn around and go home!  Even the roads mid day were packed.

Here is a picture of our new neighbor, he has his own RV on his back!

Move to Clermont

We moved to Thousand Trails RV Park (near Disney World)  today.  We got an early start and a good thing as we took the last available 50 amp site.  There are about 1,000 sites in this park, approx. 250 are 50 amp.  We passed one motorhome and got into the park just before them which was a good chess move, they got the checkmate on 50 amps.  The site is fine, but not level.   The trip went great until we tried to level the motorhome, someone (me) couldn't find their keys fast enough (needed to open a basement door to get leveling wood out) so Don turned off the engine before the jacks had finished retracting which caused the control to mess up and go into error mode.  So we had to get the manual out to figure out how to fix that before we could proceed.  This could be traced to ALL MY FAULT including the site being unlevel in the first place.  We did get leveled and all is fine.

The repair men came this afternoon to fix the cloths dryer.  They seemed to know what they were doing which isn't always true of RV repair people.  I didn't try it out, will do a load tomorrow so it better work!  $100 for that event.

Wash, wash and more wash

After a long day of doing laundry, I finally got caught up, everything dry and put away.  We had to take things over to the laundry mat to dry as my dryer isn't working.  I also put away the gifts we brought on the airplane, still have the ones in the mail to receive.  We move tomorrow, would prefer not to move.  I'm really worn out.

Back in Florida

After a day at airports and on an airplane it is good to be back at our motorhome even with a TON of dirty clothing.  We didn't get much sleep last night as people extended their partying outside (and under our window) from the pub in our hotel from about midnight to 2AM.  Then the garbage truck came at 5AM.  We got up about 6 AM.  To add to our problems the rash on my legs started to burn, glad I had a handy pain pill or I might as well have gotten up for the day.

I miss our family already, it will be at least April until we see them again.

Celebrating Josh's birthday

It felt good to rest in the AM, I tackled the big job of packing our things and our new Christmas gifts.  We bought a bigger box and took it to Office Depot to mail as the post office is closed today.  In the evening we met for dinner with the Dennis' and Brenda and Rebecca at the eating place in our hotel.  Later everyone came to our room so Brenda and I could give Josh our gifts.

Then it was goodbye until spring.

Josh's early birthday presents

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas Day.  We had brunch with our family, Brenda, Rebecca, Kazia, Dusty, Logan, Holland with the hosts Sheila, Ken, Josh, Zach and Bri.  Then it was gift opening time - everyone was far too generous to us, we received wonderful gifts.  In the late afternoon we had dinner at Greg and Tracy's (Ken's brother and wife).  They are excellent hosts and if anyone went home hungry it was their own fault.   We are now worn out from such a big day but a good tired feeling you get from a truly enjoyable day.

Sheila and Brenda

Zach and Josh

Ken and Ginger the dog

Kazia, Logan, Holland and Dusty

Brenda and Rebecca

Brianna with Zach and Ginger

Christmas Eve

First we went to church with the Dennis' and then it was to their house for a feast of fondue and crapes along with cheese ball and all the extras.  We had a fun time and a good visit!

Ken and Zach

Josh and Sheila 

Brianna with new bear

Downtown Minneapolis

The family made our annual pilgrimage to downtown Minneapolis - Macy's - for their annual Christmas presentation which we walked through with about a million other people.   After a little shopping we all went to lunch at the 12th floor salad bar buffet.  For the first time in recent years the weather was nice, sometimes we have watched blizzards from the 12th floor windows.

Later Don and I went to Josh's hockey game which his team won.  Josh made tow goals and an assist.

Good day in MN

My day started with an unexpected doctor appointment, no I'm not sick - I just needed motion sicknesses patches for our cruise in late Jan.  I had to actually go to the doctor for the prescription which they electronically sent to Sam's Club who called me a few minutes later to tell me my prescription was ready.

We did some shopping and then had a nice evening with Brenda, Dan and Rebecca.  We ate out, then to their house for more visiting and looking at the scrapbook pages Brenda has been doing.

Life in the refrigerator!

It is hard getting used to the cold weather, even if it isn't cold for Minnesota.  We had a little snow, which was nice to see snow for the first (and probably the last) time this year.  Don had a doctor appointment this morning and then we did some Christmas shopping.  We had a fine nap in the afternoon,  Then it was dinner at the Dennis'.  We had a good dinner and a great visit.  Our grand-kids are the best!!!!

Flying high!

We left the motorhome about 9AM to get to the Orlando airport.  The flight went well, was on time leaving and even early arriving in Minneapolis.  We picked up our rental car (or it picked up us?) and were off to our hotel.  We had dinner at Culvers with Sheila and Brianna then they came to our hotel where Brenda and Rebecca joined us.  Good to be here and better to seeing everyone.

Ready, Set ~~~

It has been a busy day getting ready to travel tomorrow.  We had wash to do, a dirty motorhome to clean, etc. Now I hope we are ready and I haven't forgotten too many things.

Getting ready to travel north.

We went out for breakfast at Cracker Barrow - always good.  Then we came home to read our two Sunday papers as usual.  In the afternoon I began packing for our airplane trip on Tuesday to Minnesota.  Sure hope I remember everything.  We fixed a good ham dinner with peas, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and wine.

I couldn't miss the final "Survivor", in my opinion the wrong person won - which is often the case.

Saturday!

We had breakfast at the clubhouse - pancakes.  We did things around the house the rest of the day and brought in Chinese from a favorite place for dinner.  Then we watched a rented movie "The Help".  It was as good as the book. Besides the story, it was interesting to see life in the 1960's depicted.

Another week

It's Friday all ready and we haven't done much all week.  I have a couple new games on my Kindle which I'm already addicted to playing.  We brought home chicken from KFC for dinner.  It's been a cloudy day, zero percent chance of rain - until Don washed and waxed the car.  The rain didn't last long but long enough to spot the car.

Trip to Brooksville

It was a busy trip to Brooksville today.  First to the post office to mail Christmas cards, then to UPS to ship Christmas gifts north.  We got hair cuts while there so we won't look like hippies in MN.  We had lunch in-between at Cici's pizza and took home Rubin sandwiches from Abby's for dinner.

Sunday Sunday

We went out for breakfast at the Denny's nearby.  They have the best pancakes and good coffee too.  After reading our two Sunday papers, we got the Christmas cards ready to mail.  Had bacon wrapped steak fillets for dinner and a purchased pumpkin pie for desert.  I talked to the kids on the phone and that was our exciting Sunday.

Ant bites

I have 9 fire ant bites all together on my leg.  They burn, sting, itch, ooze and are generally awful.  They make me feel bad all over.

Other than whine, we had breakfast at the clubhouse and ate dinner at Steak and Shake.  We rented the movie "Crazy, Stupid Love" which was OK - better than some of the movies we've seen lately.

Cold Night

It got down to 38 degrees last night which is cold for Florida, was cool today - mid 60's.  We ate lunch at the Club House, they had homemade turkey noodle soup, grilled cheese and homemade pumpkin pie.  All good.  We stared home the rest of the day doing things around the motorhome, a rare day we don't go someplace.

Pearl Harbor Day

The weather was nice, we were sitting outside and in a moments time to turned cold and rained.  We got back inside just in the nick of time.  In the evening we went out to eat with people from the park to a Chinese Buffet in Brooksville.  The food was good, visiting better.  After eating we went to several stores and got home about 9 PM.

Motorhome decorations

Here's what the motorhome and our site look like right now!

It's getting to feel a lot like Christmas!

The motorhome is decorated for Christmas and lights strung on the outside.  Today I wrapped gifts, took about 2 hours to get them in the right boxed and get organized and another 3 hours to wrap.  Now we need to buy a box to send them to MN so they will be there when we get there (don't want to take them on the plane and have to go through TSA with them, I have enough trouble getting through TSA with my knee replacements).  I got my photo Christmas cards that I ordered in the mail, turned out OK - a bit dark.

We watched the movie "30 Minutes or Less"  was not good.  Last night we watched "Super 8" it was fair.

Luncheon and moving day!

Poor planning on our part - the Escapee's RV Club luncheon was today and we had to move out of Thousand Trails by noon.  We moved the motorhome to by the office (they have plenty of space - we could have even plugged into electricity), went to the luncheon which was only about 10 miles away and returned to the motorhome to hitch up the car and move to our leased site at Sumter Oaks.  Funny thing is that about 3/4 of the people at the luncheon are from Sumter Oaks so we saw them there and back here.

The move went well, no engine warnings this time.  Good to be back!