Here we are, on the road: We’re in Santa Clara, California

Sunday, December 26, 2010 Lorraine’s report

Here’s hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas!! We had a blast with our grand daughter, Kaitlyn and daughter, Susy. Thank you both for making it so special for us!

Well, we are still in Santa Clara, the Elks RV parking lot. There’s not too much to write about this past week.

I have been not feeling well this whole time; Susy, Kaitlyn and Chuck all have had days where we all have felt awful, to felling almost okay. Whatever this virus we all have had is sure hard to shake. We all are tired of it and wish it would go away, now.

Chuck and I and Susy have watched Kaitlyn all week. She has colored, made ornaments out of melt down beads, wrapped presents for her dog and cat and everyone else. We have had a lot of fun.

She has spent 6 out of the last 8 nights with her Nana and Papa, even Christmas Eve.

Chuck went over to Mark’s house on Wednesday and spent 6 hours replacing a hot water heater over there.

Oh, and I had so many gifts I had picked up for Kaitlyn from across the USA this summer, we decided that Kaitlyn should open 2-3 each day for the week before Christmas. Kaitlyn really loved doing that!

Only thing, I messed up and put Susy’s stocking stuffers in the bag with Kaitlyn’s gifts and counted Susy’s as Kaitlyn’s, so I had to pick up a couple of things for the last 2 days, as I would be short 2 days worth. No big deal since we had gone out to Wal-Mart for groceries and Kaitlyn found a couple of things she really wanted. She got angry with Chuck for not getting them, but laughed after she opened her 2 gifts and found out that Nana had gotten them for her.

So that has been our week. We hope you all had a nice holiday, too.

To Connie and Manuel, we just heard what you are going through, and you will be in our daily prayers. I know how you feel, Manuel. I’ve been there. Please know everything will turn out the way God has planned things for you and Connie. He doesn’t give us any more than we can bare, this I know!

Until next time….Happy New Year, 2011 to all our family and friends……Lorraine

12/26/10 Chuck’s report

Still here, made it though Christmas just fine, thank you. Hope you had a Very Merry Christmas too!

Kaitlyn was out of school all week so we were able to spend most days with her, plus she wanted to spend most of her nights at Nana’s too. We are glad we can spend so much time with her when we are here, sometimes it’s a long time between baby fixes and we want to make the most of it when we can.

Lorraine had finished most of her Christmas shopping before we got here, she shops all year, wherever we are. I, of course, like to wait so it was Monday that Susy and I went to do my Christmas shopping. A couple of hours later, we finished, came back to the motorhome and wrapped them up, finished! Thanks for helping Susy, sure makes it easier.

Tuesday I got a call from our son-in-law Mark, the water heater in his house had sprung a leak and he wanted to make sure it was ok. I went over and made sure the gas was off (it was) and things were safe until we could change it out the next morning. So Wednesday we went to Lowes and picked up a new one, blocked and drained the old one, disconnected it and carried it out to the garage. It was a fairly easy swap, only problem was I forgot to pick up some Teflon tape for the water connections and we needed a new piece of vent pipe for the burner vent. Mark made a quick trip to Lowes while I got everything else finished and ready. About an hour later, we were checking it for leaks, looked good. We started cleaning up and putting the tools away when Mark spotted a small leak on the hot water outlet. We had to disconnect it and move the gasket around a bit. When we put it back together, no leaks and to this day he said it is still good. He has hot water once again, yea. I was glad to be here to help him change it out, that close to Christmas might have been an expensive time to get a plumber in.

Friday night we went out for a Christmas Eve dinner at Outback. Later we came back to the coach where Lorraine, Susy, Mark and Kaitlyn played card games. Kaitlyn wanted to spend the night at Nana’s once again so we got her to bed and spent a quite Christmas Eve watching our favorite Christmas movie together. In case anyone cares, our favorite one is “Christmas Story” about Ralphie wanting a new BB gun for Christmas.

As I said earlier, Lorraine has been picking up Christmas presents across the US all year long and she had a lot for Kaitlyn. She decided to let Kaitlyn open at least one present each day starting about a week before so she wouldn’t have so many on Christmas morning. That sure worked out good, Kaitlyn got to enjoy a present without dropping it to open another. She may have started a new Christmas tradition.

Christmas morning we got ready and headed over to Susy’s. Mark showed up a bit later and finally Kaitlyn could start opening presents from Santa. Boy was she excited! She had sent a note to Santa asking for a Hula Hoop (she got 4 of them) and a Unicorn with wings stuffed animal (hard to find that one but Lorraine got it at the Palm Springs swap meet a couple of weeks ago). She got the usual stuff for a little girl, dolls, clothes, books and other toys too. Plus she got the new blanket that Lorraine had knitted for her, she opened it and immediately placed it on her bed, she liked it so much. All in all, she was a very happy little girl.

After cleaning up the mess and almost filling the dumpster out side, Susy and Lorraine fixed a good brunch for everyone. We stayed around for awhile visiting and setting up Kaitlyn’s new stuff. Boy do they wrap stuff up too well, like Susy said, “Wish they would keep our State secrets as secure as these toys”.

Lorraine and I decided to head back to the coach, she was tired and needed a short break before she started cooking our Christmas dinner. She fixed a prime cross rib roast with potatoes and gravy, shrimp salad, rolls, cranberries, heck all the stuff! We ate so much no one wanted desert so that will wait for another day.

After such a busy day, Kaitlyn was tired and about 8:00 Susy, Mark and Kaitlyn left us. We had a very nice week and a Very nice Christmas day with them. Thanks once again for letting us spend so much time with Kaitlyn, I know we like it and I think she enjoys it too!!!

The weather this week has been dominated mostly by the rain. We haven’t had the terrible flooding that they got down South, sure glad we didn’t go to Disneyland before Christmas, it would have very wet. We had a couple of days with some sun and took advantage of them as much as we could. Today has started out very nice, sunny and warming up.

Our plans haven’t changed too much from last week, we leave here on Thursday heading for Palm Desert. We will get there on New Years Eve day, probably spend New Years Eve at the Elks lodge. We are seriously considering going to the Rose Bowl Parade with Dorothy on Saturday morning, our first time for that. I don’t really care to do thing like that but it is on our bucket list and it would be nice to see it once, I guess.

We will be heading over to 1000 Trials at Palm Springs on 1/6, the day our Canadian friends get into town. We will be going to the FMCA rally at Indio, it starts on 1/12 and ends on 1/16. Not sure how many days we will go there, we will keep the rig at 1000 Trails and drive over rather than park with all our friends who are staying at the fairgrounds. Although we won’t get to spend as much time with our FMCA and Lorraine’s Maestros group, at least we will get to see them and say “HI” and spend some time with them.

Our two weeks at 1000 Trails will be up on the 20th so we will probably head for Quartzsite after that. Our Canadian friends will be staying at a place in Desert Hot Springs, about 10 miles from us. They will be heading to Quartzsite with us, their first time for this experience, our fourth time there.

So now I will put a few pictures here and get this posted. The only pictures Lorraine took this week was of family so that’s all you’ll see here this week.

Kaitlyn opening her “pre” Christmas presents.