Branson, MO

Turkey Creek

Our house

Escapees park

Let the fun begin!

The killer loop

Just a little wet (soaked)

Elvis loves me

Here we are at Turkey Creek RV Park in Branson Mo. We have been here almost two weeks. The first week was rather busy. We saw three shows. Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay (a new show, only nine weeks old) is where Elvis presented me with my prize. He was singing Teddy Bear to all the lovebirds in the audience (of 22 people). Duane and I were holding hands. (The white blobs in the pic used to look like teddy bears and the big red one was a heart, but we forgot to take the pic right away.) We also saw the Rankin Brothers and the Sons of the Pioneers. We recommend all three shows. The rock and roll was really high energy. The Rankins were very intertaining. The Sons are cowboy singers. I'm a fan so I really enjoyed them. We spent one day at Silver Dollar City. We rode three water rides and all three (dry) roller coasters. The fourth loop of the second coaster did me in (motion sickness, but I didn't hurl). Duane says I can't run with the big dogs. I did manage to recoup enough for the third coaster, though I was a bit unsteady after the last two. (Just an hour of laying flat after we got home put me right.) We also toured around town, found the church, wood carvers, quilt shop. This week we laid low. Monday we went fishing on Turker Creek and Lake Taneycomo until the thunder storms chased us home. It rained for 24 hours and is showering today. So we just get up and walk 40 minutes then do our things the rest of the day. This Escapees park is rather quiet as most of the people are visitors and gone most of the time. We have been to Tues. dinner, Friday entertainment and Saturday breakfast. We leave Monday for the far north--Normal Bloomington Ill to visit my brother.

Enough for now,

Louise and Duane

2 Cuties and a Field Full of Diamonds

Emma Jean

Ava Marie

Splash pool

See any sparklers?

Gateway To Riches

Welcome to Crater of Diamonds State Park. This is the place where anybody can pay their $7 to play in the dirt. We took our chance on Saturday. We armed ourselves with tools and sweated our way through several buckets of gravel to find our sparklers. No luck. This place is a jasper lover's Paradise, though. I found more than I could ever hope to take with me. The weather did not co-operate. Daytime temps were in the 100's with a heat index of 110. There were lots of people out there, though, thumbing their noses at melanoma and heat stroke. There were lots of people ponying up $5.50 apiece to play in the splash pool--3 1/2 ft. at the deepest. We spent 3 hours in the morning in the field and 2 hours after supper. That was enough. This is a nice state park in spite of the heat and humidity. The campground is shady and has a nice walk down to the Little Missouri River. The park offers lots of help on how to find diamonds and has equipment for rent. Because of the tall trees, the campground blocked our tv reception and interfered with our cell phone service and internet. So we spent a rather quiet weekend reading novels. I also worked on my sewing. It was too hot for Duane to carve. But we survived.

The above pix of the little girls were taken on Thursday before we left Texas for Arkansas. They have both grown in the last three weeks. The other pix are from the park.

Basta por hoy,

Louise and Duane

A couple of new carvings

I just finished these so I thought I would give everybody a break from pictures of the grandbabies..lol, although the babies are a lot prettier. Mom and babies are doing great. They are keeping Mom and Dad up nights, but that's their job. We have been going to see them once a day since they were born. Hope we are not wearing out our welcome. They have had a lot of people stopping by to meet the twins so things have been pretty hectic around there.

It has been real hot here. Over 100 during the day, 80's at night. Sure glad the airconditioning is working good. We will be here till the 10th of July, then start heading north to meet the new grandbaby, Judah, in Ohio. These are kids are keeping us busy meeting new grandkids. We are up to nine with the birth of the twins. The plan is to spend September in Ohio, then work our way south. Not sure yet where we will winter. We had an interview with the Corp of Engineers about workcamping near Dallas this winter. We should know something in a week or two.

Till next time

Duane and Louise

The new ones

Mom and Ava

Emma

Ava

Our babies are 3 days old now, and wearing their own clothes. From the pix above, you can see that they are alike but different. We think Emma looks like her mom and Ava like her dad. They sleep a lot, but sometimes they open their eyes and just look and look. They each had to take a car seat test. They had to sit for 2 hours in their car seat while hooked up to various monitors. They both passed of course. Not much more to say, but hey, they are babies and don't do much!

Enough for now,

Louise and Duane

Bad Grandma!

Daddy Benji, Madeleine, Simon, Judah
Big sis and littlest bro

Judah Martin Latimer

I am a baaaaaad grandma! I introduced our grandson Judah to my family via email, but neglected to let our blog readers meet him! So here he is, Judah Martin, our fourth grandson and seventh grandchild. Jude was born May 1 of this year. He weighed in at 6lbs. 6 oz., a smaller birth weight than big sis Madeleine and big bro Simon . Mom and son did (and are) doing fine, except bad grandma hasn't been to Ohio to kiss his toes. He looks like a smaller version of Madeleine when she was born. Jude was the biggest of the last four grandchildren (the other three are girls), but he is puny by Latimer standards. Don't worry. We are headed to Ohio later this year. Once I kiss his toes, he will start growing like a weed!

Enough said.

Louise and Duane

Meet Emma and Ava

Dad Duane Jr. & Mom Brandey
Emma and Ava

Dad and daughters

Say hello to our newest grandchildren, Emma Jean and Ava Marie. They arrived two minutes apart this morning at 9:40 and 9:42 by C-section. They weighed in at 5.8 and 6.2 lbs. Emma is the smaller one. Everyone is fine but a little tired. After a long wait both parents and 4 grandparents finally got to hold both babies. They are fraternal twins, so they are alike but different. Of course they are the cutest newborns in the world, according to the proud parents!

Lake Fork

Juvenile Blue Heron?
Juvenile Blue Heron?

Boat slips

Bridge

Beatiful blue

Cormorant

Today we moved further west and a little north to the west fork of Lake Fork. We picked one of the numerous rv parks at randon and ended up at--Lake Fork Resort! This is a little and large place. The resort includes boat slips and dock, store (including a wide assortment of fishing lures and baits), cafe, swimming pool, motel, and small rv park edging the lake. We are in the second row from the lake and happen to have a view. The sun is hot with a warm, humid breeze. After lunch Duane went catfishing and caught one and a couple of bluegill. It was too hot to clean them so they went free. I went swimming and was hot! After supper Duane ventured out to snap the above pix. Our IDs are tentative since we aren't experienced birders. I stayed inside and read and embroidered. After the sun goes down we may go for a stroll. Maybe.

Basta por hoy!

Louise and Duane

Visiting

Luke is proud of himself
One step at a time

Visiting with Grandma Weezie

Allie, Luke,Gramma just aswingin'

Goofing on the slide

Cutie pie

Hi loyal followers, Since we are still sitting there is not much to report. The pix of Allie (4) and Luke (almost 1) were taken last week. We have been visiting them and their parents off and on the last 3 weeks as we moved between Tyler Tx and Shreveport LA for various doctors checkups. We have been in a nice rv park called 5 Star RV, just a couple of miles north of Tyler for the last week. While we were here we played tourist, (visiting the Brookshires' World of Wildlife Museum and the Smith County Historical Museum), fishing, carving and sewing of course, walking around the rv park (16 laps gets us 2 miles), and wrapping up our last three dr visits. Duane had his blood pressure checked (needs two pills and keep monitoring), and I had a mammogram. Today is my bone density scan. We went fishing in the lake in Tyler State Park (not one bite or even a glimpse of a fish), Bellwood Lake (one small largemouth bass but no other bites), and with son Jeremy on the Sabine River (a couple of keeper catfish, one small largemouth bass, one HUGE carp, and a little bluegill). We visited with Allie and Luke and daughter-in-law Jennifer that day also. Jennifer had to go to work in the evening, so after the babies went to bed Duane and I played (a card game called) 31 with Jeremy. Very fun. Tomorrow we head west. Time to get closer to Celina (TX that is) and get ready to help when the twins arrive June 20th.

Enough for now,

Louise and Duane

Doctors--yech!!

Sorry, fans, no pix, just doctor appointments. We had our physicals in Tyler, our blood tests not back yet. Duane has high blood pressure and will start taking med for it tonight. He has been messing around with this for a year--it went up and down. Now its up and won't go down. After I got my eyes examined and new glasses (same day woo woo!) we drove the house across the Louisiana border and parked in Greenwood. A trip to Shreveport yesterday to our financial advisor and our dentist showed two good reports. Today Duane found out his macular degeneration has not gotten worse in the last year, and that he is still cancer free. Yay!!! We managed to fit in a couple of short visits with former friends and neighbors today. Tomorrow we move back to Kilgore for more tests. Duane gets an eye exam and new glasses (although his right eye is no longer correctable) and a followup on his new medicine. I get a mammogram and a bone scan. So far so good, though, so we expect no new surprises. Hooray for the old people!!!

Enough for now,

Louise and Duane

Not much doing

Stone tile

Duane's latest cowboy

We have been traveling the last couple of weeks. After we left Kerrville, we drove the back roads to Temple and parked one night in Sam's Club parking lot and another next door at WalMart. We visited with son Jesse while we were there. Next we drove to Celina to park at son Jr's house for a couple of days. This turned into 5 days while Duane helped him to lay new stone tile in several rooms. We spent the evenings sitting around chatting and trying to catch glimpses of the twins moving around. (Their due date is June 20th). Tuesday we moved to Kilgore. We are now in a nice rv park (Shallow Creek) just around the corner from son Jeremy's place. We do our things during the day: I'm hand sewing the binding on Jr's quilt and Duane works on his carvings. The cowboy above is Duane's latest caricature, which he carved in a class at Kerrville. He painted it today. Evenings we visit with Jeremy, Jennifer and our grandchildren Allie (4) and Lucas (almost 1). We will be here until next Wednesday when we move to Shreveport for doctors' appointnents. Until then, we are taking it easy.

Enough for now,

Louise and Duane

My lastest finished carving

Here is Duane's latest class project. This took two days to carve from a roughed out form. He put the finish on it today. He took a tool sharpening class on Monday, and learned to carve an 8" caricature cowboy on Tuesday. He took the Native American project to get a better handle on carving faces. In classes like these the instructor will carve part and the trainee tries to mimic what was shown. While Duane was carving I was swimming and sewing. I am 2/3 done quilting my lastst queen sized quilt. Our friend John (Duane worked with him in Hidden Cove last summer) is staying with us a couple of days. He took a class today and will take one tomorrow. In the evenings, they have fun carving and talk carving.

We are leaving this nice rv resort on Monday. The weather here has been overcast since we arrived a week ago. The daytime temps are in the mid to upper 70's with scattered patches of sun through thin clouds. Mostly it was wet, but that didn't alter our plans. Duane was gone all day. I started my day by a 30-40 min. swim in the adults only indoor pool. Sweet! Then I put together the quilt I had assembled at the last carving seminar in Congress. Tomorrow is the last day for the seminar. Duane is has no class but plans on joining the open carving. You know what I'll be doing!

Basta por hoy.

Louise and Duane

View from diggins at Rockhound

Treasure hunting

Balmorhea State Park pool

The round part of the pool

Clear, clear water

Left arm of the pool

Right arm of the poolFt. Lancaster barracs

Parade ground

Just a little late for work

Desert beauty

We're back with more wonderful adventures. Starting with the picture at the top is our trip to Rockhound State Park. We were looking for geodes, jasper, and anything else interesting. After some casting about we found the diggins--the place where people have been finding geodes. Duane found a little one, prolly the one the previous diggers missed. I found some little pieces of pink jasper. Mostly we found a lot of exercise, some great views, and a nice day out together. Next stop was Balmorhea State Park. The swimming pool was build by the CCC from the original spring and wetlands. The wetlands were rebuilt next to the campground. The pool consists of a large round pool 25' deep and two arms 25'x300'. It's the largest swimming pool in the USA. The water, which still comes from the spring, has fish and algae in it, but is very clear. At a constant 72-76 d. f. it was very nice even on an overcast day. I enjoyed it very much. We spent a very restful quiet night there, then went on to Kerrville. On the way we detoured down scenic rt. 290 and stopped to tour the reconstructed ruins of historic Ft. Lancaster. This is one of a series of forts built just before the Civil War (Ft. Bowie was one). As the war got into full swing, the forts were vacated with everything anyone could carry so it wouldn't fall into the hands of the Confederates. All in all an interesting little side trip. Now we are in Kerrville at the Guadalupe RV Resort. We will be here all week while Duane attends carving classes. I plan on completing my latest quilt and making good use of the adults only pool. No doubt there will be new carvings on our next posting!

More later.

Louise and Duane