Saturday, May 21

Ice eating days are over

Butch spent a fair amount of time eating ice this winter. I find it quite irritating but only on a few occasions did I mention how it grated on my nerves. He had told me that the dentist told him he had so many crowns in his mouth that it was unlikely his ice eating habit would create a problem. I am a bit ticked at both of them now. Friday we went to Atlantic to the dentist because Butch had a filling falling apart. So now we are in the midst of a root canal and a crown with two more trips for these procedures. We are saving up our money for it because we had dropped our dental insurance. There will be no more ice eating in our house in my presence. If he does there will be considerable more noise than the crunching of ice boulders and the damn crashing of the cubes hitting the bottom of the cup every few seconds.
We stopped to visit friends Randy and Sherri and also Bill & Bev. We caught Bill and Bev on a card playing day so we were only able to quickly say hi.
A trip to Atlantic pretty well takes care of the whole day.
Today I was able to get some plants in pots while Butch continued with demo. It is coming along but not quickly. Oh and we also went for quite a long walk.

Thursday, May 19

A Different Kind of Day

I went with Butch this morning while he played 9 holes of golf. I walked with my camera while he played. I needed the exercise but told him not to get his hopes up that this would happen on a regular basis.
Here are some of the pics I took.







Wednesday, May 18

Settling in

It takes longer some places than others to settle in. Most everywhere it takes about a week. You have to settle in to a new routine getting situated as to how, when, where and why you will get things done. It is naturally taking longer here because this workamping situation is for us and we are fussier than most bosses. wink,wink.
Walked across town yesterday and it seemed like a short walk. I suppose because there is so much to look at and so many different routes a person can take and I haven't even been on the bike trail yet.

We leveled up the kids trailer yesterday and I plan to get to work on it today, airing it out, dusting etc. on the inside and seeing what it might take to clean the outside getting it ready to serve as a guest house.

I have some blue painters tape somewhere in this motorhome. I started my search this morning. So far no luck. I now know why my mother had multiples of everything. She could not find the one she already had so she bought another one. I am about ready to buy another one.
View from classmate Denise's kitchen window

Jefferson's carillon tower. Sings to us every day.

Our mini RV park. Taken from the back door of our house.

Tuesday, May 17

Monday and a bit of Tuesday

My laundry was way behind so that was my plan for the day yesterday. I have a nice clothesline and all of our clothes fit on it. Mother Nature makes a very good drier. Butch spent his day taking off trim boards. Leo stopped by and used his handy truck to get Gary and Susan's travel trailer parked in site 2 of our mini RV park. So we are much closer to being drop-in ready for guests.
Last nights supper was a bit of a debacle. I planned on Spaghetti and meatballs but after getting it started I noticed the spaghetti sauce was questionable in quality so I switched  the sauce to tomato soup/mushroom soup/vegetable soup. Not one of my better attempts at winging it.
After supper we went to Jefferson's Middle school gymnasium for a Simon Estes performance. The South  African kids that he sponsors were performing and they were really the main focus of the show. Leo's wife Keri plays the piano and Simon had noticed her skills on a previous visit to Jefferson and asked her to accompany him at this performance. What an honor! It was a great show!
Butch and I walked to the school and back home again. One of my goals in being in Jefferson was being within walking distance of EVERYTHING! That too is a treat. We walked to all these same places as kids and didn't think a thing of it.  It felt really good to get back to walking. This morning I need to get a check to a former classmate for my upcoming class of '61 reunion and I plan to walk to her place to give it to her. I am so grateful I can!! Then we will walk back home and start to work with renewed vigor.
Our Direct TV guy was here and installed our dish bright and early this morning. His efficiency was super!! We were impressed!!
Pictures of our mini RV park will soon be forthcoming so stay tuned...

From Grandpa Gary-Birthday Videos

Finally! It took some tenacity on Grandpa's part. For some reason the cake eating videos kept failing in the upload. At least a dozen times of failing!

Pre-party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpcPCFVftuI
Cake Eating
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQn-XPW-yqE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXKzh-4ukDc
Presents
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEnX2lNQtHQ

Monday, May 16

Monday in Jefferson









We spent a wonderful weekend helping Elise celebrate her first birthday. Pictures speak a thousand words so I will get as many uploaded as possible. Our Verizon connection is sometimes frustrating so a great deal will depend on it as to how many I get posted.

From last Friday

Blogger is down right now (Friday AM) and has been for a few days so I am writing this and then when I can I will post it. Probably not till Monday as we will be in Missouri until then. We are in our own backyard!  There are two RV spots with full hook-ups (water/sewer/electric) and we are sitting on one of them. We are using our son Gary's travel trailer as a guest house but we can also move it if you have your own RV. So this is your official invitation.  We are not feeding the birds yet but there sure are lots of them. It is quiet except for the trains and the carillon tower and I am sure we will get used to both. After all we both did in our youth.
Blackmarket Pizza in Ames Iowa 
Last night Jason called to see if he was needed to help with sewer hook-up and was greatly relieved to find he was not. He has been putting in 10 hour days at his work and he is getting to an age where that takes a toll. So he invited us to come over and go to Ames for pizza at their favorite and now our favorite pizza place. It is well worth the trip.  Chicken Ka-blam pizza was my favorite of the ones we tried. The owners have quite a success story; from homeless to successful business men in a very short time. If you are anywhere near Ames Iowa you will want to check it out or you can check out their website here. http://www.blackmarketpizza.com/