Turkey Head & Flooding updates

A couple of updates on things. My SIL Diane did get a call from Butterball regarding the turkey head (see previous blog). Candace (their granddaughter) emailed a picture along with the product code to Butterball and the company person thanked her for the email along with the code number. Of course they were very apologetic and offered to reimburse them the cost of the bird. They did mentioned that they wish they could have gotten the head and Diane said she still had it in the freezer. Now I have no idea why Diane would keep a turkey head in her freezer but some things you just don't question. Anyway I guess they are sending a special box to her and even having someone come and get the box. I'm thinking someone - someplace- won't be happy campers.

The other thing was a picture I said I'd post. We took a bike ride yesterday back in the State Park and I remembered my camera. I was hoping we would see the bobcat and her two babies but I did take one of Larry pointing to the water mark on the tree from the flooding this summer.
We stopped at the Park Office on the way into the park. The ranger there said they aren't sure when they would be able to open more of the park. Still lots of work to do from the flooding. There were walking trails off the main road but those are so over grown and trees down that who knows when or if those will ever be cleared.

Sunday night we had one last turkey meal. A huge pot of soup. It was really good but it will be awhile before I'll even buy turkey sandwich meat.

Monday we did our three mile walk than the three mile bike ride. Just as we got back we spotted Mike/Pat McFall hooking up the car to their motorhome. They are heading for their place in AZ for the rest of the winter. Safe travels to them.

Today I rode along with Linda & Adel to get a hair cut. My appointment isn't until next Tuesday and boy do I need it. Seems like with this warm weather my hair grows like crazy. Once done there we made a trip up to Hobby Lobby so Linda could find some material for one of her crafts. Than of course you can't be out and about without stopping for lunch so we went to one of our favorite places, Sweet Temptations Cafe/Bakery. It's a cute little place that serves just breakfast and lunch is homemade soups and salads.

Another update on Mr Cricket. He's been very quiet since that last night when I blogged that we had another family member move in. Thought maybe he went home for the holidays and of course that would be in Mexico. But while sitting here typing I could hear him up in the bedroom. Some how he got from the TV cabinet back up in the air conditioner. I guess I'll have to put up with him until I figure some way of getting rid of him - - - Lysol spray, nope gives Larry headache - Pledge, nope not strong enough - Air Freshener spray, nope gives me headache, Scrubbing Bubbles - bubbles in air conditioner, probably not a good idea. So guess I'll have to do more thinking on this.

Guess that's it for today. Till next time................................

A surprise I never want to see

Three mile walk in the morning and 3.5 mile bike ride in the afternoon. I'm thinking I might feel a few sore muscles tomorrow but with all the rich food these last couple of days I think we should have done twice that much.

While Larry watched the MSU Game I went over to Sue's to help with the cutting up of veggies for our Turkey Soup dinner tomorrow night. Than that is it - no more turkey.

I do have one more turkey picture to share with you. Bob & Diane (DB & SIL) were having thanksgiving dinner today with their family. Diane was in the kitchen getting Old Tom ready to go in the oven. Unfortunately there was more to Old Tom than most of us (thankfully) don't see.

I can just hear Diane when she pulled this thing out.



Guess the old saying "having your head up your butt" applies to even Old Tom.
Bet you'll never just stick your hand in without looking, I know I won't.

We didn't get the frost last night but it was still in the 30's so I pulled two more blankets out of the closet. But today the sun was out, no wind and it did get up in the high 60's. It's either that or

THIS
Taken at Bob & Dianes place this morning.

Guess that's it for tonight. Till next time....................................

Thanksgiving 2010

Dinner yesterday was wonderful but like most of you out there we ate too much. David and Sue McCarron opened their brand new home for us to have our Thanksgiving Dinner.

Sue wanted to try out her big oven so she was in charge of two of the turkeys.
And Jim Brumfield did a deep fried turkey.

Dale Bruss made a beautiful ham but I didn't get a picture of that.

But here is our part of our Retama Family
Tonight we always have our 2nd gathering for left over night. Doug and Jutta were able to join us and she got a picture of the group.

We really miss our family back home and would do anything to have them all down here with us but if we can't be with them we couldn't ask for better friends to spend the day with.

OK, I've bragged about the warm temperatures here and knew it couldn't last but wasn't expecting such a dramatic change. For the last week it was in the mid 90's and tonight we have a frost warning. BUT don't worry about us, by Sunday it's suppose to be back around 80.

Guess that's it for tonight. Till next time.............................

Gobble Gobble to You

To all our family and friends that are in all parts of this country. May you have a wonderful day with the ones you are sharing it with.

Hot Days & The Cricket War

Pretty quiet and uneventful around here the last couple of days. Sunday night I had one of those wide awake at 1AM and finally gave up and got up at 4am. Boy I hate those nights. I think I figured it out and I had a can of root beer that evening. I finally started feeling tired and stretched out on the couch, about that time Larry got up so for about a hour it was one of those half in half out sleeps. We did go for a short walk but it was just to warm (yes I said to warm) to go very far. Heat index has been in mid 90's and really windy so it's not a very enjoyable walk. We have two more days of this than a cold front Thursday night with a high in the 60's on Friday. Space heaters coming back out. I do watch the weather back home and saw they had some nasty storms last night. The highs in the 60's than today 30's. I'll keep my 90's.

This morning we took off early and went to Walmart to get the groceries I need for Thursday. It wasn't very busy there so we were in - out and home by 9am. The rest of the day was pretty much like yesterday. The only exciting (if you can call it that) thing that happened was Larry called me outside to see a Walking Stick. So of course I had to get the camera. We've had a cricket up in the air conditioner in our bedroom. He's been driving me crazy for the last week, wouldn't make a peep until after I got in bed and just starting to fall asleep. I tried everything, turned the air on (this is when we didn't need it) hoping this would blow his brains out -nope didn't work - banged on the air conditioner - nope that either - got the Febreze out, turned the air on and gassed him - YES I thought I'd won - nope it must of only stunned his cricket thingie. (Note to self - do not use that much Febreze when planning on staying in the same room for longer than 2 minutes.) But than I didn't hear him the next night so thought maybe it was just a delayed reaction and the Febreze did him in. The following night I kept hearing something weird and every time I'd asked Larry if he head that he'd just bury his head farther under the covers and I think he mumbled some thing like - Don't - no -Febreze. It was a weird sound and just couldn't figure it out. Later I was laying there reading my book and I felt something on my foot. You've never seen a person jump and slam a book down on a bed so fast. Of course between my jumping up (and possible the scream) Larry was wide awake. I wouldn't let him (Larry not the cricket) move the book until I was out of that room. Now I'm thinking that the Febreze did fry his cricket thingie and the noise I was hearing was him (cricket not Larry) trying to sneak up on me to get even. Of course the rest of the night was pretty much spent listening for noises just in case this guy had called in family members.

It's been several days now and I was thinking every thing was good - until night before last. He's back--- only this time he's on the shelf where the TV is. I keep extra sheets on that shelf and there was no way I'm looking for him. But let me tell you I'm getting really good at reading in bed with only having two fingers and my nose outside the covers.

Guess that's it for tonight. Hope you all are having a quiet night.
Till next time.......................................

Home Idea - Anniversary Party

Saturday morning we skipped our walk. Larry needed to go back to Lowe's to return something that he ordered and it was waiting for him there. He was pretty sure the item wasn't the same one he ordered and he was right. We always wander around looking at house things and we may have found the tile for the back splash in the kitchen. Of course this is subject to change if we find something else we like more but I have a feeling we won't. The plan is to wains-coat (already purchased) the eating area at the end of the kitchen painting that with one of the darker greens and than paint above with a lighter green. I've already found a kitchen table at a little shop in our home town and I will paint that. Thinking maybe a cream color or a pale green or maybe yellow to add something different. Maybe my friend Dale will help me on that as she was in interior decorating in her BR (before retirement) life.

After we left Lowe's we stopped at Target than on to home as the MSU Game was going to start shortly. Between that and the other games that pretty much took care of the afternoon until happy hour at Dale & Mark's place.

Today we went for our walk through the subdivision down from us. It was already starting to get warm even tho it was only 8am. Didn't do much, we had a 50th anniversary party this afternoon so I fixed some sausage balls to put on the tray with shrimp, cukes, and olives.

Here is the Happy Couple - Gary and Marilynn Orthober

Their anniversary is actually Oct. 1st and they had a big party with family back home in Door County WI but they also wanted to share this special day with their Retama Family so they had another celebration with us. We couldn't ask for any better special friends.

So another weekend is over. Need to check on what I need to get for turkey day so I can hit the grocery store really early in the morning. Till next time......................................

Trip to Flea Market

Friday we went for our walk down the levee in the opposite direction. We stopped and talked with a County worker who was working on the road and he was telling us they were going to be putting a flood gate on the road between the two levee's. This is about six feet lower and I guess with the flooding last summer this area (only road that goes into the State Park) was the only spot where water crossed. Should be interesting to watch this and hopefully they have it completed before the next 100 year flood.

As I said we walked west on the levee to a area that we've never gone. I've been a little concerned about going this way, there is no road and the border patrol are the only ones that drive along there. Plus not far from there seems to be where the helicopters hover looking for illegals. But we walked about a mile and a half down and it was nice. State park on one side and fields on the other that didn't have anything planted - ground was worked up so something is going in there.

When we got back we decided to drive over to the Don West Flea Market which is about a half hour from here. It's one of the biggest ones around but wouldn't you know we picked one of the days they are closed. Gee sh - like I'll be able to get Larry down there again this year. The fruit market across the street was open so we did go there. Got a whole pineapple ($3), seedless watermelon ($2) and some 4 cukes ($1).

We did drive down to a couple of stores just on the US side at Mexico. Thought about going over to Mexico but it was already after noon so we'll go there next week sometime. Larry found the bath tub he wants, it's a hand beaten copper tub with a price tag of $3800.00 - ah don't think so.

Stopped on the way home in Hidalgo for lunch. Nice little Mexican cafe but the young girl didn't speak much English. Hidalgo has a unbelievable Festival of Lights in Dec., we went down there a couple of years ago and the whole town gets into decorating. I believe they start putting the lights up the first of Oct. The only bad thing about this town is it's right on the River across from Reynosa. Yes this is the Mexican town that has had so much violence. Not sure what the turn out will be this year on their xmas tour, not sure I'd want to be in that area after dark.

I was going to fill you in on what our day was like today (Saturday) but this blog is long enough. So you will have to come back tomorrow. Currently 74 degrees at 9pm, loving it. One more thing - need to say Happy Birthday to my big brother Bob Bishop and also to my sister in law Gail Moore. Hope you both had a great day. Till next time........................

My Flowers - Chicken Recipe - Happy Hour Picture

Thursday - normal walk this morning so nothing new or exciting about that. Actually that's probably a good thing not to have anything exciting happen on the walks. Especially in this area where you may see a head pop up out in the brush than duck back down. So far I've only had that happen once since we've been here and that was driving down the road.

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry and cleaning house until happy hour.

I did take some pictures of my flowers.
My SIL Stint painted me the rock. Perfect place for it next to the mum plant.
This is my favorite. Knew I got this fire pit for a reason other than just having a fire.

It was Doug & Jutta's night to have Happy Hour. It really is nice having this at a different place each night. Finally remembered to take the camera.

If you click on the picture and inlarge it you will notice that a certain person has his back to me. I made the mistake of saying "everyone turn around" - you would think after almost 33 years I would learn.

The other day Marilynn, Donna and I drove over to HEB (like Kroger) as they had pork roast on sale for $1lb, chicken breast $1 lb, and beef roast for $2.47 lb. I have set it up to receive daily emails from a recipe site and one day it had a recipe for chicken I wanted to try. Well of course I couldn't find it now that I had chicken in the house so I had to make my own from what I could remember. It really did turn out pretty good (Italian dressing mix, Parmesan cheese) mix together, coat chicken, sprinkle a little parsley on top and bake for 35 minutes (or so) at 400. I covered it until the last 15 minutes or so.

So that was our day. Weather was great too but it did get cool during happy hour. You northerners stay warm. Till next time....................

Walking with the Moore's

Wednesday - OK I did the bike riding blog so now it's time for a walking blog. We went out the front gate and headed south towards the State Park. The parade of gravel trucks is still lining up in front of our park.
We decided to walk the access road along irrigation canal so we turned East. This is looking back on the road.
Once we got to the end of the road we went up on the Levee. This picture is looking south towards the Rio Grande River. Hard to believe this was all under water just a few months ago.

Here's the road going North that we walked down.

Here's the new Butterfly building. It's suppose to be finished but like everything else around here it takes twice as long to complete things.
From here we turn back West and walked Military Road back.
Decided to cut through the RV Park that's next to our park. People seem to be arriving later this normal this year. Not sure why, maybe because the weather up north this fall has been better.
Here are some of our neighbors. I was hoping the big guy that we've seen would be out but he wasn't. But here's a few of his friends. Not sure why the picture isn't very clear.
So it was a nice walk that we really enjoyed. And just so you know how far we walked I had to take a picture of my counter.
That's it for tonight. Till next time.......................................

Breakfast's - Boring TV Programs

Saturday/Sunday - both days quiet and uneventful. We went out to breakfast Saturday morning with friends than that afternoon the ladies got together (big truck friends) to go over the menu for thanksgiving. We also decided to each take one day a week to host the happy hour and that way everyone has a list of where it will be that day.

Monday - we decided to walk this morning instead of riding bikes so we headed out the front gate and went into the RV Park next to us. There was a steady stream of arrivals (we can watch them from our patio) on Sunday. Than we walked down the other way to Tanglewood which is part of this development that is geared for families. Nice homes and they have a great play area for kids. We got home by 9am and did a nice 3.6 mile walk. After we got home I tackled the bedroom/bath with washing the wood work and mirrors along with using the sweeper in all the nooks and crannies. While I was doing that Larry got the big ladder out and started cleaning the outside of the trailer.

Tuesday - another early morning. We probably wouldn't get up so early if we wouldn't go to bed so early. But really by 9pm, it's been dark for three hours, have read and looked at everything on the internet and there is absolutely nothing on TV. How many times can you watch reruns on HGTV. I think the newer shows for this show comes on at 10pm but - staying up til than - ain't going to happen. There's only two shows out of seven days that we try to watch. Two and a half men on Mondays but lately that show is getting hard to take, lets face it how long can Jake be clueless and the smart remarks back at Charlie was cute when he was 8 yrs old, now it's a a snot nose teenager that probably should be knocked his ***. Than there's Charlie - now you all know we enjoy our happy hours as much as the next person but his character has a 24/7 happy hour, lets face it there's only so much you can come up with on being drunk and having a swinging door of women. Than there's Alan who supposedly is a Chiropractor living in a city with the rich and famous and can't earn enough to pay for his own apartment. It was a good show the first few years but now we watch it cause it's the only thing remotely interesting. The other show is on Thursday and that's called The Big Bang Theory which is weird but has it's moments. But I really know there's nothing to watch when I watched two xmas movies in a row and didn't get any reaction from Larry.

This morning we had a egg in a bag breakfast at David/Linda's.

If you've never had this it really is good. 2-eggs in a zip lock back (don't use cheapies- big mess), add any ingredient you like, mush it up than drop it in boiling water for 13 minutes. This makes the best omelet's.

While we were waiting for the eggs we could see the tops of these trucks lining up along the road so of course I had to take the camera out there and see what's happening.

Evidently the State or who ever is in charge is building up the levee. Not sure if they are making it wider (it's just wide enough for one wide vehicle or two very skinny ones) or if they need to do repairs from the flooding this summer.

Speaking of repairs the State Park next to us reopened a portion of it last week. We rode our bikes in there today as far as we could and you could see the water marks on the trees. Will take some pictures next time.

So that's it for now. Weather has been perfect. The long range forecast calls for dry and warmer this season. Can't complain on that. Hope where ever you are the sun is shinning. Till next time..........

A Bike Ride with the Moores

I'm still on the old time so by 5:30am I'm wide awake. The good thing is, by the time daylight is here we've had our breakfast, coffee and computer time so we're ready to start the day. The bad thing is, it sure makes for a long long day.

In this blog I'm going to take you along on our bike ride Thursday morning. We were out and ready before 8AM.

After riding out the gates of our park we take this bike path heading down Military Rd.
Since this was Veterans Day the first place we stopped was the RGV State Veterans Cemetery.

Here is the entrance.

Bikers and joggers are not allowed inside so we didn't go in very far.
But here is a picture of the grounds.
The owners of our development (Rhodes Enterprise) donated the 75 acres to the RGV State Veterans several years ago. As you can see from the number of Head Stones many families have chosen this place for their family member as have many families moved their Veteran here once it was completed.

Our next stop is the Bentsen Palm Community Park. Again land donated by Rhodes. This has been under construction since the first year we came down and this year it was completed and opened to the public. Afraid I didn't get any pictures of this park and couldn't find any on line. Anyway this park is huge and not only geared for family gatherings with 15 picnic areas and 2 playgrounds but it has 4 softball fields, 2 soccer fields, jogging trail, 4 basketball courts, 2 tennis courts, 2 sand volleyball courts, 5 shuffleboard courts, 6 horseshoe fields. Didn't mean to should like a advertisement but it is a neat park and next time I'll get some pictures.

We continued our ride down Inspiration Road pass the Seven Oaks RV ParkIt's a nice park but the clubhouse is starting to show it's age. This picture is from their website and we noticed there seemed to be more park models in the park this year. We're wondering if the new owners are trying to strive for more park models than RV's.

Again we continued and come up on this house that I just love. This is one of the prettiest places around here and I just love looking at it.

Sure would like to see the inside of this home.

Next we ride pass Meadow Creek Golf Course. I tried to find a picture of the clubhouse on line but none of the websites had one. So you'll have to click on the name to see the video.

Finally got down to 1 Mile Road and turned west. Down this road is another subdivision that Rhodes (our developer) built for lower income families. Again didn't get pictures. The subdivision is ok but unfortunately the houses aren't being taken care of the way I think was planned.

1 Mile dead ends into Schuerbach Rd and we road south. Along here is the new IDEA School.

Currently the school only goes up to the 6th grade but each year they in large the school and add two grades. From what we've read and been told this school is very tough on students as far as completing their assignments and attendance. Three time of not handing the homework in and the student is out. But a large percentage of graduates are given full scholarships in colleges.

Soon we were back on the bike path along Military heading into our park.

After 6.83 miles of riding it sure was nice to see the gate to our park.

That's it for tonight. Hope you enjoyed our bike ride. Till next time....................

Simple days at Retama

Sunday - We went for a walk around our park that morning than a bike ride with David & Linda. It was a perfect day for riding and we ended up going just over six miles. I'll admit that night my legs could feel it. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful until Donna/Grant & Jutta (Dougs fighting a cold) came over for happy hour.

Monday - Larry started working on one of the basement compartment doors that wasn't closing properly. He thought he'd be able to fix it while still on but no such luck and he ended up having to remove it. A trip to TSC for a piece of aluminum and later another trip to Home Depot for some liquid nails. In the mean time he's been fighting a cold so I ran into Target after HD and got some NyQuil so hopefully that kicks it out of him. I'm also hoping I don't come down with it.

Tuesday - Had our first Homeowners meeting this morning. Like most of these types of meetings you have the good, the bad and the ugly. Larry and I don't get involved much on things that go on around here. We just enjoy being on our lot and in great weather. After the meeting Marilynn and I ran to the Dollar Store. That afternoon Jutta wanted me to ride along to the local garden shop. I picked up a few more flowers to put in my fire pit that I changed to a flower pit. Will take some pictures once the flowers are up a little more.

Wednesday - Larry is feeling better. Rough couple of nights of coughing and stuffed up but I think he's on the mend. Now if I get it I will be one unhappy person. We had the ladies luncheon today, a little different, some of the men offered to fix, serve, and clean up. There was a little charge of $5 but that's cheaper than if we had to fix something ourselves and I don't mind paying a fair price for events. We had a speaker from the Welcome Home RGV. This website has a lot of interesting information about the valley and is really geared for the Winter Texans. One of the things she was telling us that the valley generates $800 million dollars when the Winter Texans come to town. Guess that's why the business's around here have the best customer service we've ever seen.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet. Larry finished up fixing the basement compartment door and I helped him put that back on. Went for a walk and stopped to see David and Sue McCarron's new house. They spent the whole summer here over seeing the construction of their home and have a really neat and unique one.

From there we continued down the street and stopped at Bill and Kathy Bevington's. Bill is in the sales office of this development and they spent a good time during the summer going to rally's to promote Retama. Larry and Bill hit it off right from the beginning as they both retired from auto industry and Kathy and I can always find something to chat about.

Guess that's it for today. Hope all my family in Michigan is enjoying the above average temperatures there cause your 10 day forecast ain't looking to good. Ours on the other hand looks WONDERFUL. Till next time..............................

Neighbors arrive & quiet week

Each day we see a neighbor arrive from their summer homes, travels or work camping jobs. So naturally on our walks around the park it's starting to take longer as we need to stop and say hi. Yesterday our next door neighbors Donna and Grant pulled in. It is so good to see them again and our little Winter Family is getting complete with just a few more to arrive.

You have probably heard about the shootings in Matamoros Mexico on the news. This is down by Brownsville which is a couple of hours from here. We went down to Matamoros a couple of years ago with Larry and LaVila. In order to get into town we had to walk about a mile from the border. It seemed like it took forever to get there and some of the streets we walked down didn't look like the best of areas to be in. I remember walking pass the local police station with all these men surrounding it with some very big guns. Once we finally got down to the market area it was a neat place to shop with lots of stores and much nicer than Progreso. Actually it was nicer than most of the flea markets around here and at the time I thought it would be nice to have this closer to where we stay. But now I think of all those shops and restaurants there that depended on the Winter Texans dollars and now it's to dangerous to go. I'm sure these shops have closed up and wonder how these people are living.

The Winter Texans here are still going to Progreso and from what we've heard and read they haven't had any problems and feel safe going there. This whole town totally depends on people crossing over daily so the city officials do everything they can to make it safe. Of course you have to be aware of what's around you, but that's only common sense no matter where you are. So sometime soon we will go there as I have a list of items I want to check out for the new house.

The wind finally calmed down and temperatures are getting back in the 80's. For a couple of days the humidity was down in the teens and it's amazing how fast your skin dries out.

There was two things I wanted when we got down here, a bake potato with all the stuffings and a Blizzard. The first night here we went out with Doug and Jutta for the potato and Friday Larry and I went over the DQ and had the blizzard (sorry Jack couldn't wait for you). They now have mini blizzards that I've convinced myself that these must be half the calories - right?

As much as I love being down here and the businesses make you feel so welcomed there is one thing that is so frustrating. It doesn't seem to matter where you are you have to wait and wait and wait. There is no such thing as "fast " around here (other than car chases) and you either learn to relax and wait your turn or get frustrated.

So that's it for today. I actually remembered to change my clock in the bedroom last night. Since I never changed it from Eastern to Central on arrival here I had to go back two hours.

Till next time...............................

Bentsen Park

OK, so much for me posting on Wednesday and Sundays. I found that if I try and just do it on certain days I forget things I want to write about. So the heck with it, I'm just going to blog when there's something I want to say.

I've mentioned in earlier blogs about the flooding this summer in this area when they had to open the Falcon Dam. Pretty much everything on the other side of the levee was flooded including Bentsen Palm State Park. I was surprised when we got back here and found out the park was still closed to the public and they are saying it may not be opened at all this winter. Not only is there still standing water but because it was flooded for so long the road inside has to be replaced along with all of the buildings. I was reading their FaceBook site and they had a picture of a Texas Tortoise that one of the rangers had spotted in the park.

We've never seen one but I guess the park people are excited to see at least one had survived the flooding.

Today we needed to run into the Verizon store than stopped at Sams for a few things. We also stopped at a place called Boot Jack. We were there last spring and it has a great selection of clothes in Larry's size. They have women's clothing but not much so I wasn't able to find anything.

Late this afternoon our friends Dick and Helen and Gary and Marilynn pulled in. The four of them have been traveling the last couple of weeks together. We had happy hour with them but we'll catch up on their travels after they get settled. It's just good to have them here.

So that's it for today. Till next time.......................

Daily happenings

Sunday - A nice quiet day. Went for our bike ride and rode up on the levee. You can still see water from the flooding this summer. I want to ride down to the boat dock and check that out one of these days. Warm that day - 92 degrees

Monday- after our bike ride we went to the local Verizon store to see what they had to offer. We've been with AT&T for five years and they were always a lot cheaper on the family plan than Verizon. But this summer we went into the store in Lansing and was totally turned off by the customer service. I was willing to sign a new two year contract to get a deal on the purchase of new phones but when I was told we would have to pay $18 per phone for an upgrade fee plus the price of new phones I gave them a big "no thanks". So when my phone quit half way back to Texas it was time to do something. The businesses down here are just unbelievable in the Customer Service Dept. They will do just about anything to make you happy. As it turns out because we are GM retiree's we get a discount so once that was applied our monthly bill is just about what we were paying. They don't have the roll over minutes but our monthly minutes went from 500 to 750 and since we had something like 3,000 roll over minutes I wasn't to concerned. Plus I found out that minutes don't count when you call another Verizon customer and most of our family has it. Oh and yes we were able to keep our old numbers. Broke record today - 95 degrees

Tuesday - Jutta and I had hair cut appointments in the morning. Mine was at 10am and I soooo needed a cut. My bangs were always hanging in my eyes. I could of gone to my lady back in GL. She does a great job but it also costs me about $30 there. My lady here who also does a wonderful job charges $10. Ah that's a no brainier. Jutta couldn't get her's done until 11:30 so we made a quick trip down to Walmart for a few items than back to the salon. Once she was finished we decided to have lunch at Victoria's Tea Room that's right beside the salon. It's a neat place (sorry no website) to have a soup and sandwich and of course they serve a verity of flavored teas.

While I was gone Larry and David took down the storm shutters on Gary's and Dick's sheds. They will be arriving tomorrow. Speaking of arriving Mike and Pat pulled in while we were gone. We stopped for just a second to say welcome back and we'll see them soon when we go down there for happy hour. Not as warm, only 83 degrees but the Texas wind is a blowing and awning is doing good.

It's a daily thing now to walk/bike around the park to see who came in the day before. Yesterday when we went out on the bikes we came across this huge snake and thankfully he was dead. But that puppy was long.

Here's a couple of Halloween pictures I have to share with you.

Our grand son Darrius
And our grand dog Devon

I guess that's it for today. Time to get ready for HH (happy hour). Till next time............................