Family Picnic

About as soon as I pressed the “publish” button for yesterday’s blog entry, the weather took a nasty turn!  I’ve complained about the wind, and yesterday evening that ugly wind brought some pretty chilly temperatures back into our lives.  No rain, but today was much cooler, still windy!

We had a great time with Pat and John last night at dinner, thanks again for treating us, Pat.  They are hoping to sell their two homes in the area, buy a Phaeton motor home, and become fulltimers.  They had a lot of questions for us, and again, I have to say that our experience is just one story – there are many, many more stories to share.  This is a lifestyle we love, most of the time.  But it’s not for everyone, that is for sure.  There are many things to consider when making a decision as monumental as selling a home, buying an RV and hitting the road.  We have no regrets, and if we had it to do over, we’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Jim decided to do the laundry this morning, so he got everything sorted and took off for the local coin laundry after we had our coffee.  Sometimes we use campground laundromats, but more often, he prefers to find a local laundry, usually they have more and larger machines.  Sometimes in a campground, there will be a limited number of machines, and they will also sometimes ask you to use only 2 or 3 machines at a time.  That just doesn’t work for us.  We like it when we can put everything in at once and get 5 to 7 loads done in about an hour and a half.  Yes, we are still glad that we do not have a washer/dryer in our motor home.  The storage space we have instead really works for us.

My sister, Ann and her husband, Bob, hosted a family gathering at her house this afternoon.  At 2:00 or so, we all started gathering there.  My niece (Ann’s daughter), Tami, her husband, Tyrone, their 2 daughters Sharitta and Catrina, along with my nephew Rick (Ann’s son), his wife Marilia and daughter Tashiana, and Marilia’s grandson Matthew, all arrived while Bob grilled the brats and burgers.  We all dug into a delicious treat of baked beans, salads, burgers and brats.  Later on we had berries with whipped topping and angel food cake.  It was all wonderful, but the best part was getting to spend time with the family.  Most of us joined in a rousing card game called Jubilinski, which is an old family favorite.

Here’s a sampling of the day’s activities.  Bob has the grill going:

Tyrone, Jim and Matthew enjoying their meals:

 

Sharitta & Catrina relaxing:

  Ann, Marilia and Rick watching the action:

Tami in the new kitchen:

Ann shows off the new “great room”.  The light just above her head is actually a “sun tube”, not an electric light.

This remodeling project has been a long journey for Ann and Bob, but it is coming together now.  They hope to be pretty well finished by Thanksgiving this year.

As we get ready to observe Memorial Day tomorrow, Jim and I would like to thank all of our veterans and current soldiers for your service and sacrifice for our country.  I’ve been watching the History Channel series, “America The Story of Us” recently, and have gained a whole new perspective of the importance of  the role all of our veterans, past, present and future, play in our country’s strength and survival.