Here we are, on the road: We’re still in Blaine, WA

Sunday, August 26, 2012 Lorraine’s report

Well, it’s time to catch up the blog. It’s been a couple of weeks since we last wrote.

Hello once again from 1000 Trails in Birch Bay; and no we haven’t been anywhere in the rig since the last time. And it took Chuck over a week working with the manager of this park to let us be here this long.

I can say we are almost done with all the doctor visits. It turns our Chuck has had more doctor appointments than I did. We had two weeks full of doctor appointments, with Chuck going to 8 and me going 5. I can say I was very happy and thankful for my excellent reports on all fronts. Chuck is doing good health wise, also.

He has one more appointment tomorrow with his upper and lower GI doctor, probably to hear results from the procedure he had done in the hospital on the 14^th of this month. It should be okay also.

We have been quite busy socially. First I would like to thank all my family and friends that sent kind birthday wishes to me. I appreciate you and all of them; I had a good time on my birthday, and I thank you all.

We were able to catch with friends, John and Breta Brown when we went by the condo they rented for son, Dave and his wife and their granddaughter. Dave and our daughter, Susy have been friends since their middle school days and Dave was up for his 20 year high school reunion. We enjoyed our time catching up and hope we can get together again before we leave.

We attended the annual BP/Arco Friday Night Picnic and were able to see lots of friends we wouldn’t have been able to see. As usual, the chili feed was wonderful, but I can’t believe they ran out of hot dogs on the grill. I prefer them over a burger and by the time we made it through, the hot dogs were gone. But the picnic was fun and it was so great to see everyone.

One Sunday we were invited to the Kendall family reunion. Katie, one of Susy’s great girl friends from Rainbow days, came back home from Toulee, UT for a visit. Katie and Joe were the friends who showed us around Salt Lake City with their boys when we spent a week with them last year. It was great to see her again and I’m pretty sure she had a great visit with her family. Thanks Katie for the invite; I know you enjoyed my potato salad, since it was all eaten up.

We had our 40^th Anniversary Party on the 18^th of August. I would like to thank all our friends and especially our daughter and granddaughter, Susy and Kaitlyn for coming. I really enjoyed all the love, fellowship, food and fun we all shared and I thank you all for making it so wonderful for us.

I would like to thank Susy, Sandy and Richard for helping clean up and setting up before the party. Also, I would like to thank Breta Brown for all her help during the party, the cutting and serving the cake. Thank you all, our friends are the best!

Our Canadian friends came down for our anniversary party and we have had fun being with them this past week. The weather has been great and as usual, everyone has been busy. Thanks to Rick and Joy, Rob and Norma, their daughter and grandson, and Dennis and Barb. I really do appreciate the effort you all made to celebrate our anniversary with us.

As is usual, the Canadian gals and I go shopping, eat and enjoy our time together. We went to the Silver Reef for the old folks buffet with all of the gang and of course we had to play for a bit. It was a blast, and I think all of us were up?. Norma and Rob had us over for campfire one evening-thank you both. The fellowship was great, and the weather was mild.

One day, we went to the Ferndale Street Fair with Rick and Joy; after walking Misty dog, we took them down to Angel of the Winds Casino, after I returned the unused paper products from our party. A great time was had by all.

Our time here is running short, and after Labor Day we will go back out on the road. It’s a good thing too, the weather has changed from summer and it feels like fall is in the air here now.

While I loved being here during this good spell of weather, I don’t think I want to be here over another winter ever again.

So that’s it for me. Until next time…..

Lorraine

8/26/12 Chuck’s report

Wow, it’s been awhile since we’ve posted, I thought we only missed one week but looks like it was two. Oh well, can’t say our lives have been that exciting anyway. And besides, I don’t think anyone even noticed, nobody said anything to us about not posting, HA.

We’ve finished up will all but one doctor visit, I still have to meet with the GI doctor. All the others had good results for us, blood work and physicals we good for both of us. I had two visits with the hearing aid folks and they have them adjusted where they are actually working better. I also had the doc give me cortisone shots in my shoulder and hip, its helped some but can’t overcome old age I guess. So we are good to go for another year, glad it’s all over.

Lorraine had her birthday on the 6th, I actually took her to a movie. Lorraine loves going to the movies, me not so much. We saw Wimpy Kid #3 and there were only about 20 folks in the theater so that helped. Later we went out for a nice dinner.

One day we decided to take a “Sunday” drive up Mt. Baker. We were looking for some devil’s club, it grows in the higher elevation plus we wanted to just have a nice drive. We managed to do both and Lorraine took lots of pictures. We were stuck in stopped traffic due to construction when we notice friends of ours were in the car right behind us, was nice to see Dave/Gloria for a short visit.

One day we were invited to visit with old friends of ours, John/Breta who were in one of the vacation places in Birch Bay and their son, DIL and grand daughter were coming up for a high school reunion. It was nice to see them, it’s been awhile. Their friend, Karen, was with them and we got see her again too. All in all, a very nice visit although short as we had to get to the doctor for our physicals.

One morning I got a wild hair and decided to finally scrape, paint and install new non-stick tread on the front entry steps, they were looking a bit ratty and showing signs of rust. As usual, my idea of how long it would take was off by a factor of two, in other words, it took twice as long as I thought it would, ha. But once completed, it looked nice.

A couple of Sundays ago, we were invited to a family get together of friends of ours, the Kendalls. Their daughter is the one we visit whenever we are near Salt Lake City, she was a good friend of our daughter, they were in Rainbow Girls together. Once again, we had a good time and good visit with these good folks. Ray/Barb have a place in Yuma and we probably will see them down South this winter.

Oh yea, we also went to the annual picnic for the refinery. Boy were there lots of people there I didn’t know and I’ve only been retired for 5 years. But we did meet and visit with lots of folks we did know and don’t see too often.

Lorraine had been very busy getting ready for our 40th anniversary party, ordering decorations, food and working with the folks at the Moose Lodge. Our daughter and grand daughter came up to help us celebrate and that made it even more special. I think there were about 40 people at the party, lots of conversation and laughter seemed to be happening. A couple of folks went out of their way to help, thanks to Richard/Sandy and Breta plus of course Susy and Kaitlyn for all the help they gave Lorraine in getting everything accomplished. And thanks to everyone who attended and/or sent comments, it was good to see/hear from all.

Our friends from Canada came down and we saw them at the party and a couple of times since. We’ve been over to their place for a night around the campfire, I think there might have been some stretching of the truth a time or too but not sure. Anyway, it’s always good to see them either here or down South in the winter.

We had a good dinner with Susy and Kaitlyn at the Steak House the night before they left. Their flight was scheduled to leave at 7 which meant we were to be there two hours before which meant getting up at 4 am. It’s always sad to say bye to them but we know we will be down there this fall for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I’ve noticed we had a little bit of water on the floor after we get our showers, I finally tore the shower door apart and re-caulked everything. I also gave everything a good cleaning with heavy bleached water, we need to get to a drier, less humid area so we don’t get mold, ha.

And yesterday we picked up Rick/Joy and went to the Ferndale street fair. They block off the main street in town and let vendors set up their tents, have traditional fair type food and an old car show. We spent a couple hours there, didn’t find much we couldn’t live without. We then headed down to Angel of the Winds Casino for the afternoon. Rick/Joy have never been there so they were given $5 free slot play while Lorraine and I had to use our own money. I ended up as the big loser of the day, I was down $0.23, everyone else won so guess you could say it was a nice trip. We also had their inexpensive specials for dinner, Lorraine, Rick and I had their biscuits/gravy/eggs for $1.50 while Joy tried their salmon and chips for (I think) $1.50. We also ordered strawberry shortcake for a buck, almost to big for one person but we managed.

They weather has been mostly nice, a couple of days got pretty warm, into the 90s. But lately the highs have been in the upper 70s and cooling off at night to the upper 50s. Now I can live with that better than the HOT temperatures across the nation, and we don’t have to deal with hurricanes or tornados either. But, as all good things must end, the forecast is calling for cooler temps with possible rain this week, must be time to start heading South.

Speaking of, that’s what we are planning on doing. We are going to stay here through Labor Day weekend, then planning on doing the Oregon Coast for a month or so. We have enjoyed the Oregon coast in September a couple of times and hope for good weather while there this time too. But if the weather turns bad, we have plan B, head East and see Eastern Oregon. Either way, we plan on spending at least a slow, quiet month there. I’ve done some research and there are a couple of campgrounds in Northern California that we might try too. So even though we don’t have any reservations (as usual), we do have a rough idea of our plans for the next month or more.

Ok, enough writing about our lives, lets gets some pictures about it too.

Drive up Mt. Baker, lots of old cedar trees and moss. Up here, the moss don’t grow only on the North side of the trees!