Merry Christmas

 

MAY THE CHRISTMAS SEASON FILL YOUR HOME WITH JOY

YOUR HEART WITH LOVE

AND YOUR LIFE WITH LAUGHTER

Lunch with a Chat Room Friend

Today was a special day.. I had the pleasure of meeting up with Lake Conroe Penny, from the RV Dreams chatroom.  It has taken us so long to get together, considering we only live about 20 or so miles apart. I thought it time to finally set a date before Kevin and I pull out for the winter. Rather than have her drive the distance to me, we chose to meet halfway in Conroe at the China Buffet.  We had a lovely lunch and chatted IN PERSON for a few hours.

It was great to meet this special lady. We are all so amazed at what she accomplishes.  She has been RVing since 1968 and knows so much about all kinds of RV’s along with fixing them up. Any question anyone has in the chatroom, we all refer them to Penny. I’m sure we will get to meet again some day. I sure hope so. Thanks again Penny!

Well, I finished up with my Christmas shopping today. After the lunch I continued on to do some shopping.  It was successful and now I just have to wrap them up.  I still can’t believe Christmas is next week. Not too sure where the time goes.  This is a picture of our little tree. Perfect size for the RV.

We have been busy here going thru our storage. We want to empty it out before the end of the month. Still trying to decide what to keep. I hate the paper work. I started shredding but it takes so long, think I will have Kevin burn the rest.  

I have also worked at the golf course a few days.  We did a Christmas party last Saturday and have another one to cater this Saturday at someone’s house.  That will be the end for me, as we are pretty busy for the next week.  We plan on leaving here the 27th or 28th of the month. We will be headed to Florida. We have reservations at McDill AFB in Tampa starting Dec 30th.  Our house is in St. Petersburg and we hope to clean it up and put it on the market.  Also looking forward to the Tampa RV Show and hopefully hooking up with some other dreamers.

Illinois to Oklahoma

We left Scott AFB on Saturday morning. Before taking off I took a few photos. This is definately a park we would return to.

What a great place for $15 a night, although they don’t have sewer hookups.

Our next stop was in Oklahoma to meet up with Lynette and Gregg (aka Mac and Netters).  We were meeting at a casino campground called Bordertown which borders Missouri and Oklahoma.  We were surrounded by casinos. We had three days together and hit three of them, a different one each day. We were looking for the big hit for all of us but Mac seemed to be the only one that came out ahead. I broke even after winning a slot tournament.  We didn’t mind at all, the most important part of this visit was to catch up with each other and just have some fun. We did that along with sharing some great meals.  It was a  great time with these special dreamer friends. I can’t wait to meet up again in Rockport in March if not before..

I am really bad because I kept forgetting my camera but they had theirs, so to see pictures, you will have to read their blog soon. I did snap these two this morning before leaving.

Mac assisted Kevin with the hookup on this cold frosty morning. After all of us having the .99 breakfast at the casino, it was time for goodbyes..  Miss you both already!

Happy Thanksgiving

I can't believe Thanksgiving is already here. Why does time pass so quickly as we get older?!

The last few weeks are like a blur. Let me see. I spent one whole week trying to find a new computer. I also found out in that time span that I am totally addicted to computing.. Something I never thought would happen. I think I had 5 visits to Best Buy. The first one I bought was a Toshiba and got it home and it just wouldnt connect, so back I went. They tried also and couldn't connect. No more in stock, grrr. It was a few days later that I went back and bought the Dell that I had been eyeing. Ok, thats all set but the aircard wouldnt connect. Off to verizon for them to download the program for it..Had one good night with it and then next morning the verizon program is gone... Back to the verizon store for another download. I hope that will be it for quite a while. I finally feel complete with my laptop back in posession.
We were also busy going back and forth from our storage container. We want to have it emptied out by the end of the year. The hard part for me is going through the Christmas decorations. I am sorting in three piles. One for our daughter, one for son and one for us to keep. Not fun but at least its pretty much done now.
This week we are in Illinois spending Thanksgiving with our son and his family. We loaded up the truck with alot of boxes of kitchen stuff along with the Christmas things for him. We left Monday morning and drove over 600 miles staying at Walmart somewhere in Arkansas that night. We were up early and left at 4am Tuesday morning for an easy 300 miles. Only downside was, we stopped in a Sonic for breakfast and driving out of the driveway, Kevin caught a sign on the back of the trailer. It tore the sign down completely and put several scratches to the paint of the RV. Had to give them our insurance info so hope that won't raise our rates.
We are staying at Scott Air Force Base Famcamp. Not a bad park at all. It is about 45 minutes from our son. Have our vucube all set up and it was working like a charm, until last night when we returned, I forgot we were only on 30amp and turned on too many things and blew the circuit. After resetting, our LR tv would not come back on. Directv tried helping me get it restarted but it was a no go. They said sometimes the receiver burns out when this happens. Yikes, no tv in LR.. At least we had the bedroom one. Until late today, for some reason we lost satellite reception altogether. We had even gone out and bought a new receiver for the LR. Tomorrow is another day and we shall try again. It was rainy and very windy today so hopefully tomorrow will be better. We don't do well without tv......so wish us luck!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone..

Catching Up

I think I left off last week with us working on the Halloween Party at the park. The first night was warm and the turnout was huge. I worked the concession stand and was in charge of hot dogs. Kevin worked the parking lot. The second night which was Halloween, the temps dropped alot and we were cold. Not very many showed up and I didn't sell many hot dogs, but the hot chocolate was a big hit. I took pictures but unfortunately you will not get to see them.
We were hoping the awning would arrive at the dealership on Monday but we got a call from them that it didnt arrive. We were then rescheduled for Wednesday morning at 8am, thinking it would arrive sometime on Tuesday. We began getting things packed up and got the laundry done. Tuesday afternoon got a call that it didnt arrive again. It was rerouted..grrr.. It was scheduled for Wednesday. They then gave us a noontime appointment, hoping it would be there in time.. We were very lucky that the park is not crowded and they let us stay in our site for a few extra nights. All went well on Wednesday. We arrived, and luckily the awning was there. We unhooked and got directions to a great lunch place on the water at St Andrews Bay. Once again took pictures but you won't get to see them. All the work was taken care of and we were on our way at 5pm headed to Ms.
While travelling to Ms we had ourselves a sandwich and soda. My laptop was in a tote bag on the floor by my feet and my can of soda tipped over and landed on the computer. Uh oh.. This is why you will not see the pictures. Foolish me, had not saved the latest ones to disk as of yet. I was planning on it but never did do it. Lesson for everyone.. don't let it go. I had hopes that it would dry out and be okay. We stopped at Hollywood Casino for the night and I didnt know what to do with myself without it.. So I HAD to gamble. I lost, guess it was not a good day for me.
We pulled out of Ms Thursday morning about 10am. Arrived back in Magnolia Tx around 5p to a nice home cooked meal by our daughter. We had reservations for a Thousand Trails Campground on Lake Conroe in Willis Tx so headed there to get settled for two weeks. And that brings us to now. We had two of the grandsons stay with us Friday night, they left yesterday afternoon. We are currently having a relaxing day. I am using my daughters laptop for a few days but I am activly looking for a new one. I loved my 2 yr old Dell but was told by BB Geek Squad that it is most likely gone and not worth the money to have them take it apart. So the search is on. I want something lightweight and compact to travel with. In the meantime I may be without one for a bit.

Good News/ Beach

Just got the call from the dealer here that has been working on getting Dometic to replace our awning.. After seeing the pictures, the gave us a yes, they will replace the roller and awning…. That has made us very happy. Only problem, we are not sure when they will get it in. They needed more info from us and the order will go in tomorrow. Alot depends on having it in stock. We should have an answer tomorrow. If it is something that can be done in the next week, we will just stay here until that can happen. What better place to be stuck!

Today was beautiful, sunny and in the 80’s. I headed to the beach for a few hours and just relaxed and read.. Kevin stayed put. 

Rain may be heading this way, but we hope not, as tomorrow night is the start of the Halloween Celebration here at the park.. Will let you know..

Tour of Topsail Hill Preserve State Park

Today is cloudy but the forecast calls for temps in the 80’s. Not quite there yet.. We had a lazy morning and went to Walmart for a few errands.

I am posting the pictures I took yesterday of the park. It really is a very nice campground. Some people like the 100 section where it is more manicured but others opt for more of a rustic, treed site and some around the small lake. Or as we call it a pond. We hear there is good fishing..

The office

Pool 

Shuffleboard

The 100’s section

 

Laundry

 

Lake sites and the clubhouse in background

Our street

 

Street with cabins

 

 

Newly constructed cabins about to open

The new tent sites, not yet opened

 

Outdoor theatre where they do interactive talks and movies

And finally the road to the beach..

 

That about sums it up. Hope you now have a better idea on why we love this park.. Of course I have already shown you the real draw..

The awesome beach!

Official Last Day of Work Here at Topsail

Well, this month sure has flown by.. Yes, today was our last day driving the beach tram.. And a wet one it was.  We picked up the golf cart at 8:30 and headed to the office to get keys to the tram and pick up our list of checkouts. We only had 11 checking out.. They told us to hold off on the tram runs until we hear from them. We were sent home.. We didn’t hear from them again until 1:30, telling us to start doing the runs again at 2pm. So it certainly was a fast day.  Once the rain had stopped we took the opportunity to take some pictures all around the park. I will post them maybe tomorrow.   And I said it was our official last day because we will be helping out Friday and Saturday night with the Halloween Bash.  We are scheduled to leave here on Monday.

I spoke to our dealer today about our awning and the pictures I had sent them. Of course they claim that they checked it out and the awning was fine.. We don’t believe that. Looks like it was probably a problem from the factory, but who knows. We only know it didnt happen while we had it or we would have known it, for sure.  They gave me a number to call Heartland. I did just that and the guy I spoke to was great. He gave me the number of a dealer in Panama City not to far from here. I called them and they asked for me to send them pictures. They will check that out tomorrow and get back to me but have penciled us in for Monday. Hope all that goes well.

Lazy Saturday and then Back to Work

Saturday we had decided would be a lazy day and that is exactly what it was.. Kevin enjoyed watching football and I got caught up on laundry…Although I don’t enjoy the laundry thing, it was a nice day and I took the opportunity to sit on the porch at the laundry room and read.

Sunday was our first day back on duty. It started out cool but the sun came out and it was another beautiful day. We had about 50 checkouts so were kept quite busy in between our shuttle runs to the beach.  Luckily we do get the sites cleaned up pretty much before noon. That way, we have the afternoon free between shuttle runs to catch up on football. I was even a good wife and did the 3pm run myself and let Kevin stay and watch one of the games.  I was so exhausted after dinner, I knew it would be an early night. I got into bed with my computer and signed into the chatroom for awhile. I got booted when my battery died and was too tired to go get the plug.. Oh well, I was off to sleep shortly after that.

Monday, another work day and it started out cloudy, but wasn’t long before the sun was shining. The temps were in the 70’s and we loved driving around.  The park is fairly quiet this week. I’m not too sure if it will fill up for the weekend since it is Halloween. They are having a celebration here on Friday and Saturday evening. From what we have heard the town come out for this event.  Everyone has been asked to work. I will be on concessions and Kevin will be working the parking lot. They started putting up the Halloween decorations for it today. Looks like fun.. Just hope the weather cooperates.  Tonight we needed to get a few errands at the grocery store so we decided to have dinner at the Golden Corral. Good dinner but ate way too much and feel way to full right now.

A Fun Day in Pensacola

Today’s weather forecast called for rain on and off all day. We made the decision to head to Pensacola.  We left fairly early about 9:30 and stopped at Camping World on the way. I have a favorite restaurant at Pensacola Beach, called Crabs. I love the she crab soup they serve.

 

We  arrived and the door was locked. We figured we were too early and that they probably don’t open until noon but the sign said open at 4pm…Oh no, what disappointment I felt. My mouth had been watering for the soup.  Kevin said thats okay we will come back at 4p. Oh yeah! We drove down the road to Ft. Pickens where we have camped several times in the past. However hurricane Ivan blew thru there 5 years ago and devastated the area. The road was completely closed in with sand and most of the hotels, houses and restaurants were severly damaged. We found this out two years ago when we visited the area. Today we were thrilled to find out that pretty much everything is rebuilt, the road is open and the campground is now open.  It took a long time to rebuild but definately worth it. This is such a beautiful area and walking distance to the beach.

Next stop

 

The Naval Air Station.  We had a few things to pick up at the exchange and while there Kevin got a haircut. Then on to the Navy Air Museum.  We have been here before and really enjoy each time.  Wouldn’t you know my camera gave up on me.  Some how I must have hit a button and switched to internal pictures and it was full. It wouldn’t let me transfer back. I also carry another picture card in my camera bag and when I went to get that out, it was gone. I bet I lost it taking the camera out.  Really a shame because I had many picture opportunities the rest of the afternoon.  This base is a great one to drive around due to it being on the gulf.  Very pretty. We checked out the lighthouse and then the campground.

We headed back to Crabs. We arrived 1/2 hr early so walked down on the beach.  It had turned out to be a beautiful sunny day in the 70’s. I took a seat and watched and listened to the surf. The waves were huge. In fact, they were patrolling the beach and not letting anyone in the water. Finally 4p arrived and we sat out on the deck so we could still be by the water.  It was happy hour, wings, shrimp and oysters .25 each.  Oh yum, along with the she crab soup..  A perfect day, drink in hand, wonderful food, good music and sitting by the ocean..  What can be better than this!

Relaxing Day-Beach and Dinner

I was really hoping I could sleep late today but like clockwork I was up by 7am.. I did laze around for a few hours before we headed to the beach. Today it was cloudy and very windy at the beach. I loved it. There was a time when I would only go when the sun was shining strong. Now, I prefer a cloudy day. Sitting on the beach, with the sun poking thru now and then and listening to the  strong surf. What could be better. It is certainly a stress reducer. Very, very relaxing.

 

Tonight we went out to dinner. Why not continue the relaxing day with not having to cook.  We went to a fish place down the road.  I decided to try the fried softshell crab.

 

Honestly I wasn’t crazy about it and I love crab. I have never ordered the softshell crab before.  Kevin had the jumbo shrimp stuffed with scallops and wrapped in bacon.

 

Now his was good.. We topped it off with dessert. I had a delicious homemade bread pudding. Oh yum. Kevin opted for the brownie ala mode.

We are now settled in for the night. We have not heard from the dealer about our awning. I will give them a call tomorrow.  Still have those fingers crossed.

Work and Visit from a Chat Room Friend

We were on duty here Monday and Tuesday. Oh, what beautiful weather.  It was a perfect day to drive around on the golf cart and the shuttle. We were not busy and had the chance to spend time  talking with the campers here.

Today we had a visit from Rob from the RV Dreams chat room. He lives in Tallahassee and when he heard we were here, took the 150 mile  drive to meet up.

He and his wife have had their house on the market a little over a year now and are anxiously awaiting the day when they can be out on the road. He spent several hours here just chatting. It was real nice to meet him, he is a great guy.  Thanks Rob for coming. Sorry his wife couldn’t make it, but she had some appointments.  While he was here we put out the awning, which we haven’t used as yet. When he looked up he saw a problem.. Several slits in the awning over the door.

Just before he left he noticed the roller bar had a dent in it.  We can’t figure out what happened. Like I said we haven’t used it until now.  They didn’t  open it up all the way on our PDI because it was pouring rain.

I have a call in to the dealer and have sent pictures. A little worried since awnings are not covered under warranty.  Keep the fingers crossed that we don’t have a problem..

Our Weekend Visitors

We decided to split the kids up for their stay here. Once slept with Grampy on the pullout and one with me in the bed. Saturday morning at a very early hour I heard grampy and Logan talking. As I glanced at the clock it was only 5:45 and with that Joey who is next to me wakes up saying he doesn’t feel well. And within seconds he was getting sick. Not a good start to our day. We got up and cleaned up. Shortly after that they were already asking what time can we head to the beach. Overnight the temps had dropped drastically. It was in the 50’s outside. We had to tell them we would hold off on the beach until 10:00. The coloring books came out and that kept them busy until it was time. We gathered all our beach stuff and headed for the tram stop.

Hmm, we were the only ones on the tram, wonder why?!  We found out when we got there. It was mighty windy, but the boys went about testing the water.

and playing in the sand..  We only stayed an hour. They were freezing after getting wet,so we took the 11:00 tram back.  After an early lunch Joey was not feeling well and we took it easy the rest of the day.  Logan and I  headed to the laundry room since I only have one set of sheets!

Sunday morning it was a wee bit warmer. Once again the boys wanted the beach. We decided to drive down the road to another beach close by. They chose not to wear bathing suits today, just play on the beach.  We had a great time. I enjoyed sitting with the sunshine on my face while they ran around and had fun playing in the sand.  

We saw lots of jellyfish washed up onshore.

Glad we weren’t swimming with them.

Someone had left a sand sculpture behind. 

For lunch we decided to head to Fudruckers. This is a restaurant that has an alligator pool outside. You can buy food and feed them, but since it was cool they were just lying on a dock and sunning.

 

By late afternoon it was time to head to the airport for an early evening flight back to Houston. Luckily Joey was feeling better today and got to enjoy himself. We did too and loved having them here with us.

Fall is Here Finally

Yes, it has finally cooled off and does feel like fall.  Only problem with that is we have two of our grandsons that arrived tonight to spend the weekend with us. Hopefully it will be warm enough for the beach. They are looking forward to it.  We picked them up at the Ft Walton airport which is on the Eglin Air Force Base.  On the way home we stopped at McDonalds. They said that it was the bestest McDonalds they have ever been at. It really is a cool one. It has a jungle theme,with trees and animals that make noise. We are now back in the campground and they are coloring for awhile before bed.

Today went really fast. I did a little cleaning in here but other than that don’t know where the time went. Guess most of it was spent on the computer.

For those wondering how I like my new bed topper. It is much more comfortable than just the mattress.  It isn’t as thick as some others but sure does help the comfort level. I have been sleeping much better. 

Work and Rain

Wed.

Boy or boy, did it rain during the night. I guess all my friends out there sent it this way. Just as we were leaving for work, it stopped. We had a good day, only 22 checkouts and because of the clouds not too busy with the beach tram.  Our last run was at 4pm but with storms heading back this way the rangers closed the beach so we did another run around 4:30. Back home we had dinner and settled in for the night.

Thurs.

Once again we had heavy rain this morning. The weather didn’t seem to know what it wanted to do. Sun would come out then hard rain again. Not a beach day at all. I was kind of glad to have a lazy morning to stay in. I have so many things to still straighten out in here. Seems like we are never home. I pulled out the filing cabinet I had bought and started sorting and filing some of the papers I had in a shoe box.  When I tired of that job I decided to shower and head out shopping. With two of the grandsons coming tomorrow for the weekend I needed to stock up on some stuff.  They are calling for much cooler temps the next few days. I sure hope its warm enough for the beach. The kids are looking forward to it and so am I….

Shopping, Laundry and Decisions

This morning we woke once again to a very cloudy sky. We had rain during the night and it certainly looked like more was coming.

We invited two of our grandsons to visit with us this weekend. Since we are suppose to be working on Sunday, Kevin set out on his bike to find someone to switch days with us. He returned with good news, so we will now be working tomorrow in place of Sunday. Since we didnt know exactly where the airport was that they will be flying into, we decided to go find it. It is about a 45 minute ride from here. The airport is on Eglin Air Force Base property and since we were close to the BX and commissary, we figured we would go check that out. I ended up buying a Cloud Nine Memory Foam Mattress Pad. The bed is not all that comfortable and I have been trying to decide what to do about it. Hopefully this will help out some. We picked up a few more things and then headed back. 

Now that we are working tomorrow. I had no choice but to do laundry. we had no more clean work clothes. Wouldn’t you know it, the sun came out and it turned out beautiful and here I am sitting on the porch of the laundry room. It is nice out here though. A rocking chair and a nice little breeze.. Well, it is only 4pm and I could still head to the beach, but now I feel lazy. It has been a full day….

Camping World/Lunch

Monday

This morning was very  cloudy. so we made the decision to drive to the closest Camping World about 45 miles from here. We had a few things that we needed to get and figured we might as well get that out of the way. By the time we left here it was raining hard. Driving thru Destin and Navarre is lovely. After dropping a quick $100 we made the decision to stop for lunch at the Dewey Destin in Destin Harbor. It is just a little hole in the wall but has very fresh fish.

The sun was shining by the time we had lunch and it was hot but we sat outside and had a nice breeze from the ocean.  On our way back to the park I spotted a Pottery Barn and asked Kevin if I could run in and see what they had. It was huge and I roamed around admiring all they had. If I still had my house I would have been in trouble but I don’t have the room for anything now. The store reminded me of a Garden Ridge for those of you that have one near you, but much nicer.

I had hoped to head to the beach when we got back to the park but it had clouded up once again and I ended up just getting on the computer and actually stayed on it for several hours.  I  can hear the pitter patter of the raindrops now as I type I think its time to check in with the RV Dreams chatroom…

Driving the Beach Tram

Well today is the last of our three day stint this week  We have been very busy all w/e long. We start our day at 8:30 by picking up a golf cart, keys and a sheet with all the outgoing campsites. Our first stop is the beach to blow off the boardwalk and pick up trash.

 

Next stop is the first tram stop where we pick up the truck and tram

We have a second stop before heading to the beach. We do these runs every hour.  Between runs, we drive around in the golf cart checking off those that have left the park and clean off the site. We keep in touch with the office to let them know when the sites are available.  It doesnt take long before we are ready once again for another beach run..

We love it here as I have said many times before. We get to meet so many great people.  We will now have 6 days off. We have no special plans but I’m sure we will find some time for

this beautiful beach….