Sunday, April 12, 2009 Lorraine’s Report
Happy Easter to all our family and friend, we hope this finds everyone healthy and happy on this blessed Holy Day.
We are here at Trailer Tel RV Park in San Jose, CA. We got here Wednesday, having left Palm Springs Tuesday. We hit a terrific wind storm on our way up. The winds were gusting pretty hard, and down by Buttonwillow, CA, four big truck rigs were blown off the road and crashed in the blowing dust.
We’ve been busy with our granddaughter, Kaitlyn, watching her while her mom Susy, and Dad Mark are at work. She just loves for NaNa to watch her. We read, watch TV, do art work, play, eat; just your everyday stuff.
Today is the day Susy is having Kaitlyn’s fourth birthday party at Pump It Up, a play land jumping house, with all kinds of things for kids of all ages. She had it there last year and all the children loved it. Her actual birthday is Wednesday, April 15, 2009, tax day.
Friday was Chuck’s 60th birthday and Susy’s home was all decked out with 60 everywhere. She and Mark took us all out to the Outback to have a grand birthday dinner. We went back to her home for cake and presents. Kaitlyn, and Kim, Susy’s friend Mandy, her sister Beth, and Kim, who came down for Kaitlyn’s birthday, from Bellingham, were happy to help PaPa open presents. The girls had a fun time. What a great birthday party-Thank you everyone!!!
I should let everyone know, I’m feeling quite a bit better. Yesterday, I went shopping with Susy to a big mall. We made it through the whole mall, which is great, because I hadn’t been able to do that much walking. My fingers got pink color back, not the yellow tinge they had been. While I still have good days, bad days, it feels like I’m having more good days. Hopefully that will keep up as I continue to improve.
Monday evening our friends, Tom and Dorothy came over to the motor home and wanted to find out more about our trip to Alaska this summer. They had lots of questions, which we answered. It turns out they want to go to Alaska with us, so we will have six coaches going to Alaska with us this summer. It’s Alaska’s 50th birthday of becoming a state, so there should be lots of celebrations going on all over the state. I’m looking forward to going, it should be fun!
So that is it for me for this week. I love being here with my granddaughter and daughter. Kaitlyn is such a joy for me, I love being with her and Susy.
Here’s hoping Pat is okay from his hip surgery; Kerri, my niece, recovers from her surgery, Betty from Palm Springs, TT has good news, Bill, Mark’s dad continues to be comfortable at home from his time in the hospital, and the rest of the people I’ve been praying for continue to improve.
Till next time…Happy Easter……..Lorraine
4/12/09 Chuck’s Report
First, Happy Easter to everyone!! Hope you have a good day and can spend it with family.
Last week I posted about my cousin Lucinda’s husband, Pat, having a hip replaced, hope everything is going good there, I haven’t heard. Our son-in-law’s dad is now home from the hospital and they have his pain treated somewhat, hope he is resting more comfortable. Our niece, Kerri had surgery in Bellingham this week and here’s hoping for a quick recovery for her, too.
Lorraine seems to be getting better each day. She sometimes tries to do too much and gets tired but at least she’s out there trying. I think a lot of her recovery can be attributed to being with Susy and Kaitlyn this week.
We stayed in Palm Springs an extra day last week due to high wind forecast in the area. We had very high winds for two days, the clean coach got dirty, sand was blown into every nook and crevice. On Monday night, Tom and Dorothy came by to talk about our trip to Alaska, they decided they will go with us, good deal. By Tuesday morning, the winds had died down so we decided to leave Palm Springs and head for the Bay area.
But while we were traveling up on Tuesday, the winds picked up again and we went through some pretty windy spots. We were getting hit broadside with ~ 6omph winds, in some places we went through sand storms bad enough to almost lose visibility and the wind was trying to blow us off the road. We decided to stop early for the night and wait out the wind storm. We stayed in a campground and hunkered down, the winds finally died down late that evening. Not fun driving with heavy winds hitting the rig broadside, I can tell you. We heard that 4 big rigs had overturned on the highway due to the winds, glad we didn’t do the same! All in all, it handles the wind pretty well but given the choice, I’d rather sit it out and wait for the wind to die down.
So on Wednesday we got to the Bay area. We dropped off the coach in a parking lot and checked out a couple of different spots to stay. One was the fairground close by. They had full hook-ups and a good price but we didn’t feel safe there so we moved on. Next spot we checked was the local Elks, very nice but they don’t have a sewer dump there, would have to leave the lot to dump the holding tanks, plus they only had 30 amp for power. So we decided to head on to a park we have stayed at before, Trailer Tel RV Park. The good thing about this one is it’s close to Susy’s place, about 5 miles or so, has full hook-ups and it’s quiet. Bad thing, it only has 30 amp and it’s expensive. But, being close, we decided to stay here for at least a week, maybe two.
Once we got set up, we went to pick up Kaitlyn from her school. Boy was she excited to see Nana!! We also had her all day on Thursday and Friday, picked her up from their house and kept her with us both days. It was raining and windy outside so Lorraine and Kaitlyn played, did art work, watched movies and rested but mostly just enjoyed being with each other.
Kaitlyn and Papa Wednesday evening, something tickles her fancy here.
Kaitlyn with beads from NaNa, Misty watching, hoping to get some food.
Kaitlyn wasn’t feeling too well on Friday afternoon so we waited in the car while Lorraine finished up shopping. Kaitlyn liked playing with Lorraine’s straw hats and I managed to get a couple of pictures.
On Friday when we brought Kaitlyn home, this is what we saw. Must have been my birthday or something. Susy’s friend, Mandy, came down from Bellingham for Kaitlyn’s birthday. She and her sister, Beth, put up the decorations Susy had bought. Good job.
This is the cake Mandy made, good thing it didn’t have 60 candles, however. Kaitlyn helped blow out the candles when they were lit though.
We went to dinner at Outback for my birthday, thanks Mark and Susy. Here are some pictures from dinner.
Me with Lorraine, Kaitlyn
Susy and Mark
Mandy, her daughter Kim and sister Beth
Kaitlyn helping blow out the candle on our desert.
After dinner we went back to Susy’s place, had cake and opened presents. Thanks for a good day Lorraine, Susy, Mark, Kaitlyn, Mandy, Kim and Beth. Also thanks to those who sent messages and/or called. It’s good to have that over with, now we can celebrate Kaitlyn’s birthday.
Kaitlyn helping me open presents.
This week we will be celebrating Kaitlyn’s 4th birthday. Today, Sunday, there a party at a place close to their house where the kids can jump in those blow up jumpy things. Her birthday is actually on Wednesday the 15th so I’m sure there will be a cake that day also. She is sure excited about being 4, seems lots of things will happen when she is grown up. She says “When I’m 4 I will ----“ all the time, she really expects to have some big changes happen to her on her birthday.
We also have some maintenance work planned for the coach this week on Monday and Tuesday. Only bad thing about that is we have to get there in the mornings and the traffic can be bad. We only have to get the oil changed, grease the chassis and have the normal checks done once a year, want to get all that done before we head North for the summer. We also have a recall on the coach (change out the tow bar connection) that will get taken care of during that time too.
By the way, I have three brothers who have birthdays this week also. Happy birthday to Gilbert (15th), Brian and Brad (17th) this week! April was a busy month for birthdays around our house when we were kids, 4 within a week.
With Mark’s dad still recovering from his surgery, he wants to head back to Seattle to spend time with him. So we will be staying here to help Susy, and of course, spend more time with Kaitlyn. We don’t have our schedule set yet but we have doctor visits scheduled in early May up in Bellingham, will have to leave here the following week sometime. But for now, we know we will be in the area for at least another week, Lorraine is very happy about that, I’ll tell you. More time to be NaNa and be with Susy!!
So until next time, this OLD guy will say so long.
Thanks Chuck
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