Here we are, on the road: November 2014

November 30/3014 Lorraine’s report

Hello from the Elks Lodge in Santa Clara. It’s raining, kinda like back home in Bellingham. Chuck wrote about our weeks here so I will just add to it.

I would like to give all my Facebook family and Friends a great big “Thank You!!!” Without your help, not sure how our son, Rick would have done. He came through with flying colors and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart!!! He now has a cold, with everyone having a cold everywhere, he was sure to get something. But he is doing okay, and would like to thank you all for all your prayers, love and concern. We certainly had a lot to be thankful for this past Thanksgiving. To all FB family & friends, Many, Many Thanks.

So tomorrow we leave the area and head off to Palm Springs. We are looking forward to seeing some of our friends from WA and the Lewis and Clark area.

Time to head over to Susy’s. Not sure what the plan is, but we always enjoy our time together. Today is John Damon’s birthday. Hope he has a wonderful day. On the 5/6th is Rose’s 21st birthday,(not sure of the day). That should be fun for her. Until next time.

Hugs,

Lorraine

11/30/14 Chuck’s report

It’s been awhile since we’ve posted because we haven’t done too much while here. We are at the Elks lodge near Susy’s and usually spend our mornings doing our thing then picking up Katie from school in the afternoon. Our afternoons/early evenings are usually spent with Katie, doing homework, playing, eating and watching Sponge Bob. After Susy gets off work and, depending on traffic, gets here we usually have dinner and a good visit until they have to go home.

Weekends are different, of course, and usually Katie spends them mostly with her dad. Sometimes they come by and we have a good visit with Mark too, he works evenings teaching during the week so we don’t see much of him during the week. Lorraine and Susy sometimes try to spend time together on one of the weekend, shopping is a normal task for them, ha.

Lorraine did spend two weeks in Alaska with our son for the first two weeks in November. For those who haven’t heard, he is doing amazingly well and continues getting better every time we talk to him on the phone. I don’t do well by myself and was sure glad when she came back home, that’s for sure.

I moved back here to the Elks on Sunday and picked Lorraine up at the San Francisco airport later that evening. Since she’s been back, it’s been more of a normal routine as described above. Katie had a big school project due last week, she had to make a relief map of California. She worked on it or did research for it everyday along with her normal homework so she was a bit stressed out over it but she got it done and I think it turned out very well. (Of course, her mom, dad and Nana might have helped some too.)

We did our normal thing for Thanksgiving, we go out for dinner at Black Angus. They have a full Thanksgiving meal with turkey and all the trimmings or we can order from their regular menu and get steaks and such, something for everyone. Susy made our reservations a bit earlier than normal this year as the Seahawks were playing the 49ers at 5:30 so we wanted to be finished with our dinner and home by then. We made it with minutes to spare and were able to watch the game, Seattle won, YEA. So their playoff hopes continue just like our son Rick said. He told me they would start winning about this time of the season and continue right through the Super Bowl. I hope his predictions come true.

Lorraine and Susy used to do the Black Friday shopping thing but decided to forgo it this year. Instead they put up and decorated Susy and Katie’s Christmas trees. I hung up a few lights outside for her but found two strings didn’t want to work.

We went back over on Saturday and Lorraine, Susy and Katie went out to get their traditional Christmas picture with Santa taken at a local mall. While they were out, they decided to go to a movie, they went to the new Hunger Games one. I don’t much care to go to the movie house and needed to work on the outside lights so that was just fine with me. Mark was there and he made a run to get some new outside lights, after he got back I finished up with the outside ones then we worked on putting up more inside, around the window and door. Really looking holiday like around her house now, their first Christmas in their new house.

A good news to add also, Susy has quit smoking!! I know how hard that is, I bet I quit 100 times but she seems to be doing ok. Sure hope she is able to continue and be successful. After all the times she gave me grief when I smoked, I was surprised to hear that she had started but whatever, I’m glad she’s quitting.

The weather has been normal California type for most of the time we’ve been here, into the 70s during the day with plenty of blue skies, dropping into the 50s at night. California is in a two year drought and the last few days we’ve had some good rains to help break that. I hesitate to complain about the rainy weather considering all the bad weather, cold and snow across the US in the past weeks but - - we’ve had rain now for three days and I’m ready for some good sunny days. I heard on the news this morning that some parts of the Bay area have had over 3” of rain in the past three days. I would guess we’ve had over 1” here and it’s raining hard as I write this. But they are forecasting no rain for our travel day tomorrow, hope that forecast comes true. I haven’t given in yet, still wearing shorts and tee shirts although with the rainy weather it does feel colder than the high 40s.

We can only stay at this Elks lodge for two weeks, then must leave for at least three days before coming back for two more weeks. I think we’ve stayed here for 6 weeks now, with a trip to Las Vegas for two weeks and I moved over to San Benito 1000 Trails for two weeks while Lorraine was up North for our times out.

We try to spend Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas here and figure two weeks at a time upset Susy and Katie’s routine enough that we should let things get back to normal for them by leaving the area for two weeks, sort of two weeks in – two weeks out. With that being said, our two weeks are up tomorrow again so that means we have to move.

Our plans are to get ready for travel and leave here in the morning, we plan on going to 1000 Trails in Palm Springs. We have plans to be there for two weeks then we want to be back here for our two weeks over Christmas. But it’s good to get out on the road and give all the systems on the coach a good workout too.

We’re hoping to meet up with some of our friends in the area, both those traveling/visiting and those who live there. I’m sure we will find plenty to fill our time while there and it won’t be long before Lorraine will begin counting down the days until we are back here, spending time with Susy and Katie during Christmas.

I’ll go through and see if Lorraine has taken any pictures to add here, then get this posted.

Katie at her school during a fund raiser walk-a-thon. I think she walked/ran 15 miles that afternoon.