Monday, May 11, 2009

Our second week at Beachwood

 

Monday, May 11, 2009                                                                                                     Lorraine’s Report

Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all our family and friends who are Mother’s out there. We had a great Mother’s Day! Our daughter, Susy and Grand daughter, Kaitlyn flew up here for a visit on Wednesday evening and spent the past five days with us. We drove them back to Seattle yesterday afternoon to Mark’s parent’s home. On the way there we stopped at the Skagit Valley Tulip fields, only to learn they topped them on Thursday. We stopped at Tulip Town and walked through their planted gardens. Kaitlyn had fun and we enjoyed the many colors and varieties still blooming, and it was warm and sunny for a change. It was so nice to have Kaitlyn and Susy here for Mother’s Day. And, my son, Rick called from the Keys in Florida. He’s there resting his shoulder per doctor’s orders. He said it was one hundred fifty degrees difference in temperature from where he was a month ago. That sure is a huge difference.

We had doctor visits this week and we both need to have further visits with other doctors. Hopefully, everything will go well and we’ll still be able to make the Alaska trip.

We also saw our financial planner and had him change some things.

On Saturday, my sister, Thelma had a get together for all of us to celebrate Mother’s Day early. I think there were about fifteen of us. There was tons of food, lots of laughter and we ended the evening playing Mexican Train. It was so good to be together again. I’ve missed that part of family events while we’re traveling on the road.

On Saturday at noon was Sandy’s fitting for her wedding dress. She sure looked beautiful in it. I think she picked the perfect dress for her big day. We are looking forward to being there for her and Richard.

That’s it for this week…so bye for now……Lorraine

May 11, 2009                                                                                                                     Chuck’s Report

How about a belated HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all the mother’s out there.  I hope you had a very good day. 

We are in the middle of our time here back “Home”.  I had almost forgotten how the area gets and stays so green, RAIN, RAIN and more RAIN!  We’ve had more rain in almost any given two days than we had this past winter in Arizona.  Although we really like this area, it sure rains too much for my (changed) taste.  Also, they had more rain, snow and cold temperatures than normal the past two winters, glad we weren’t here for that too.  And, my sun tan is fading. 

This week was the first round of our doctor visits, of course, our primary doctor wants us to see some other specialist before he will release us to travel to Alaska.  He hasn’t found anything bad but wants to rule out a couple of things for me and get more information on why Lorraine got so sick in San Diego in March.  The last of these visits require us to stay here longer than expected but our original timeline still works.  However, if these specialists require further visits, it may effect our trip timeline.  But here’s hoping for good news and a release so we can get back to our travels. 

Susy and Kaitlyn were able to come up for a quick visit for Mother’s day.  They stayed with us so Lorraine got lots of baby time and some time alone with Susy at their favorite mall stores.  They flew into Bellingham on Wednesday and we drove them down to her in-laws in Seattle on Sunday where they met up with our SIL Mark.  He was able to came up to spend some time with his family and check on how his father is doing.

On Saturday we went to Lorraine’s sister Thelma’s house for a nice visit and a Mother’s day dinner.  She had most of here family there plus us and our friend Tim even stopped by for a quick visit with everyone. 

One other thing we managed to squeeze in was a visit to our financial advisor, Jamie, at his office.  We changed some of our investing goals and we hope to sleep better when/if the market tanks again. 

And now for the pictures:

The following are some pictures taken at Thelma’s house on Saturday.  Looking over our pictures, I see we once again neglected to take any pictures of my BIL John.  But we will see them before we leave, maybe I’ll finally get him in the camera lens.

DSCN4583 DSCN4588 Thelma, Kerri and Paul.

DSCN4592DSCN4631Rose, Joshua, Patrick and Susy.

DSCN4635 DSCN4636 Patrick, Ashley and Patrick.

DSCN4637 DSCN4638 Carl, Joshua and Ashley’s new kitty.

DSCN4640 DSCN4642 Kaitlyn, Rose and Kerri.

DSCN4644 DSCN4648 Ashley, Thelma and Susy. 

On the way to Seattle, we stopped at the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley.  All the fields had just been topped this week but this place had some still growing.  Too bad the fields were picked, they make great pictures. 

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Kaitlyn and I spent lots of time at the playground here, she is too fearless for my comfort level but what can you do?

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We went out to dinner and took a few pictures.

DSCN4599 DSCN4605 DSCN4602   Gotta love those smiles.

Sunset over Birch Bay after dinner.  The beach is only about 1/2 mile from here. 

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Jamie and his wife Jeanne, our financial gurus.  They try to help us meet our goals and keep within our tolerance for losses, of which we’ve had too much in the past year or so.

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So that was another week in review, even if it did get written and posted late.  We plan on being here at Beachwood until Friday,  then move to a 1000 Trails park here in Birch Bay for another two weeks.  We will continue working on our list of must do items while here, getting some work done on the car and of course, those pesky doctor visits. 

So until next time - - - -   Chuck

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