Jaxson Comes for Another Visit

I’ve got some good news and some bad news.  The bad news is that our DIL Suzanne fell in her kindergarten classroom and broke her small finger.  That made it had to take care of William Jaxson, so we offered to help her by taking him back to the Village with us for a few days.  That’s the good news! We had a ball.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took him for a long walk along the creek, played with him with his new toy, the alphabet train, and oh, we did take him to Disneyland so see all of the Holiday decorations!

His favorite TV show is Mickey Mouse’s Clubhouse.  Well, in California Adventure they have a live show with puppets that brings the clubhouse to life.

We were a little concerned that he might not feel comfortable inside the theater.  When the doors opened there were no chairs or benches.   The floor was carpeted and everybody sat on the floor.  Kind of tough for an old man like me.  Then it got real dark and few kids started crying.  But as the show started Jaxson was fascinated.

After the show we went over to Disneyland to see the lights.  Our timing was not great because everyone was lining up for a parade.  We fought our way down Main Street, and then onto It’s a Small World.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They have a huge Christmas Tree (not a Holiday Tree) where the giant pumpkin was last month.  So we had to have a picture!

Those annual passes are really working out well.  And we’re getting a lot of exercise with all of the walking!

The MOHO Moves, and So Does Matt & Suzanne

Matt & Suzanne are moving to a new house.  It’s closer to both of their work, and the house is almost as large as their previous house.  For those of you who don’t know, they short sale their house, which was a very good move.  We took the MoHo to Wilderness Lakes, which is not one of favorite campgrounds.  They have some canals there that attract ducks & geese.  Very pretty animals, but they poop anywhere they want, usually by the campers.

Of course there were a few problems.  The moving company was supposed to be there between 8 & 10.  They showed up about 1:00pm.  Linda & I got up at 6:00am (I know, hard to believe) to pick up Jaxson and go to the new house to meet the cable & internet installer.  He was supposed to be there between 8 & 5.  A long time to not be late, but Matt wanted to make sure he had internet access.  He showed up about 3:00 pm.  Oh well.

Of course the movers brought to small of a truck.  They really packed it in tight, but there was still stuff left over.  Matt & I spent Sunday, in the rain, loading our cars and ferrying it over to the new house.  The good news is we got everything moved by late Sunday afternoon.  And we got to spend some fun time with Jaxson.  He’s growing up so fast.  He doesn’t walk much, he runs everywhere now!

On Monday we headed back to the Village, tired but happy that we could help Matt & Suzanne, and spend time with our Grandson.

On The Road Again

We’re finally back on the road in our Motorhome.  We started with a Grandson fix.  We stayed at Wilderness Lakes in Menifee, close to Suzanne’s and Matt’s house.  Here’s some of the latest photos:

Needless to say, we’re going to miss the little guy.

After our short visit we headed North on Hwy 99 to Turlock, our old home town.  We boondocked in our good friends, Bob & Kathy Whitehead, yard next to their red barn.  Bob is well know as “Red Barn Bob” of geocaching fame.  In fact while we there Bob & I went out geocaching and found 9 out of 10 caches.  If you’re interested in what geocaching is, click on the link:  geocaching.com.

We had many special meals, had great conversations, and just had a great time with our friends.  It was so great to see everyone.  It has been way to long since we saw them.  We even go a chance to play Skip-Bo, and as usual Bob won with a lot of help from Rosemarie.

We continued North on Sunday through some rain, but luckily no wind.  Our goal was Weed, CA, and we arrived there about 4:30.  We found a nice RV park using our Passport America membership.  That gave us half off the normal price.  It’s called Friendly RV Park, and it was off I-5, but far enough so there was no road noise.  We got a pull through site so that we didn’t need to unhook the car.  It’s right at the base of Mt. Shasta, but we couldn’t see it for the clouds and rain.

It rained most of the night, and it got down to 38 degrees, but cleared up in the morning and we could see the mountain:

As you can tell, it’s very cold and the snow level is very low.  We hope we don’t have any problems going over the Siskiyou Mountains.

Today we should make it into Oregon, where we lived for 13 years.  We’re really looking forward to it, even thought it’s rainy and cold.

Iris’ 4th Birthday

First off, here’s a recent photo of William Jaxson:

We can never have enough pictures.

Our niece Iris turned 4 this month:

We decided to take her out on Friday to celebrate.  We had lunch at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor.  For those of you old enough to remember, Farrell’s was a favorite place when our kids were growing up.  It started in Portland, OR, and eventually grew to 130 locations across the US.  But Marriott bought out the chain from the original owners and slowly the restaurants started closing.  By 1990 there was only a couple left.  In 2009 a new company bought the concept and started a new Farrell’s with the first one opening here in Mission Viejo.  It’s exactly like the old parlors, but the prices have gone up considerably.  But the fun is still there.  We shared a pretty good lunch of a Patty Melt and a Toasted Cheese sandwich.  Then with much fanfare, they brought Iris her Birthday sundae.  It was a little to much noise for Iris, but when things calmed down, we managed to eat it.

 

After lunch we went back to Laguna Woods Village to visit the horses at the stables.  This is the only adult community that I know of that has stables for the residents to have horses, but maintains some for the residents to ride.  Last time Iris was a little nervous around the big horses, but this time she actually petted some.

After the visit to the stables, we went to the local Pumpkin Patch at the Laguna Hills Mall.  They had it set up really nice with rides, and a lot of, well, pumpkins.  These must be good money makers.  We were there on a Friday and it was really busy.  And families were really spending the money.  We started on the pony ride, which was just like the one I use to ride when I was 5 in Crestline when we were on vacation.

After that it was a ride on the train, some individual rides, and we checked out the pumpkins.

After all of the activities, we went back to the condo where Linda & Iris worked on a bracelet together.

 

 

 

It was a fun day and we sure enjoyed our time with Iris.  On the way back to her parents she fell asleep in the car, the same way our kids used to after a fun day.  It brought back a lot of precious memories for us, and we’re looking forward to spending time like this with Jaxson.

After the weekend, Linda went out to spend some time with Suzanne & Jaxson while I stayed home with Pearl.  I can see a lot of days coming like that in the future.  First I was replaced with Pearl, and now it’s Jaxson.