A Gathering of Cousins, and Some Very Special Bears

People sometimes ask us what we like best, and least, in this nomadic lifestyle of ours. I usually talk about all the good things, because there are far more of the good things, and besides, I tend to spend more time focusing on them than on the "less good" things. I wrote not long ago about a near-perfect rv park in Amarillo, gee, now I wish I could have that park here! Well, maybe not in this exact location, since that is one of the less good things about the park we're in now. We joke about it being a "requirement" to build rv parks adjacent to interstate highways, with railroad tracks close by, and if an airport gets tossed into the mix, so much the better. Here at the Colorado Springs KOA, which is actually in the little town of Fountain, south of Colorado Springs, we get all three of those, plus an army base - Fort Carson - right across the highway. Now, don't get me wrong, I know it's absolutely necessary to our freedom and the strength of our nation to train our troops, but right across the street, with rifle and cannon fire going on half the night, well, it takes patience to keep telling myself it's the sound of safety and strength and not get annoyed. Last night was one of those nights - training was in full force!

So, after our night of training, along with the traffic and trains, we got up early this morning to meet our friend, Gary, for breakfast. After breakfast, we started running some errands, the most pressing being checking out a new set of tires for the Saturn. We found what we need, and will have them installed on Friday morning.

I also wanted to purchase the new Wii fitness game, called Sports Active. It looks like it's going to be a good challenge, and will complement the Wii Fit without duplicating it.

This evening, we went to my cousin's house for a gathering of my cousins who live here. Another of our cousins who lives in Homer, Alaska, is visiting, so it was a good chance for us to get together. The cousin whose house we were at has a daughter who also lives in Homer. She has been making stuffed bears from fur coats for awhile now, and we had asked her to make some bears for us. I inherited a mink stole from my mother, who passed away in the late 1970's. Jim's mom left a large mouton coat (mouton is sheep or lamb skin that has been processed to resemble beaver or seal fur), so we'd given both of those to Linda to see what she could do. Wow. She made 5 bears - 2 from the mink stole and 3 from the mouton.

We gave my sister, Ann, one of the mink bears:

I took the remaining 4 to show the rest of our cousins:

And then brought them home. The dark one is from the mouton, and the lighter one is the other mink:

These are both mouton:

Each bear is signed:And dated & numbered:

These will be very special reminders of our moms, as well as family heirlooms for many, many years.

Thank you, Linda!