Sunday, November 28, 2010 Lorraine’s report
Another week has flown by and we are still here in the Santa Clara Elks RV back parking lot. This week the weather has been a lot cooler, more wind and lots of rain. But compared to back home in Bellingham where they had temperatures in the low teens at night, 60 MPH Northeasterly winds blowing straight down from the glaciers in Canada and SNOW, this is Paradise. I knew the rest of the country had sunny, blue skies, not the gray cloudy, wet and windy weather found in the Pacific NW during the winter all the time.
Well, last Sunday, Chuck went and picked up Kaitlyn from Susy’s house, just around the corner by 7:30 am. He was going to watch her so Susy could catch some extra sleep. Nice thought, guess who joined Nana in bed for five minutes, then wanted to get on with the day; guess I didn’t need more sleep.
Susy and I had planned to take Kaitlyn to Valley Fair Mall to see Santa on Sunday afternoon. Her mommy had promised her she could make a build a bear; she chose Clarice, the reindeer, Rudolph’s girl friend. She loves that reindeer and while building it Kaitlyn found you could put a musical unit that plays and sings the Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer when you push the button. She now knows that song by heart, and while we were out for dinner, Kaitlyn and Susy sang together along with the recording, it is so fantastic to hear her and her mommy sing together. Kaitlyn as well as her mommy have such sweet voices.
Kaitlyn has wanted to go to a park, but the wind was blowing pretty hard and it was cold outside. So we took her to the playground at the mall after Build a Bear, where she played with 50-100 other children that wanted to be outside, but couldn’t. This play area has that rubberized floor that is easier on kid’s knees
Of course, Kaitlyn saw Panda Express and wanted her Panda soup for lunch. The food court was so crowded and the noise level was incredible. You couldn’t hear the person across the table from you, and people were waiting to pounce on an empty table; and it took forever to get your food.
Finally, it was time for Kaitlyn to see Santa. Kaitlyn surprised both of us; she went in to talk to Santa, only this time she sat on his lap all by herself. This was the first time she has ever done this! Usually she has her daddy sit with her while she sees Santa and they take a picture of her, her daddy and Santa. I guess being with Mommy and Nana made her brave enough to do this and get a picture of just her and Santa. Way to go Kaitlyn!
We went home and I did a ham dinner for all of us. Then it was more card games, Go Fish and Old Maid. We all had a great day.
Monday we took off early to head back to Oakland to get that card Chuck needs to return to work at the refinery in Bellingham in March. The drive was the longest part, but it wasn’t raining when we left, although it rained on the way there.
We stopped at Walmart to get supplies, then headed back. Chuck stopped by the MH on the way to pick up Kaitlyn so he could put his ice cream away before it thawed.
Dinner that night was at Chili’s.
Tuesday I was feeling really ill again, so we spent a quiet morning home. We picked up Kaitlyn from school at 2:15 and brought her home where I did our normal routine with her. Susy came home and we ate dinner at home. Later, Kaitlyn fell asleep in Chuck’s arms while he was rocking her so she spent the entire night with us. It was so cold and windy, Susy hated to take her out in it, and she is too heavy for Susy to carry her up to her condo. Kaitlyn spent the whole night without any problems, no night terrors or anything like that, I had about two hours sleep that night.
Susy and Kaitlyn were both off from work and school and Susy came over later on in the morning. We headed over to Costco to get movie tickets; they are cheaper there than in the theater. We wanted to take Kaitlyn to see “Tangled” on Thanksgiving Day. We came right back and did more of the same stuff we have been doing.
Thanksgiving found the girls coming over for brunch, followed by the movie ”Tangled” .
Kaitlyn really liked the movie, but it may have been a tad too long for her. She needed to lay on us in the theater. We came right home and she wanted to have her “quiet time”, a good thing. Afterwards, Susy went over to Mark’s to pack some stuff she was sending to Seattle with Mark.
They came back and we headed out to Black Angus for our 5 pm reservation for dinner. What a surprise there. The place was jam packed, there was no place to sit while you waited and if you made a reservation then you had at least a half hour wait to get your table. We enjoyed a nice dinner, but the service was slow; the waitress said she had been there since 11 am with the place packed all day.
Black Friday! In years past Susy and I would be up by 4:30 or 5 and be out to hit all the places for the great sales. Not this year. Susy went out on Thanksgiving at midnight to the Great Mall, which opened for sales early. She wanted to check out several things. She then had to be up by 6:15 to take Mark and Kaitlyn to Oakland airport to catch the plane to Seattle to see his mom.
Susy came by for me at 9:15 and we headed over to a mall in the East Bay. We found some good sales, but didn’t buy all that much. We ended up spending most of our time fighting crowds and waiting in long lines to pay, up to 45 minutes. I’m a person who feels that when I want to buy something, the store should be waiting to take my money for the goods, not me waiting in long lines to pay. It’s all backwards!
We headed for home by 3 pm and rested a bit. I checked the movie theater times for Harry Potter and found that we could make two matinees if we hurried. We again headed out but had to stop for gas in the car, so that meant we would have to go to the later of the two movies. We both enjoyed the newest Harry Potter movie. Susy dropped me home and headed to her house. She was beat, as was I.
Saturday we planned to put up Susy and Kaitlyn’s Christmas tree. Only one problem, when we picked up the tree at Mark’s house, the stand to hold the tree wasn’t with the box. So off we headed to Home Depot to find a tree stand. We ended up getting a new 7 foot tree with LED lights. We decorated the entire tree in about three hours. Dinner was delivered pizza, good food.
I should say that I’m almost back to normal (for me). I still get a terrific headache, have sinus drainage, cough and get nauseous, but I am feeling a whole lot better than I did last week, in spite of not having much rest or sleep.
We want to wish John a very Happy Birthday on Tuesday, and Rose a Happy Birthday later on in the week.
So that’s it for me….Be well….Lorraine
11/28/10 Chuck’s report
Yep, were still here, near our daughter’s place. Last Sunday Lorraine, Susy and Kaitlyn took off for some shopping, I stayed home and watched a football game. I also was able to track down an intermittent power outage on some outlets in the bedroom, I found a loose connection in a false floor under the bathroom sink. They sure find some strange places to hide things on these rigs! Lorraine made a nice dinner later and then played card games with Susy and Kaitlyn before they headed back to their place.
Monday we drove to Oakland to pick up my TWIC card, now I’m covered to work back at the refinery according to the federal government. The fact I worked there over 36 years had no bearing on it, I still had to be checked out before they would issue me my card. But it’s good for five years so don’t have to worry about it for awhile.
We made a couple of stops on the way back then picked up Kaitlyn from school for another afternoon of fun and games. We met Susy and Mark at Chili's for dinner. Mark and Susy volunteer at Kaitlyn’s school, taking turns every other Tuesday morning. Mark was on for the next day so he took Kaitlyn home for a Daddy night. Susy came back to our rig, she and Lorraine played cards for awhile before calling it a night.
Tuesday we once again picked Kaitlyn up from school and had a normal afternoon of fun and play. Susy came by after work for dinner and we agreed to let Kaitlyn spend the night with us, something she hasn’t wanted to do this trip yet. She had a bad dream in the middle of the night, otherwise it appeared she had a good night with Nana and Papa.
Susy took Wednesday off from work so she came by in the morning. Lorraine still wasn’t feeling too well plus she didn’t sleep as soundly as normal with Kaitlyn here overnight so we just made a quick trip to Costco and stayed close to home the rest of the day. Well, that is except for a trip to In N Out for dinner, that is.
Thursday was Thanksgiving, hope everyone had a good one, we did. Susy and Kaitlyn came by in the morning, picked us up and we all headed out to the movie house, meeting Mark there too. This was the first showing of a new movie they wanted to see, an animated one called “Tangled”, about the princess Rapunzel. I don’t enjoy going to the movie house, much prefer to wait until the movies come out on DVD or on TV but this one was sort of cute and had many laugh out loud parts. I think Kaitlyn liked it more than anyone else did though so it was worth it.
After the movie we came back to our place for awhile then headed to dinner at Black Angus. Susy had made reservations about three weeks before, called and checked on Tuesday to make sure everything was still ok. Even with that, once we got there, there were about 50 people waiting for tables and they all had reservations too. We waited over 45 minutes for our table but it was worth the wait. They had a Thanksgiving turkey dinner special plus the normal menu too. We ended up with two of the dinner specials, turkey and all the trimmings, and two ordered off the menu, steak and such. Everything came with deserts too, pumpkin pie with the specials and a big, fresh, hot chocolate chip cookie with the normal orders. All in all, it was more than we could eat and we left there full and carrying three take out boxes, ha.
Friday morning Mark and Kaitlyn were flying out of Oakland to Seattle, Susy was going to give the a ride to the airport at 7:00 am. After getting them to the airport, she came by our place and picked up Lorraine for some Black Friday shopping. After they got back from shopping they decided they wanted to go to the movie house once again. This time they wanted to see the new Harry Potter movie, I elected to stay back and watch the dogs vs. going along.
Saturday morning Lorraine fixed a breakfast for us, Susy came by to eat with us. They spent some time wrapping Christmas presents they had bought the day before. We then went by and got some Christmas stuff we had stored at Mark’s place. We also got Susy’s Christmas tree out and started to set it up but found the tree holder was missing. A quick trip to Home Depot took care of that, too well in fact as Susy got a new tree, marked down to less than half price. I picked up some plastic and such to cover the windows in Kaitlyn and Susy’s bedrooms. While they decorated the tree, I put the plastic over their windows. We had the Washington Huskies/California Bears football game on the TV but none of us got to watch much of it as we were in different rooms. But the Huskies did win (yea) and if they win next week they will probably be invited to a bowl game for the first time in many years.
After we finished the jobs we were doing, we ordered a pizza and watched the rest of the Stanford/Oregon State football game. Stanford won once again, finishing their regular season with 11 wins and 1 loss. They are now waiting for the bowl announcements coming out next week to see where they will be playing. Mark and Susy will probably go to their bowl game so they are waiting and hoping right along with the team.
It has remained cooler than normal here this week. We’ve had temperatures below freezing a couple of mornings, this morning being one, but it warmed up as soon after sun came out. We’ve had a couple days of rain, Monday, Friday and Saturday but so far today we’ve had sunshine.
Mark and Kaitlyn are coming back tomorrow, we will be leaving here on Wednesday morning heading for Palm Springs so we will only pick her up after school one more time this trip, on Tuesday. We have sure had a good time with them once again and it will be pretty quiet without them while we are in Palm Springs but we will once again be back here in two weeks to spend Christmas with them. There has been some talk about us maybe going to Los Angles for a visit to Disneyland with them before we come back but we haven’t settled that yet. Also, part of our schedule may depend on which bowl game the Sanford foot team gets invited to. Depending on which game and when and if Susy, Mark and Kaitlyn do go to the game, that may affect our schedule too. But as usual, our plans are petty fluid and we will make/change them as we go along.
So once again, that was our week in review and short look ahead at our plans, such as they are. Guess I’ll add some pictures and get this posted. We don’t have many pictures to add as we didn’t take too many this week so it shouldn’t take too long.
Kaitlyn at the play area in the mall.
Then a trip to see Santa, she wasn’t too sure about it though she warmed up soon.
Susy and Lorraine decorating Susy’s Christmas Tree.
And that’s all, folks! I’ll get this posted now and get back to watching the football game.
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