New Years Eve, 2009

We were slow getting up this morning after the long day yesterday.  We still had to put away everything we brought, and organize the MoHo. 

We were invited to Ron & Ethyl’s house in Sun City Grand for a New Years Eve party.  We had to go shopping for some snacks and desserts.  Believe it or not I had to buy a bottle of sparkling wine.  Poor planning on my part.  I did buy a nice bottle of Domaine Ste. Michelle Brut, which was on sale at Fry’s Marketplace for $7.99.  What was surprising is that it was the same price as Barefoot Brut.  Some prices seem to have increased substantially.

Bob & Maggie picked us up about 6:00.  We stopped to pick up the pizzas at NYPD Pizza, which was really crowded.  They make authentic New York style pizza that you fold in half to eat.  Then we drove on to Ron & Ethyl’s house. 

Don & Maxine were already there, so we poured some drinks, and talked up a blue streak.  We hadn’t seen then since last March, so there was a lot to talk about.  The only downer was that Allan & Sharri weren’t there to help us celebrate. After about an hour, with the guys watching football, and the women talking, we put the pizzas in the oven.We did a good job of polishing off a great amount of food as we waited for the New Year.  At Midnight we watched the ball drop in NY, and then we went home.  We don’t seem to have the stamina we used to when we were younger.

Happy New Year to everyone, and may 2010 be a great year!

On the Road Back to Happy Trails in AZ

We're back the MoHo at Happy Trails in Surprise, AZ.  We'll be here until March 1, then we're moving to Casa Grande, AZ, near Tucson.  We'll probably make at least one trip back to SoCal to have the flooring installed, but we don't know when.

This morning we had the good workers at PCM, the support company here at Laguna Woods Village, came out to fix our dishwasher.  We tried to use the dishwasher on Monday, and it filled with water but wouldn't start the wash cycle.  I called, and they scheduled a repairman to come out on Wed. morning.  He showed up at 9:30 and had the dishwasher working in 30 minutes, including testing it to make sure it worked through all of the cycles.  This is one of the big advantages of living in a Co-Op, they take care of the maintenance on the appliances.  And they take care of all of the outside maintenance, so we can be gone for 3 months without any worries.

Then we finished up some last minute clothes washing, loaded the car with Pearl and the stuff we needed back at the MoHo and off we went.  Right into a major traffic jam going through the Santa Ana Canyon, go old Hwy. 91.  It seems that most people took off work early for the New Years, and headed out of town.  And there was a steady drizzle, so that slowed everyone even more.  It took us over 3 hours to get out to Palm Springs.  After that everything went smooth.  We arrived at Happy Trails a little after 9:00pm AZ time(We lost an hour at the border).

Tomorrow we’ll talk with our friends and decide what to do on New Year’s Eve.  Oh, and I’ll probably watch some bowl games.  Tough time of year for us football fans!

A Decision Is Made

We continued to look for flooring for the house.  We found just the right one.  We looked at a lot of different brands, including Wilsonart which is what we had in our house in Turlock.  We settled on Armstrong Grand Illusions Cherry-Natural.  Consumer Reports ranked Armstrong #1 in laminates.  And this is a premium 12 mm which is thicker than most.  You know how they rate levels of quality with good, better, best? This one is premium, which figures….It was a relief to finally make a decision.  We then went down to visit Linda’s Mom, Lois.  We wanted to see her before we left to go back to Surprise, AZ.  And we wanted to help her put away some of the Christmas decorations and her tree.  Her house looked really nice for Christmas, with a lot of ornaments and decorations that brought back memories of earlier Christmas when Linda & I were dating.  And no one does a better job of organizing and packing than Linda.  Just ask Jeni about her move!

That’s it for today.  Tomorrow we’ll probably head back to AZ in time to celebrate New Years with our friends if we can get a couple of loose ends tied up.

Pearl Looks Pretty & A Surprise Visit

Yesterday was a bad day for our dog Pearl, and today wasn’t much better.  Yesterday she was poked, prodded, and got a shot.  Today she went to the groomers for a bath and a pedicure.  She hated both visits, but she feels and smells much better.  And she’s starting to act more like her old self.  The antibiotics seem to working.

After picking her up at the groomers, we got a surprise visit from our daughter, Dr. Jeni.  She wanted to see our new kitchen, and she wanted to look for something to fill that empty bike box she got for Christmas.  Matt & Suzanne, & Linda & I went together to replace the bike that was stolen back in Oct.  With her short stature, the size of the bike was important.  We went to three different stores, and she narrowed the choices down to a Electra Townie or Schwinn Searcher.  We’ll continue to look for the best bike when we get back to AZ.

We had a little time left, so we asked Jeni for input on the new flooring we’re going to put in the house.  We’re going to replace the carpet with laminate flooring in the living room, dining room, kitchen, hall, and two baths.  The only rooms with carpet will be the two bedrooms.  Now that the kitchen cabinets are in, we want something complimentary, but not matching.  We’ve come close with a couple of samples, but we going to keep looking.

Jeni started back to Matt & Suzanne’s house, and we relaxed with some TV and leftovers.  Oh what an exciting life we lead.

A Little Change of Plans

We planned to go out and shop for our new floors for the house in Laguna Woods Village.  That would finish off all of the remodeling we’re doing right now.  But, our dog Pearl, has not been feeling well.  So we decided to take her to our Vet in Garden Grove.  They are open on Sundays.  The Vet has a very different arrangement in that they don’t take appointments, its first come, first serve.  We got there around 11:00 and checked in.  There were several people ahead of us, so Linda called Valerie and went over to visit with Iris & Violet while I waited with Pearl.  After a 2 hour wait, it turned out that she has a urinary infection.  They gave her a shot, and we took some pills home.  Hopefully, that will cure her.
After that we stopped at one store to look at flooring, but we still haven’t made a finial decision.  The kitchen cabinets are a little darker than we expected, so the original maple floor we had chosen is too light.  Now we’re looking for something a little darker, like a natural cherry.
We didn't have lunch because the vet appointment took a while, so we opted for an early dinner.  Since we missed out on the good food a Pei Wei on Wed. night, we decided to bring some back home for dinner.  We had to have the lettuce wraps.  If you’ve never had these at PF Chang’s or Pei Wei, we strongly recommend them.  They’re consists of  chopped chicken with veggies with a special sauce placed in a lettuce cup.  Crunchy and savory, they’re great.  Because it was a cold day, I ordered the Hot & Sour soup, and then we shared an order of Mandarin Kung Pao Chicken.  A great meal, and my fortune cookie was really good.  It said I will have a long and comfortable retirement-perfect!

The Day After the Big Day

Naturally the day after is a little bit of a let down.  We slept later, read the paper, watched a little TV, and generally relaxed.

Late in the day the kids called, and we met for dinner at Lucille’s BBQ in Cerritos.  They serve genuine wood smoked BBQ, and it’s really good.  Linda & I shared a combo platter of BBQ Beef Ribs & BBQ Brisket.  It came with two sides, which we chose baked pototoe & creamy coleslaw.  Matt had the combo of BBQ Tri Tip & Pulled Pork.  The ladies were really good, ordering salads with dressing on the side.  They’re really working hard at cutting down on the calories.

Jeni’s Christmas present for Matt & Susanne is a feature tree for their backyard.  So after dinner, we went to Home Depot to see what they had.  Matt found a Guava tree that he wanted, so into the truck it went.  Let’s hope he waters it well enough for it to survive.  At least plants at Home Depot are warranted for a year against loss, so at least he has a backup plan.

We then visited Lois, as Matt had to pickup the tools we gave him.  Mom’s house sure is decorated nice.  She even put up her hand painted houses this year that brings back some good memories.  We actually stopped by for a piece of special coffee cake her neighbor makes at Christmas that we had no room for the day before, but we were to late.  No, Mom didn’t eat it, her dog Misty did.  We hope she enjoyed it, because it’s really good.  Now we’ll have to wait until next year!

Christmas Is Finally Here!

Christmas is always special with our families.  And as the years have changed on the calendar, so has Christmas changed.  Now it’s about the Great Grandchildren.  And that’s what makes it so much fun.

Of course some of us don’t grow up very fast.

Everyone had a great time, and as usual Santa Claus was very generous.  Everyone contributed to dinner, which was outstanding.

When the day was over, we all took a deep breath, and began thinking about 2010!

Here’s the link to the Picasa Album with all of the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/winequest/Christmas2009_1#

Christmas Eve

Well, it’s Christmas Eve and now it’s time to relax. NOT! We still had a couple of presents to buy, and one of them was a very hard decision.  We went to 6 or 7 different stores looking for just the right item.  There was a lot of pros & cons, but finally we just decided to wrap up an empty box.  We let someone else try to figure it out!

We’re done, done, done.  All of the presents and boxes are wrapped, and we’re waiting with great anticipation for tomorrow.  Normally we would be with my Mother and her family on Christmas Eve, but this will be the first year we can’t.  My Mother passed away this spring, and it’s the Holidays that bring back so many great memories.  We always enjoyed Christmas Eve with the Whitfield side of the family, and they treated my Mother very special.  There will be a hole in the festivities this year for us and the Whitfields.  Mom, we’re still thinking of you in our hearts.  Merry Christmas everyone.

Closer to Christmas, & Pretty Pictures

The day started very chilly.  In fact, there was frost on the grass this morning.  In monitoring the temperatures in Surprise and Laguna Woods, they have been very similar for the last two weeks.

Linda finished wrapping the presents we had left, and we loaded them into the car to take to Linda’s Mom’s house, where we’re having our family Christmas celebration.  It was good to see Lois again, and of course it was fantastic to see Pearl again.  We had missed our dog for the last week in AZ.  Lois took very good care of her, but it wasn’t the same for us being in the MoHo with Pearl.  We brought her back to Laguna Woods, where she’ll be comfortable during the Holidays.

We still had a couple of presents to buy, but I couldn’t make up my mind.  We did meet the kids at Downtown Disney to take their annual pictures for Grandma’s wall.  Every year the grandkids get together for pictures, and now it includes the great grandkids for another picture wall.  The kids though that we could get a good background at Downtown Disney.  Well, we forgot that it’s the high tourist season, so it took a while for everyone to get there, park, and then meet up.  But we all made.  While we were waiting I took a couple of pictures of Violet: 

You would never guess that she’s inside a Lego Block!

After everyone got there we decided to try using the anniversary logo for a background: 

It didn’t really work very well.  So we moved on to the area around the Rainforest Cafe:
A little better, but we don’t know how they’ll look on the wall.  We’ll have to wait for the final decision with Grandma.  The kids were starving by then, so they had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, while Linda and I headed for home.  We were going to have dinner at Pei Wei, but it was closed so we shared an In & Out Burger, always a good choice.
If you want to see all of the pictures, check out our Goggle Album here:     http://picasaweb.google.com/winequest/DowntownDisney#

The Road Traveled Often

We loaded up the car at the MoHo. Linda had most of the presents wrapped. They filled the back of the Pilot, but I could still see out the back window, so I guess we succeeded in cutting down this year.

As we were leaving the wind started coming up and the sky looked very dark. The weather report said we would have high winds and a little rain. Well, it was correct. The rain wasn't bad, but the wind was there on the whole trip, and especially bad by the windmills in Palm Springs. I guess they know where to place those. On the news there was a dust storm North of Casa Grande that caused a traffic accident with 3 deaths. You have to track the weather when you're traveling. If we were in the MoHo we would have pulled over and parked.

We stopped at the Mountain Quail Cafe in Quartzsite, a nice family type restaurant. The special was Swiss Steak, which Linda ordered, while I had the Chili Burger. Both were very good, and Linda even got some carrots, her favorite vegetable, with her meal. I had to settle for french fries. Darn.

The house in Laguna Woods Village was fine, but very cold. We turned on the heat pump, unpacked our clothes and settled in for a week. We will really enjoy spending time with our family over the holidays.

John & Linda Both Shop Till They Drop

I'm starting to feel better, so we braved the crowds together. This makes it much easier, as I can drop Linda off at a store, go to a different store, and then come back and pick her up. It's funny thought, I can get done much quicker than Linda.

We're almost done! Linda started wrapping presents tonight, which is quite a chore in the small size of the MoHo. She does such a good job, with little special touches on some of the presents. This year we're using the same wrapping paper on all of the gifts from us so it'll be easy to watch when our presents are being opened. Sometimes it gets a little confusing.

We did discover a great deli, Jason's Deli (No relation to Jason Kalla, darn). It's a chain, but it has great sandwiches, homemade soups, and when you finish your lunch, there's a free ice cream cone station!. Check the web site for a location near you. We had the Hot Pastrami, which they split for us, and it was very tasty, and nice and lean. And did I mention the free ice cream?

We're planning on heading back to Laguna Woods tomorrow to get ready for a great family Christmas.

John Overloads on Football, Linda Shops Till She Drops

Since I'm still under the weather and we had more shopping to do, I stayed at the MoHo and Linda went shopping on her own.

It was a good day to watch football. With our new Sony TV, we get HD on the over the air antenna. And the local channels were showing the AZ Cardinals vs the Detroit Lions. It should have been a slam dunk for AZ as Detroit has only won only 2 games this year. AZ pulled out to a comfortable 17-0 half time lead. After half time, it all fell apart and it ended up tied. An exciting 4th quarter ended when AZ scored the good ahead touchdown with less than 2 minutes left. Then the AZ defense held Detroit, so they won the game!

There was 2 good afternoon match ups. The SF 49ers at the Phil. Eagles, and the Cin. Bengals at the SD Chargers. If SF loss the game, AZ would be the Division Championship for the 2nd year in a row, which made the game interesting. Boy was it cold in Phil. which played to Phil. benefit. SF did lose, so AZ is the Champion. But they're going to have to play a whole lot better in the next few games to be ready for the playoffs.

The Chargers game was really good, with a lot of back & forth. The Chargers won it on a field goal in the final 3 seconds of the game. SD looks like a lot better team than AZ. But only time will tell. This is the time of year when every game gets interesting and means a lot. And with the new TV in MoHo I get to see a lot of detail.

Of course Linda was out braving the crowds. And boy was there a lot of people out shopping. You would think that we're getting closer to Christmas. She accomplished a lot, but I'm not allowed to share any details. You'll have to wait until Christmas!

I was feeling better after resting all day, so I made an easy dinner of tacos. And we watched more Christmas movies that we had DVRed. A good day, even though we weren't together.

John Come Down with Linda's Cold

I woke up this morning with a drippy nose. Hopefully it's not a full blown cold. Just what I needed right before Christmas. But Linda's taking good care of me, so I know I'll feel better soon.

This morning I helped Ken & Peggy move a dinette set to their new home, which is very nice. And we met two of his new neighbors. A very friendly neighborhood. It's amazing how much we can put in the Pilot. Buying that car was one of my few good decisions.

Linda went with the rest of our friends to the Goodyear Marketplace. It's an open air swap meet with vendors having tables with everything imaginable for sale. But she didn't buy anything. I guess she needs my input!

We met for Lunch at Red Robin, where Linda and I shared a Whiskey River BBQ Chicken sandwich. It's amazing how much money we save by sharing our meals and drinking water instead of iced tea. The beverages at Red Robin were $3.00 a piece. And a half of lunch is more than enough. We're both trying to slim down a little. If you enjoy Red Robin, don't check the nutritional information on the table. I think their burgers are around 1200 calories without the french fries. Darn! We're really going to hit it hard after New Years, since they have such a good fitness facility here at Happy Trails.

After lunch we parted ways with our friends, and (guess what)....continued Christmas shopping. Linda did all of the heavy shopping while I sat in the car nursing my cold and reading a book. I always keep a book or two (Ellery Queen) in the car for such circumstances. And Linda prefers to shop on her own without me bugging her.

We came back home for dinner (Trader Joes Orange Chicken), and Linda waited on me hand and foot. Hopefully tomorrow I'll feet better. Keep me in your prayers.

Our First Happy Hour

The day started with a little repair work on the MoHo. Our Aqua-Hot was not working properly so I looked on the website for a technician. I found a certified tech living right here in Happy Trails! I called him, and 5 minutes later he was here at the lot with his tools. I was expecting the worst, but after crawling into one of the basement compartments, opening the doors on the Aqua-Hot, and adjusting a few things it was working perfectly. As I went to get my checkbook, he said no charge! So I gave him a bottle of very good wine (Louis Martini Cabernet) and we called it even.

Now, you're probably wondering what is an Aqua-Hot. Most RVs have propane heaters and water heaters. However, we have an Aqua-Hot system that uses electricity when we're hooked up, and a diesel burner when we are boondocking, or need a little extra heat. So if we're taking a very long shower, we never run out of hot water! Pretty neat. Now if I could only figure out how to increase our water pressure, I would really enjoy it. The diesel burner is what was broken, and as cold as it's been here at night we needed for some extra heat.

After that I went to the store and Linda decorated the lot, to get ready for our first happy hour. We invited Bob & Maggie, Ed & Judie, and our neighbors from across the street, Ken & Peggy. They have just closed on a house in Sun City West, and were waiting to sign the papers. They are so excited.

Everyone had a good time. We served BBQ meatballs, chips & salsa, salami roll ups, candied pecans, and assorted chocolates.

After that, it was a quiet evening with some TV. And an another day in paradise passes by.

Christmas Shopping

The day started with a visit from Bob & Maggie. Linda had lost an earring at their lot last night, and Maggie found it. HooRay! We had a nice visit. It so great to spend some time with our friends, and find out what they have been doing since last winter.

After we parted, Linda & I took off to do some Christmas shopping. I know what you're thinking, its about time. Well, we don't like to rush into things to quickly. Plus we're not to good on making decisions. We started off at Sam's Club, and struck out. Then we went to Costco in Peoria, and we did a little better. Then it was on to the Arrowhead Town Center, where we picked up a couple of things. But we're far from done. So you know what we're going to be doing over the next few days.

Hopefully we'll be done by Christmas Eve.

Heavy Appetizers and New Friends

It was a quiet morning as Linda is still recovering and building up her strength. We watched a couple of Hallmark Christmas Movies that I had taped.

This afternoon we are meeting for a Happy Hour with small plate type appetizers at Maggie & Bob’s motorhome. They also invited another couple from Monaco Northwest, Ed & Judie. The staying here at Happy Trails for the winter. I decided to shop for some food we could serve tonight. I went to Sam’s Club and I didn’t find any appetizers, but I did find some pretty carnations, and a locally made Cranberry Orange Brunt Cake from Cafe Valley Bakery.

So on to Trader Joes for the appetizers. I ended up with a frozen Tomato & Pesto Flatbread. We also added a vegetable tray with homemade dill dip, along with the brunch cake. I took a bottle of Louis Martini Cabernet Sauvignon to share.

It was a pleasure to meet Ed & Judie. They full timed for a while and live in Welch's, OR, near the top of Mt. Hood for part of the year. We had a lot of great conversation, and good food. When it got a little cold, we moved into Bob’s motorhome for more good talk. An excellent evening with great people and good food.

Cleaning Out the Pilot

We had a little excitement this morning, as Linda checked the website, familywishlists.com, which we have been using for years to post our Christmas lists for everyone to check out. It’s a neat site and we’ve become very dependent on it over the years. Well, it was down this morning, going directly to a godaddy.com domain registry site. Linda called Matt, Matt checked the site for contacts using the cache, and gave us a phone number. Linda called, and an hour later the site was back up with all of our data intact. Whew!

We still had the Hope Chest in the back of our Honda Pilot, so we journeyed out to Jeni’s condo. Now we’re both in Phoenix area, but we’re on the west side in Surprise, and Jeni’s on the east side in Chandler. It takes almost an hour to cross town, and get to the condo. And we though L.A. was bad.

On the way we stopped at Arizona Mills, an outlet mall to do some shopping. We weren’t impressed. I like the outlets near Palm Springs much better, and Linda doesn’t like outlets at all. I bought a couple of pairs of khakis at the Haggar outlet, but that was it.

Linda found a listing on Craig’s List for some garage shelves, so we called, and met the owner at his house. He turned out to be a retired policeman who was a full time RVer. We enjoyed talking with him and bought both of the shelves. He evened delivered them to Jeni’s condo. The only problem was that I had to put them back together and it a little struggle. Next time I’ll pay more attention to how things are put together.

After that, we decided to go out to dinner. Jeni chose a restaurant called Firebird, and it was very good. Jeni is on a strict diet, but she knows how to order from any menu and stay on course. She’s really working hard, and we know she’ll be successful. We got home about 10:00, a long day for us. The weather is warming up, but the nights are still cold, so we’re running our heater at night and in the morning. Hopefully it will continue with the warming trend.

A Catch Up Day and a Great Dinner

We were slow getting started this morning but then Linda moved into high gear. She cleaned everything up, put everything away, organized the shed, and made everything ship shape. John did some shopping at his favorite store (Trader Joes) and handled the heavy chores.

At 5:00pm our good friends Bob & Maggie Lawlor picked us up for a nice dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

It had been to long time (last April) since we had seen so we had a lot to catch up on. They are staying here at Happy Trails too. In fact it was hard to get all of the words out, so we adjourned to their motorhome for after dinner wine and chocolate. It can’t get much better.

Back to Sunny (Hopefully) Arizona

We woke up Sunday, and took it easy. Linda was feeling better, but we didn’t want to push it. She still had a little headache, and her stomach muscles were sore, but as the morning wore on she began to feel stronger. So we decided to head out for our return trip to Happy Trails.

We had lunch at Chipotle and then stopped at Matt & Suzanne’s house on our way out of town to pickup my Mother’s old hope chest. It was one of the remembrances that Jeni wanted to keep. It fit in the back of the Pilot. That car has come in handy many times.

Then it was on to the long and boring drive to Surprise. We were entertained on the trip with our satellite radio. We listened to some Christmas old time radio shows and sang along with some traditional Christmas songs (be glad you weren’t there).

We arrived in Surprise about 9:00pm (remember the 1 hour time change) stopped by Fry’s Marketplace to pick up some homemade soup for a late supper. The MoHo was still there and waiting for us. We watched a little TV and then it is off to bed. Hopefully Linda will continue to get better.

A Quiet Saturday

We were planning to head back to Happy Trails today, but with Linda still not feeling well, we decided to delay it a day.

We caught up on the wash and put some stuff away in the new kitchen. Did I mention that it rained most of the day? I took advantage of the change of plans to go out to Hemet and visit with Matt, Suzanne & Wrigley their dog.Here she is with our Pearl, trying to learn from the expert on how to relax with style!

They had started to decorate their house for Christmas. So we all jumped in Matt’s car and went out to Lowes to get a Christmas Tree and a new light for outside of the garage. Matt and I also worked on the sprinklers (in the rain) to make sure they were working right. All in all, a very nice visit.

After a very slow drive home (did I mention it was raining) I reheated some leftover pizza for dinner, and then settled down for a Christmas movie on the Hallmark channel. A good day, because Linda’s is starting to feel better.

A Change in Plans

My day started with a bang with a phone call from Linda. Remember, she’s watching our nieces Iris & Violet while Valerie & Rick took a quick trip. Well, she came down with the flu overnight. She was really hurting, so I quickly drove over to help out. The kids were wonderful, and Linda’s Mom, Lois, came over to help out too. Between the two of us the kids survived.

It’s amazing how much a difference a year makes. Last Christmas one of Iris’s main presents was a large automated pony that you can sit on and it moves like a real horse. She didn’t like it at all, and wouldn’t even touch it. Look at her now:

She loves the horse and rides it all the time. And she shares it with her dolly and her sister. How great is that.

That’s about all that happened today. Hopefully Linda has the 24 hour flu and will be better tomorrow. We were never able to get our flu shots because of the shortage, so we are probably more susceptible to getting sick. But Linda’s has a strong system so she’ll probably be OK, but if you have not got your flu shots yet, don’t procrastinate any longer. There’s more vaccine available so it should have be easy to get two, the seasonal vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine.

The Kitchen is Almost Complete!

The installers came this morning at 7:30am. We didn’t know they were coming, so we weren’t prepared. I was still in my sweats! They started right in adding electrical outlets, light switches, the famous facet, the garbage disposal, reinstalling the dishwasher, and the refrigerator. We were still waiting for the stove and the microwave to be delivered. They finally got here at 2:00pm, and the guys went right to work finishing the installations. Here’s the results, looking towards the south wall: As you can see, we partially tore down the wall to create an expanded counter. The frig and stove were moved to the south wall. Here’ a picture of the window area facing west: To get the added counter space and cupboards we removed the guest closet from the corner. The two corner cabinets are lazysusans , with two shelves that spin. Here’s a picture of the famous sink and facet": And you can get an idea of the granite. Here’s a close-up: The color is a little off because I’m using my I-Phone for the pictures. There’s no dark spot in the middle of the picture. But it gives you the idea of how it looks.

So the kitchen is done. Except for the lights and skylight that are going to be redone and some pendent lights over the bar. Oh, and of course the floor, which is currently wood subflooring. We’re having a hard time deciding what to do with the flooring, laminate, tile or a combination of the two. That’s next.

Linda’s off taking care of our niece’s two girls, Iris & Violet. So I’m on my own tonight. And I’m sitting here writing the blog. I had a frozen beef and bean burrito for dinner. Do I know how to live it up or what!

We Have Granite Inside the House

In the past we’ve enjoys views of granite in Yosemite National Park. Now we have granite countertops in our kitchen. They came, they cut, they molded, they glued, and finally we have all of the counters in beautiful granite.

We had to leave in the middle of the day to go to my hip Doctor for a checkup. The x-rays showed that the hip has finally healed. Any pain or limping left is due to an inactive lifestyle. He said I had to go out and beat the heck out it, with no limitations. So I guess I’ll have to get out of my comfortable chair and put down my computer and get out there and do some things. Hooray.

On the way back to the house, we got a phone call from the installers asking where the facet was. DUH. We bought a sink, but no facet. Sometimes I think I’m going brain-dead. We stopped a Home Depot and got a nice single handle facet with a pull out spray head and rushed home. The installers looked at it, saw that it needed one hole, and handed it back to me. I guess they just needed to know how many holes to drill. I could have told them that over the phone, and it would have prevented a lot of stress.

Since we don’t have a kitchen yet, we went out to dinner at Sandella’s Flatbread Cafe. We had the pesto chicken flatbread. It was ok, but it’s probably not someplace we’ll be returning to soon.

The weather has cleared up, but it’s still cold with a high of only 57. There’s a possibility of rain this coming weekend. California needs the rain, but it doesn’t have to be this cold. It’s not winter yet.

Tomorrow the new appliances arrive, and hopefully the installers. More on that tomorrow.

Cabinet Installation Day

Tuesday dawned clear and bright, but boy was it cold! John got up early because he didn’t know when the workers would get here. Naturally they showed up about 10:00am.

Then it was hard and fast work for them. All three of the workers were Chinese, and they just kept measuring, assembling, installing, leveling, and then put the finishing touches on. We kept out of the way, until we realized we had everything but the kitchen sink! Out we went looking for an under mount stainless sink that was in stock. We found one at Pacific Sales, and hardware wonderland. Boy, are sinks expensive. In order to get it, we had to drive to the warehouse in Whittier, across the street from the entrance to Rose Hills. Mission Accomplished!

When we got back to the house everything was done-Amazing! Here’s how it looks today. This is looking towards the sink area. The stove will be on the left where the cooktop used to be. The area on the right is the breakfast bar area. Hopefully, granite counterops will go on top of the plywood soon.Here’s another picture where the stove will go and the refrigerator will be on the far left. They did all of this in one day. WOW.

In the evening we went to the Leisure RV Wheelers Club holiday dinner. It was very nice and we met some new people here in the village. They have some interesting trips planned, but we’ll be at Happy Trails until April, so we’ll miss most of them.

Tomorrow we’re supposed to have the granite installed. We’re anxious to see the results.

Rainy Day Monday

We woke up to rain, which lasted all day. Since it was raining so hard, they called and postponed our installation of the kitchen cabinets until Tuesday. Big disappointment.

Around 10:00am, our contractor, Ted, came to complete some of the work in the kitchen. He had to remodel a wall and move some electrical outlets to facilitate the new cabinets. He also textured the drywall he had installed to match the other walls in the living room.

While he was working, we took Pearl to Lois’s house so that she would be comfortable with all of the activity going on. We also took the opportunity to help Linda’s Mom decorate for the Christmas Holidays. It was a lot of fun, except for the tree lights. They’re always difficult. The house looks really festive, and it helped put us in the Christmas mood. It was sad coming back to the house without Pearl. But we know Linda’s Mom will take really good care of her, and she’ll be glad to be out of the way.

Brunch with our Northwest Friends, then a Long Drive

The day started bright and early, at 9:13 for church. Here at Happy Trails they have their own church. This morning there were about 450 attendees. They have a very large choir that is really good, a pair of retired ministers that are very down to earth, and great music. We met Don & Maxine(Max) at church, and after the service we picked up Bob & Maggie at their motorhome and drove to Chandler to have brunch at On the Border.

We met our other good friends, Alan & Shari, and Joe & Phyllis. It was great to catch up with our friends whom we haven’t seen since last winter. We stayed way after the food was gone, just talking and making plans. Don & Max are from Lake Oswego, OR, and they stay at their home in Sun City Grand. Bob & Maggie live in Bellingham, WA, and stay at Happy Trails. Alan & Shari are staying at their cabin at Lake Mayfield for the winter. And Joe & Phyllis live in Bellingham, WA, and stay at Palm Creek in Casa Grande, AZ.

After the brunch, we dropped everyone off, and went back to MoHo. We packed up some essentials, loaded Pearl in the car and headed for Laguna Woods. It was an easy drive with light traffic until we hit a lot of wind by the wind machines in Palm Springs. We’re glad we weren’t driving the MoHo in that wind. But we made it safely to the village and unloaded everything. It seems like we just left here!

We have an appointment on Monday to have our new kitchen cabinets installed. We’ll probably stay there for about a week to get the remodel finished, then we’ll head back to Happy Trails.

Saturday Night with the Limeliters

Our friends, Alan & Shari Kainu flew in for a visit today to attend a concert with us. We have spent the last 2 winters together at Happy Trails, but this year they decided to stay home at their cabin on the Lake Mayfield. We’ll miss them. Here’s a picture from last year with their Granddaughter Madison.They came by Happy Trails to visit with some friends, and they stopped by to see us. We really owe them a debt of gratitude because without their help, we wouldn’t have the lot we’re living on this year.

We started the evening with dinner at Carrabba’s Italian Grill. I had the Spiedino di Mare, a scallop and shrimp entre, and Linda had the Chicken Bryan, topped with goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and a lemon basil butter sauce. They were both very good, and the company was terrific!

The concert was Glenn Yarbrough and The Limeliters.

I’ve been a fan since the 60’s. Unknown to us Glenn has had 6 surgeries on his throat over the years, and he’s basically lost his voice. But he did tell some interesting stories about the early years. The current Limeliters (none of them are the originals) were very good, singing the old songs and injecting some new ones, including Power and Glory, which honors the firemen of 9/11 that really moved the mostly older crowd.

It was a great concert and an even greater evening with our friends.

Vendor Day & a Visit with Jeni

Today was he vendor day here at Happy Trails.  A number of small businesses buy tables to display their goods.  A lot of it is handmade, including jewelry, paintings, a lot of different sewing goods, and retail people selling items that would appeal to owners in Happy Trails.  The event draws a large crowd, with the parking lot full and cars parking down the street.  And more than half of the shoppers arrive in golf carts!

Here’s a picture of some of the outside tables.It looks comfortable, but when we got up this morning the temperature was 37 degrees.  So the premium tables for the long time vendors were inside the ballroom. We wandered around not buying much.  I renewed our Sam’s Club membership with a bonus of a $20 gift card.  We weren’t sure we were going to renew, but the location here in Surprise is 1/2 mile away and they have good prices on gas.  Costco is about a 20 minute drive away, so it made sense to renew.  BTW, gas here is about 50 cent cheaper than in CA.  Gas at Sam’s is $2.43 a gallon.  We did get a couple of little things, but nothing exciting.  I was disappointed that Linda didn’t some of the unique clothes such as hand painted blouses, quilted jackets, and decorations.  But they’re be another sale next month.

We bought over some things from the village for Jeni and I wanted to get them out of the car (they rattled) so we drove down to Chandler to drop them off.  After we got there and unloaded everything, the women took off.  Two hours later they were back with bags.  They found this small shop called My Sister’s Closet and they both bought some new clothes.  I guess I shouldn’t give Linda a hard time about buying stuff again!

We were late getting back to the MoHo, due to the shopping and bad traffic.  Poor Pearl was late getting her dinner.  She didn’t seem to notice, as she was asleep on the bed when we got home.  Since it was so late we just had soup and sandwiches for dinner, and settled down to watch the final show of Monk, one of our favorite shows.

The weather is going to continue to be cold for the next week, with rain predicted for Monday and Tuesday.  We’re heading back to Laguna Woods on Sunday to check on our kitchen remodel so we’ll miss the rain here, but probably catch it in SoCal.

Tomorrow is a busy day.  We’re going to meet our Northwest friends for dinner and a show.  We’ll share more of that in our next blog.

An At Home Day

Just like when we lived in our house in Turlock, there are days when you have to maintain and clean MoHo. Linda had a great plan. She made a list of stuff she needed and errands that needed to be done, then sent me off. This kept me our of her hair while she did all of the hard work.

Linda took everything out of the cupboards and cleaned everything. John went to Wal-Mart, the cleaners, got the car washed, and stopped at the hardware store to rent a carpet cleaner. So now everything looks like new.

While the MoHo was in storage John had a new Sony 32” HD flat screen TV installed. It didn’t turn out the way Linda pictured it, but the TV picture is really nice. John’s going to have a little more work done to improve the fit of the TV to the cabinets when we get back to SoCal.

John cooked steak and baked potatoes for dinner which nicely finished off the day. Tomorrow is the monthly vendor day here at Happy Trails. It's kind of an arts and crafts sale in the plaza. John will take some pictures and let you know if we buy anything. It’s always fun to look at everything. Who knows, there might be a potential Christmas present there.

Home at Happy Trails

We left Quartzite at a leisurely 10:00am, and made our first stop of the day at Zips Truck Stop. We always stop here to top off the tank on MoHo before getting to Happy Trails. They have the cheapest price on diesel, and very nice facilities. One of the advantages of buying diesel in AZ is that there is a tax break for private coaches, so we save $.08 per gallon. And that's on top of the fact that fuel is about 15% cheaper than CA.

After storing MoHo at El Toro for the last 3 months, the outside was very dirty. It’s hard to wash it in a campground, so we took it to a truck wash in Phoenix. Danny’s Big Rig Resort has everything a long haul truck driver could want. And it washes RVs to! John drove it in a narrow but large lane in a warehouse, where MoHo was hand washed from top to bottom, then sprayed clean, and hand wiped down to remove all the water drops and clean the windows. It looked really good! And John never had to get on the ladder.

Then we went on to Happy Trails. Our new lot was clean and ready for us. With Linda’s excellent directions, John was able to back into the spot on his first try, with some minor back and forth to get it lined up with the concrete patio.

We got out everything, since we’ll be here for 3 months. The lot has a nice shed, with ample room for a bed and its own bathroom(sorry, no shower).

So come and visit us. You’ll have your own private room, and we promise a comfortable bed(not in pictures)

We have a nice patio, and outdoor cooking area with plenty of space for tables and chairs.

Pearl seems right at home.

Tomorrow is an inside cleaning day. Since the outside looks so good, we have to clean the inside from top to bottom.

The weather here is sunny, but on the cool side with cold morning. High 68, low 37.

Back on the Road

We left Laguna Woods today for our Winter home at Happy Trails in Surprise, AZ. This will be our 3rd year at Happy Trails and we’re really looking forward to seeing our friends and getting involved in the community again.

We got a late start due to a meeting commitment at the Village(Geserville). We’re still trying to get a storage spot on site, but they

don’t have a space big enough for us. There was a proposal to inspect all of the current renters to make sure they are complying with the rules. They were going to vote on it today, so John went to the meeting. And guess what-the vote was postponed. So we stayed for no reason.

Since we got a late start, we decided to stop in Quartzite for the night. We’re only about 3 hours away from Happy Trails, but we like to park and setup during the daylight if possible. We should get there around noon tomorrow. You know we like to get an early start in the mornings!

So that’s about all that happened today. Pretty boring, but it feels

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good to be back traveling. By the way, did you see the full moon tonight?

This was taken with my I-Phone, so it’s not real good, but you get the idea. This was taken right outside our front door. We understand why people like Quartzite so much.