It’s Here!

According to our recent experience, winter has officially arrived.  The weather forcast for the next week is cold in the daytime and cold at night.  We are moving further south on Tuesday, but today Duane disconnected the water and sewer hoses and put them away.  We are using our water tank for the next 36 hours because the nighttime temps will be in the 20’s and the daytime temps in the mid to low 30’s.  Our original travel plan was to stay two nights on the road before arriving at our January destination of Harlingen, TX on Friday.  Because of the weather we are planning on arriving on Wednesday because it is warmer in Harligen than anywhere else farther north.

Brrr!

Louise and Duane

Nothing New

Unfortunately, the weather was the same as yesterday, except that today we had rain and mist.  I’m getting really tired of nothing but gray clouds!  Here is something to combat the winter blues.  Enjoy!

No respite in view very soon.

Louise and Duane

Projects

As promised, here are the Christmas presents I made:

two cloth books

curtain panels

doll clothes for 18’ dolls

12 aprons—here are two

Duane’s ornaments for this year—he made 15 total.

Each snowman sports mittens and gloves in the each grand child’s favorite color—including black!

Another icky day.  Duane went out and did some errands and chores.  I stayed in and nursed my headache.

Supposed to rain tomorrow.  Winter is definitely here.

Duane and Louise

Chore Day

We expected our new electric fireplace to arrive sometime today which meant that only one of us could go play pickleball this morning.  Guess who that was!  I stayed home and commandeered the satellite all day, flipping from one to the other with merry abandon.

I also showed my Yankee roots.  Son Jeremy gave me a piece of smoked pork shoulder.  Now, a true Southerner would have plopped that baby in a pot of beans for hambean soup.  I plopped that baby in a pot of green beans and potatoes, but not before I stripped it of all that smoky stuff off the outside, then-Oh horror of horrors! I took off all the fat! Unthinkable!!!  I didn’t stop there either.  I put in a lot of cabernet sauvignon for added flavor along with a lot of onions and garlic.  Delicious! 

In the afternoon Duane took over Looking For The Delivery Guy duty while I did laundry.  Delivery Guy arrived about 6pm and left us with our new electric heater.  Of course it wasn’t a swift job of swapping out the broken one with the new one, but we got ‘er done eventually.  Now we can quit burning propane.

Topped off the evening with a cup of hot tea and some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies—still warm!

Ahhhh!

Louise and Duane

Viva La Difference!

I was having deja vu today because of the lowering gray clouds and the even lower temperature.  Then I realized that today was different.  For one thing, I didn’t have to go out today, and secondly, it didn’t rain today.  Snowy, the snowman was happier today because he didn’t have to stare at the tree all day;  he got to look out the window.

Can you say “stir crazy?”

Louise and Duane

Cold And Rainy

All day the rain fell and a cold breeze blew.  We walked to the Activity Center for a Christmas leftovers buffet with about 50 other intrepid souls, but otherwise stayed in.  By late afternoon I was tired of gray and took solace in this cheerful scene.

Tomorrow is predicted to be the same. 

I told Duane that we weren’t far enough south yet!

Louise and Duane

Celebration Time

Traditional Christmas breakfast

Somebody couldn’t wait for them to bake.  Yuck!

Dinner with  the Escapees.  Didn’t know a soul, but we’re all family.

In between meals we opened gifts and yakked with our kids and grandkids.

We hope your Christmas was as good as ours.

Louise and Duane

Christmas Eve

A cold front blew in some cold weather—high 30’s/low 40’s at night and mid 50’s daytime, with a brisk north wind.  We braved the wind and took a walk around the park.  Red, white, and blue were the colors of the day.

We were just short of the mark with gray, white, and black.

I finished my Christmas puzzle.

After dark the moon is not quite half and there is no snow, but it almost gives “a luster of midday to objects below.”

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Louise and Duane

Ta Da!

We cleaned up the pile of stuff from the old truck.  Most of it we put in the new truck with room to spare.

I finally finished decorating the house for Christmas.  “Too late!” you say?  Not for us.  We celebrate the 12 days of Christmas—from Dec. 26 to Jan 6.

That bit of blue in the lower right is the piece of felt I use to keep my jigsaw puzzle pieces on the table.  When I finish the puzzle tomorrow, I’ll transfer the manger scene to the table and the tree to the little fold up shelf.

.One more day to Christmas!

Duane and Louise

Early Presents

  Yesterday was sunny and warm.  This morning the family woke to rain and dropping temps.  We didn’t care.  For us it was Christmas!  We ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast the enjoyed a lively game of Golf played with Skipbo cards.

When Jennifer was awake and ready, we opened presents

and enjoyed them. 

Luke making a bridge with his engineering projects kit.

Success! the bridge supports cars!

Allie sporting her new earrings and snacking on her garlic olives and “Champaign” (sparkling grape juice).

Relaxing after a delicious ham dinner.

Too soon to say goodbye, but it had to be done.

A formal family portrait, hugs and kisses and more hugs and we were out the door and on our way back to the Escapees RV Park in Livingston.

Home safely again,

Louise and Duane

More Travel, More Fun

Today we left all of the junk from the truck in our “garage” and took the truck for a test drive to Kilgore.  We planned to celebrate Christmas with son Jeremy, daughter-in-law Jennifer and grandkids Allie and Luke tomorrow, since they will be visiting their other grandpa and grandma on Christmas Day.  They are in Dallas today, so while we are are waiting their return, we are doing chores.

First we went to renew our 5th wheel trailer license, then to the Walmart for a couple of new storage bins for the new truck.  When we got to the kids’ house  we picked up our mail and Christmas packages and put them in the truck.  Duane acquainted himself with the dashboard of the truck.  I did laundry and enjoyed the nice weather sitting on the porch with my book.

Tomorrow—presents!

Louise and Duane

Moving Day—x 3

It’s beginning to look a lot like----spring?!!?

No, fall.  With the warmer temps in the mid to upper 60’s it feels like fall too. 

At any rate, the route from Lake Conroe to our new home in the Escapees park in Livingston was quite beautiful and nice to drive.

Once we were all set up we took all of the stuff that we store in the truck and moved it in the “garage” in the back of the house. That’s a lot of stuff!

That done we drove our Ford to the GMC dealership and moved from it

to this new GM truck. 

Tomorrow will be another busy day.

Duane and Louise

Go Bigger

With another rainy day in the forecast, we decided to do some more shopping.  While we were thinking of trading trucks, we thought “what about trading everything?”  We could trade our house and truck for a toy-hauler motorhome and jeep.  Duane always found a coach easier to maneuver and a jeep would get us to a lot of back country that’s closed to us now. 

Off we went to Katy to the closest rv sales that had a toy-hauler motorhome.  We did our usual tour around, each of us with our own mental checklists of things we wanted or needed.  After a bit the salesman left us to talk it over, which we did, and continued talking as we found our way to Camping World for another satellite receiver, this time for the living room.  I tried to be patient with my antenna tv, but after more than a month of having tv stations just disappear in the middle of shows, I gave up and agreed to another receiver.  I don’t watch much tv, but when I do, I would like to see all of the program.

We kept on discussing keeping vs trading until after lunch.  Then we decided to stop by the GM dealership and have another discussion with our saleslady about the truck we looked at yesterday.   

After a whole day of thinking and discussing, we decided that the total trade wasn’t feasible at this time.  Goodbye motorhome and Jeep.

.Moving day tomorrow.

Louise and Duane

What Else?

Another day of clouds and light fog didn’t deter us from playing cut throat pickleball with one other intrepid player, but when rain set in we decided not to be chicken and hole up in our snug little house.  We hopped into the truck and drove to town to spend money!  First the post office for the very last three Christmas boxes, then lunch with royalty—Burger King.  A trip to the grocery for fresh veg and I was ready to head home.  Duane was not to be deterred from further adventure.  He decided to drive further from home to a GM dealership to look at a new truck. 

We had had three reasons for doing this.  First, in the last three years, our present truck  has successively needed more repairs and more expensive repairs.  Second, we want to get away from the oversized rims that require extra big and extra expensive tires.  Third, we are looking for better fuel mileage.

Besides, what else do you do on a boring rainy, day?

Louise and Duane 

Night Lights

Christmas greetings from Conroe Lake TT park and

Louise and Duane