HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!

Added when Todd sent me some of their pictures from our Christmas Shows the whole family including LaTia who took the picture--you can see her in the mirror--how cool is that?




Great AZ sunset!




Our site at Paradise RV decorated for the holidays




Beautiful Christmas decorations at Calvary Chapel Surprise




Playing Balderdash at our family gathering--lots of laughs!!





Ellen and Larry with son Todd in the background at our family get together Dec 25




The family at our Christmas celebration





Our 'new' site in Apache Junction showing the trailer in backwards and the new car


We moved yesterday from Paradise RV in Sun City, AZ to Countryside RV in Apache Junction, AZ. We are in a new site for us just three sites away but a foot longer so we are not sticking out in the street like before. We had a friend follow us to help in putting our trailer in the site 'backwards' so Larry can make the necessary changes he needs to make plus he needs to hook up the new solar panel we have on the trailer. It is a very nice site and we are glad to be back in Apache Junction. We are getting to know our way around the 'east side'.

Dec was a busy month for us. We bought a new car, took a trip to Prescott to see Larry's mom , brother and sister-in-law who were visiting from IN, rented a truck from Home Depot to bring lumber home for the 'makeover' of the trailer so the new car will fit, had a 'chance' meeting with friends we hadn't seen in many years,and again hosted the family Christmas party in the RV park's multipurpose room. We had a great time, ate too much and laughed a lot.

Happy New Year to all!

BACK TO PARADISE (RV that is)

Us with the 'kids' at Thanksgiving



Fresh snow on the Spring mountains the morning we left FrontSight


Crossing the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge over the Colorado River from NV to AZ


The third awesome full arch rainbow we saw in Cottonwood as we were driving into Verde Valley Preserve







Because of the change of plans, Colby was able to come. He had THREE invitations for 2PM dinner and I'm so glad he chose our dinner!


Alex, Bethany, Larry's Mom and Shane at Thanksgiving


The turkey cheese ball edible decoration that Dawn made. She is so talented!


We enjoyed our weekend at FrontSight with Dawn and Vince. I learned much and feel more confident handling my revolver.

We crossed the new Hoover Dam bridge but had no conception that we were 900 ft in the air as the side walls are very high and you cannot look over them even in our motorhome! The four lane road is a great improvement and makes the trip much more enjoyable.

Upon arriving at Verde Valley preserve, we found friends we hadn’t seen in two years. It is always fun to see ‘old’ friends! One Sunday we saw other friends we hadn’t seen in five years at the Chinese restaurant in Cottonwood. The last time we saw them was at the same restaurant! They live in Dewey, AZ and don’t visit Cottonwood very often so we feel it was a ‘God’ thing.

We made two trips to Prescott to see Larry’s mom and help her out. A hail storm damaged her roof so she is getting it fixed. Also the severe storm they had several weeks ago where is rained 4 3/4 inches in 4 minutes caused a lot of water damage to her back yard hill so she has had that fixed also.

For Thanksgiving we were supposed to go to our oldest granddaughter’s place but she became ill so we went to Dawn and Vince’s at the last minute. We took Larry’s mom so she could see the kids and grands. The only one she/we didn’t see was our oldest granddaughter but hopefully we will see her Christmas if not before. Since we will be in Sun City the month of Dec and she lives not too far away, maybe we can get together before.

One really neat thing that happened while in Cottonwood was we saw three different full arch rainbows in one day. All I had was my cell phone but they were beautiful!

We arrived back to Paradise RV yesterday and are so glad to be warm again! The high in Camp Verde on Monday was 49` and Wednesday when we arrived in Sun City it was 71`
Such a welcomed difference!!

Autumn is here

I loved this poem when I was in school and had forgotten all about it until I read this sign


BIG early saw at Collier Logging Museum



This machine put logs on the railroad cars


History at the Collier Logging Museum



One of the floats from the 2010 Potato Festival Parade, Merrill, OR


100 year old Model T in the parade (1910 Ford)



Our next door neighbor, Elizabeth, in the Potato Festival Parade



Snow on Mt Charleston in Pahrump, NV


Our VW at Preferred RV in Pahrump with the big American flag from The Nugget flying in the background


We made the best of our time left in OR by finally visiting the Collier Logging Museum near Chiloquin. We have passed it many times, saying we would stop ‘some day’. It was well worth the stop and has many, many old time logging machines that are well marked. There are also signs telling the story of long ago logging history.

The weekend before we left was the annual Potato Festival which we enjoyed very much. The youth from our church had a bake sale for Operation Shoebox and took in $630 which we thought was wonderful for such a small town! The parade seems smaller than we remembered but that may be due to the economy. It was still very nice and of course we enjoyed the free BBQ. They also had salmon this year which was a first and enjoyed by us since salmon is one of our favorite foods.

We took two days to travel to Pahrump, NV where we are presently. The weather was nice for driving and we have had really nice weather while here. We did get rain from that big storm that went through the mid country and now there is snow on Mt Charleston which we can see out the front of the motorhome. I do love that view!

We have friends who live here and have seen them three times so far. Also another friend is in the park and we have seen him several times. We have enjoyed the Nugget’s 2-4-1 Buffet four times and have overeaten every time! Since this is the only place that has 2-4-1 buffet on a regular basis, we figure if we ‘overeat’ here only, that lasts us the whole year. After all we are ‘entitled’ to overindulge once a year!

When we leave here for AZ we will get to use the new bypass bridge over Hoover Dam for the first time. I’m really looking forward to that and will post pictures next time.

Busy September

Larry opening his big birthday card from his mother (It arrived late because of our mail forwarding)


Fables of the West Cowboys strolling act at the Tulelake-Butte Valley Fair I just loved these guys! They were the highlight of the day for me


Old time machines at the Tulelake-Butte Valley Fair. They were actually working!


My new comforter and 'snippets' in the curtains to match. I had planned to put up new curtains also but they were too dark so the 'snippets' do just fine.


Larry has been very busy this month getting everything ready for our trip south. We started the month off with a nice surprise when the trailer manufacturer reimbursed us for the repairs on the trailer Larry made last month--PTL! Sometimes I get frustrated because Larry does things so thoroughly but twice this month, because he is such a perfectionist, he found and corrected potential problems which in both cases could have been really bad so I have to Praise the Lord for Larry and his listening to the Spirit.

It seems we always spend a lot while we are in Oregon but that is because there is no sales tax here and we want to be good stewards of the Lord's money. We check to see what something would cost if we waited until we were some place else and always end up purchasing it in OR. Often sales on the net don't include sales tax but then there is the shipping charge which adds to the cost.

Mid month we attended the Tulelake-Butte Valley Fair in Tulelake, CA and really enjoyed it. Basically everything was free-free parking, free admission and free entertainment. We did pay for food and of course, the rides weren't free but we didn't ride any rides. There is a museum on the fairgrounds and for a small town (pop 1,000) it was great!

We had a young couple that really wanted to buy our place but unfortunately they do not have any down payment so no one will loan them any money even though they both have good jobs. If they are really interested, hopefully they will be diligent about saving and maybe they will have enough for next summer when we return. As I've said before, it will sell in God's time and on His timetable.

Awesome August

What a great month! We overnighted in LaPine with reservations gained just 20 miles from the campground. I had been trying for a month to get rez there to no avail but Larry suggested I try one more time and success! We arrived in Redmond early Sunday morning and had to wait several hours before being allowed in. We were able to stay connected (coach and trailer) and be very near our Coaches for Christ group. We had great fellowship and lots of laughs at our Brown Bag auction. We raised over $800 for charity, a new record for us. We played several games in a tournament and Larry and our pres.JoAnn were team mates and won first place—gift cards to Starbucks.

We had fun driving the handicap golf carts and also helped out the Welcoming committee on Wed. morning. The Thurs. night entertainment was the ‘Texas Tenors’ and boy, were they excellent! Nobody left early and they had several standing ovations. If you ever get a chance to see them, be sure to as you won’t be disappointed.

After the Redmond FMCA convention we returned to LaPine and stayed two weeks just relaxing and enjoying ourselves. One evening we had big 'shooter size marble' hail that really made a racket! No damage though, PTL! We made two ‘runs’ to Bend for our ‘Costco fix’ and visited Fluid Connectors for parts like we have for the last six years. They had a booth at the FMCA Redmond rally for the first time and were very pleased with the reception they received.

We returned to Merrill on Sat Aug 28 and promptly turned around and left Monday Aug 30 to take the Amtrak train to Eugene, OR to celebrate our 50th anniversary. Unfortunately it rained most of the day so we were unable to get any decent pictures but we still had a good time. There were two volunteers on the train from the Klamath County Museum who gave a ‘tour’ of the countryside, history and notable picture spots as we went along. We learned a lot and they made the trip go much faster. We had ‘switch’ troubles and had to slow down to manually change the switches so arrived in Eugene 1 and ½ hours late. We spent the night at the Broadway Inn in downtown Eugene, just 7 blocks from the train depot and the folks there were wonderful. Larry was having problems with his equilibrium so they allowed us to check out late on Tues. Again, the train was over an hour late which meant it was basically too dark to take any pictures on the way home. We ate dinner in the dining car and shared the table with a couple from ID on their way to LA to see a new granddaughter. The food was very good and we had a very enjoyable evening. We arrived back in Klamath Falls about 10:30 PM last night and were home by 11:30 PM. Both ‘kids’ called to wish us Happy Anniversary and Larry a Happy Birthday. Now we have to get serious and get things ready to head south. Oh, I got a jury summons in the mail for the month of October. I called and they said I would be excused for the days we will be gone on our way south, which means I will serve only two weeks (if at all- When Larry was summoned in 2003 he never served one day in the month!)


Welcoming Pot Blessing for our Coaches for Christ Pre-rally at the 2010 Redmond FMCA convention in Redmond, OR


After our PotBlessing, we had a sing-a-long


The fourth game, lawn bowling. I might have been able to do that one but I'm not very coordinated so I was a score keeper


I don't know the official name for this game but I'll call it 'Ladder Toss'


Golf putting, another of the four games in the tournament


Washer toss, one of four different games in the tournament


The deal of the night--"Oregon water"!! What a laugh we had over that!


Getting cold as night approached during our Brown Bag auction


Big 'shooter' marble size hail at LaPine--no damage to anything though PTL!


The Amtrak train we took from Klamath Falls to Eugene, OR and back


Not a good picture at all but if you look closely, you can see the waterfall--it was awesome!


Another of my favorites- a covered bridge between Oakridge and Eugene, OR called the 'Office Bridge' built in 1945


Middle Fork Williamette River from the train


Larry waiting patiently at the Eugene depot for the Amtrak train

Heading to Redmond, OR

Good as new, the repaired fender from the tire blow out in NV in May


The 'fix' to the back door of the trailer


The 'waterfall' we experienced during one of the storms we had the end of July


We have had a busy month getting all the furniture and 'stuff' out of the mobile and into the storage unit in Klamath Falls.

The parts for the Aqua-Hot finally arrived and it once again is up and running. PTL! Also Larry has the repairs done on the trailer where the tire tore up the fender. He found the hook for raising the back door on the trailer was coming loose as well as the door was bowing so he fixed all that as well. I wasn't too sure how it would look since he had to make the repairs on the outside of the door, but he did a great job and it doesn't look too bad. The door is much easier to close now.

We are getting everything ready to head to the FMCA convention in Redmond, OR this weekend. We are also attending the Coaches for Christ pre-rally at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds. We will again be driving the handicap golf carts during the convention like we did three years ago.

I complained about the cold weather when we arrived in May and now it has turned HOT so basically we had no spring! This weather here reminds me alot of AZ desert weather in July and Aug--hot during the day, then an afternoon or early evening rainstorm with a sudden cool down and then hot the next day again. We have had several short but bad storms with trees down and six electric poles snapped in two along the highway with the electric being out for several hours-some folks where without electric for over 12 hours. We were fortunate to be out for only two hours.

Still in Oregon

My beautiful peonies blooming in June. They survived the cold weather in May


We have been busy getting the mobile home ready to sell. We rented a storage unit in Klamath Falls and have made several trips with stuff in the VW. Of course we can't carry too much in the VW and this past Monday we took the coach in with a load of 'bigger' items. The purpose was two fold: one, to take large items to the storage unit and two, it has been almost two months since we moved the coach and that is not good to go so long without moving it. Larry changed the oil in the coach before we left and everything worked out fine. We made several stops along the way and didn't have any problems since Larry 'planned ahead'.

We had another yard sale one weekend but didn't do quite as well as the one in May but we aren't complaining. We decided we are getting to old to continue having yard sales! Too much work. We have sold several items on Craig's List since the sale. We may try E-Bay next.

The latest 'news' is our small town lost their domestic water supply last Tues night. There was a sudden drop of 20 ft in the water table and that was below the pump so no water! They dropped the pump another 80' so we again have water as of 2 PM this afternoon but it is not drinkable yet--not until Saturday afternoon and then it will need to be boiled. We were not affected as we had a full tank of fresh water and still have water left.