Trip down memory lane for 2009

Only a few minutes left of 2009. Pretty late for me to be up but wanted to do my last post for the year before the clock hits midnight. It's been a wonderful year and can't wait to see what the new one brings. Below are some pictures from the past year. Happy New Year to our family back in Michigan and Ohio and our friends that are all over the country.

Unwanted guest in the neighborhood

Phil, Marcey (family) & us at South Padre Island

Sand Castle competition, South Padres Island TX

Christmas lights on River Walk in San Antonio TX

Many trips to Mexico

David and Larry being themselves

David, Linda and us at Sana Ana Wildlife State Park TX

Larry's $4.00 hair cut in Mexico

Larry getting to play farmer again

Here's us under one of the oldest Magnolia Trees in Washington AR

Me, Marilynn, Linda in San Antonio TX

Our home town Island

Happy Hour with Friends

Grandson's graduation

Grandson turned 5 yr old

Granddaughter turned 15 yr old

Diamond digging in Hope AR

We saw our first hard freeze since 2004

This is our reward when we go on a bike ride back home

We enjoy evenings watching lots of these little guys

Our family taken at the annual family picnic

Dale, Kathy and I being kids at Holland MI

Kathy and Bill spending a day with us walking the ledges in our hometown

Thanksgivings left over day group

We get to enjoy hundreds of butterfly's in our yards

We met friends at Frankenmuth Mi. Larry did a good job getting around the trees.

Eby's Park near Elkhart IN

Sunset at Retama

Our last gathering for 2009. Look at the moon up above

Good night and see you next year

An Evening with the Bee's

Last night we went to Dodge Arena for a Winter Texan night to watch the Keller Bee Hockey Game. I think they said there was 54 that went, not a bad turn out for our little park. We had a great time not only watching the hockey players, but the entertainment during the breaks and than this big Yellow Bee. Lots of little ones around that really wanted their picture taken with him/her?






How about a race with shopping carts on ice in your bare feet. Lots of laughs watching them slip and slide down to the other end. Guess that's why they had the young ones doing this race and not one of us old folks. Frozen toes and broken bones, not good at our age, we don't thaw or heal as fast as we use too.









Here's an advertisement from the Eye Institute. The person on the controls sure was good, he had it going all around the arena and down this tight alley during the game.










Can you guess what this picture is of??? Something we in the south take for granted this time of year and you in the north dream about. It's called a BIG BLUE SKY. Had to take a picture of it, feels like I haven't seen it for so long.










Here's a picture of just how nice the blue sky looked and having the sun out. Like Larry said - the sun comes out and people come out of their homes like ants coming out of an ant hill. You would think it's been weeks of cloudy weather rather than days. Guess that's it, till next time..............

Burrr

Sorry no pictures this time. It's been miserable here with cold rainy days so I haven't been out to take any. Yes it's only been two days of this but when you live in 400 sq ft the walls really start to close in. I think we have one more day then the sun comes out and suppose to hit 70, lets just hope it sticks around for a few days.

There are more four legged friends that I want to get pictures of and we have a neighbor that is a carver and want to introduce you to him. His work is just amazing and I'm sure the pictures won't show how beautiful they are but it will give you an idea how talented he is.

Tonight we're going to a Hockey Game with about 54 other residents. It's the Winter Texan night there so hot dogs, pop, etc are all $1.00. The park with the most residents there gets some kind of price. I dug out my one and only heavy sweater that I brought with us when we moved out of the house. It's a really pretty sweater that our daughter Renee' got me when she was living in Europe and went to Switzerland.

Had a hair appointment this morning. So glad I finally found a woman that listens on how I want it cut. She takes her time and so far it's always been a good cut. And you sure can't beat $10.00.

Guess that's it. Time to go get ready. Hopefully Larry and I can stay awake, we sure have gotten use to early bedtimes. Till next time..............................

Painting & Meet Poppy

Yesterday Larry and I helped our good friends Donna and Grant paint their carriage house. Each of our lots have a 12x20 shed and you can do pretty much what you want inside. Some like us are just using them for storage, some folks are finishing the inside into a small living area with a bathroom, small kitchen area and seating area. Here's Larry up on his stilts painting.
Other than the painting the only other thing we did was have a left over dinner that night. Everything was even better than the day before.

Below is a picture of one of our four legged friends
Meet Poppy
Poppy's mom and dad are Jack and Danielle Mayer. The three of them are full time RV'ers and spend their winters here and Congress AZ. Summers are in Moab UT. Poppy is a neat and well behaved friend that likes to come visit us as often as she's allowed.

Christmas Dinner 2009

Christmas day turned out to be a bit chilly and cloudy. Dinner wasn't until 3:00 so I didn't need to rush getting my things ready. Larry helped with peeling potatoes (mashed) and apples for the pie. I hate peeling things so this really helped. Than all I had to do was make a few little things and my part of dinner was done. We talked with the Grandson and he was talking so fast I understood about every third word but as long as I just kept saying "oh wow" he kept right on going. Here's a few pictures of our xmas dinner with friends.

We had our dinner in the Craft room and it worked out great.

Here's just some of the food.

Here's our friends watching Marilynn open a hostess gift.
Here's Jim carving the turkey. Both the turkey and ham were soooo good.
Gary really enjoyed doing his part of the dinner. Filling his plate.

So this is the end of our xmas holiday. Even tho we were unable to spend it with our family in Michigan we've made so many friends here in Retama that they all feel like our extended family. The diet starts tomorrow. Till next time...............................

Christmas Eve 2009

We had our traditional Champagne Brunch on Christmas Eve morning. Here are a few friends just waiting for the food to be uncovered.
After brunch we went home and got ready for our Xmas Eve dinner. It was a small group of friends that gathered at our place even though it was Linda Cypcar's party. Loved the way she worked this, next time it will be my party and she has to have it at her place. But it was fun and that makes two meals that day that were wonderful.
Quite a few of the residents purchased the luminary candle bags and put them in front of our lots. It was a bit windy and with the street lights it was hard to see the candles. But the white bags made it look really pretty all the way down the street. Here's a couple of pictures of our lot.
The day turned out very nice even though the winds were the strongest we've had here. Cold front went through just after 3am with a sudden north wind at 33mph with gusts over 45mph. We had to enjoy the warmer temperature as starting that night the temps were going down and they say won't see anything higher than 62 for the next week. Till next time...........................

Christmas 2009

It was just days before Christmas and all through the park
People were sitting outside in their shorts

The evening was warm with just a slight breeze
And residents were enjoying the sound of peace

Conversation was soft as memories were told
Of family members when they were young and old

The laughter was loud when a tale was told
With a tear running down cheeks so bold

Than all of a sudden the sounds die away
The hearts are starting to think of the day

The woman are quiet as they sit and remember
About past years of the hustle and bustle

And along came a tear that we tried to hide
In hopes that it doesn't start a slide

We love our friends here in the park
But there's nothing like family to keep the spark


To all our family and friends.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Busy week & it's only Tuesday

I could swear this should be Thursday but the day on our clock says Tuesday. Monday I went shopping with Marilynn, Linda and Pat. We didn't need anything but went to the mall and started walking around. You sure couldn't tell there was a recession, the place was just packed and traffic was unreal. While I was gone, Larry took Bill Bevington to the airport as he was heading home to Canada. Than in the afternoon he took Doug/Jutta Franks to the airport as they were flying to Frankfurt Germany to spend the holidays with her family. Lucky people to be home with the family.

Also during the day we had friends arrive. Dave Czetli pulled in early in the morning, Ute will be flying in on Christmas Day. She is still recovering from her surgery's after the accident and is unable to ride that long (from Delaware). Mark Shelly pulled in shortly after Dave and he will be flying back to MA on Christmas Morning. Than shortly after noon Jack and Danielle Mayer arrived. They were in Summerdale AL and with all the rain they were unable to pull off their lot until this weekend. So we had a great happy hour last night with new conversations and lots of laughs.

Today Larry actually went grocery shopping with me first thing this morning. I always ask but normally I get a "no". Glad he went as there were items for recipes that I haven't purchased down here and he would go off looking for them.

Christmas Eve morning we are having our traditional Champagne Brunch with our HDT friends. Always have lots of good food and I think there's around 17 of us. That evening there's a gathering at the clubhouse but not sure if we'll go. We are having dinner (a simple light meal) with Cypcars, Orthober's and Olson's. There's suppose to be a cold front going through that afternoon and since our place has the most room we're having the dinner here. Than Christmas Day we are having dinner with these same folks along with a few others over at Orthober's. Can we say - way to much food-.

After lunch I decided I'd get a early start on cleaning the house. Than I decided I wanted to clean the carpet so I got that done. Got Old English on my wood in the bedroom and bathroom and will finish the kitchen/living room tomorrow. Carpet really looks good but still would like to get new this spring and get away from all this blue.

One of the neat things with this blog site is a map that has pushpins on locations where people are that read our blog. I haven't figured it out (but haven't really tried) why some pushpins show the city and some just say United States. We have had hits in CA, IN, FL, TX, MI, PA ND, KS, WA, CO, MN, OH and British Columbia. It's fun to look at this map, just wonder who these people are, especially you out there in British Columbia.

That's it for tonight. Have to make a trip to grocery store in the morning as Walmart didn't have any cooking applies. Can you believe that, so have to hit HEB so I can make my pie. Till next time....................

One of our Bike Rides

We went for a bike ride today and I finally remembered my camera. Thought you would like to see some of the area along our routes.

Here is one of the paths we take on our bike rides. This road goes behind the park and runs along the levee. There aren't any houses on this road, only a barn and pastures with cattle grazing. Reminds us of when we had the farm.
This picture was taken from the top of the levee looking at another road we ride on. Can you believe this open space surrounds our park.
This is the levee. There are two trails as you can see on each side of the water. We usually ride the one on the left, it's a pretty ride and the only traffic is the Border Patrol now and than.
Here's a picture of the RV Resort that is beside our park. It's one of the most expensive parks in the Valley but it's booked solid with a waiting list. It is a beautiful park with hundreds of flowers and native bushes. The owner of this park is the developer of ours.
Meet Max. Max parents are Jim and Pat Olsen who go home to Sturgeon Bay WI during the summer. Max was a rescue dog and he's full of energy. That's it for today, till next time.....