Merry Christmas

Sorry this is late on posting. Weekend seemed to be busy with friends and food. But let me back up a little to last week.

Seems like each day we had rain, clouds and cold temp's and we were all going stir crazy. Can you have cabin fever after only just a few days? One day Marilynn and I went xmas dinner shopping and a couple of times Danielle and I just went out to Walmart just to get out of the house.

Wednesday we went over to the other trailer. We'd scheduled some people to come that day to wash and wax the trailer. While they did that I worked on finishing the cleaning of the inside and after the workers were gone Larry made sure the furnace, air conditioner, batteries and such were all working. Our renters will be coming in later this week and from the emails I get from Gloria they are pretty excited about getting down here. Tomorrow I will go back over and finish up a few things so it's all ready for them.

Thursday night we went over to Pizza Hut with Bob and Linda who are renting Doug/Jutta's lot just down from us. Nice people and we enjoyed our evening of getting to know them a little more.

Friday night Jack and Danielle invited us over for dinner. Jack recently purchased a Paella Grill and was it ever good. Paella, is the national dish of Spain made with rice, meats, fish, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Doesn't this look good.

Like I said this was delicious and I wouldn't mind getting one and learning how to fix it.

Saturday afternoon we went over to Dave and Linda's for a little pizza, wine and laughs.

Than that evening we had a few friends over for a little more wine and snacks.

Than Sunday we had dinner with friends here. There was a community dinner in the clubhouse but we have always reserved the craft room and had our own dinner.


Needless to say there was a lot of food at all of these gatherings and the diet started today.

Of course talked to the family this weekend. This is always the hardest time of year for me, being away during all the parties and sharing the opening of presents. One of the nice things about Facebook is seeing the pictures the family puts on. So that always helps.

Today was a fairly quiet day with lots of walks with Pepper and a trip over to the dog park. With us being gone so much the last few days she's been ignored and we paid for it today. That little stinker has more energy. But she does like sitting on Larry's lap and looking out the window.
Oh I have to share a picture I took of a gift we received from our neighbor Pat Olson. Pat painted the three of us, isn't it precious.


Pat is well known in the Fine Arts for her paintings. She has set her carriage house up as a studio so she can work from here. Here's a link to see just some of her talent. Thanks Pat for this special gift.

So that's it for now. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with who ever you spent this time with. Till next time........................

Rainbow - ice cream - more rain

I know one thing I'm sure tired of these cloudy drizzly days. Let us see SUN again. And a little more heat wouldn't hurt either. The only good thing out of this rain was this rainbow


Pretty cool ha

The week has been pretty quiet and uneventful. In fact the only thing of real interest that we did this week was a quick trip down to Mexico to pick up some med's and Larry wanted a hair cut. Had lunch there and we were home by shortly after 1pm.

This afternoon we had a ice cream social at the clubhouse. The owners of the development started furnishing Baskin Robbins ice cream once a month. Would have been nice to have a little better weather but it's free so who are we to complain. Sure was good.

The Christmas Parties for our families are this weekend back in Michigan. As Larry and I were walking one morning a couple of weeks ago we actually talked about driving home for the parties. It's amazing how ideas sound so good when your walking around in shorts or during happy hour but how bad they sound when the following day you had frost and your in heavy coats (ok maybe not Michigan heavy coats). I think we made the right decision to stay put here in Texas even tho it's only 60 degrees, it sure beats the 30's back home.

Anissa our grand-daughter had to have some minor surgery this week on her eye lid. Her mom sent me phone pictures of her in the hospital of before and after. I won't share those with you, I'm sure Anissa would just "die" if I put those out on the blog. A teenager's close up picture with no make up. I'll just say she's doing fine and only stayed home one day from school.

Well its taken me forever to write this today so I might as well give up. There's just not a lot going on here.

For everyone out there who's reading this have a safe and wonderful Christmas.

So until next time.........................................

And than there was RAIN

The biggest news I have is we have had RAIN, and more rain and more rain and more rain on Saturday.


The last time I looked at the rain gauge (just before dark) there was almost three inches in it. They haven't seen this much around here since the last hurricane in the summer of 2010. This will so help with the drought around here and will wash some of the dirt off of everything. The only problem was we also lost our power about 8:30 in the morning and didn't get it back until around 5:30pm. You just don't realize how much you rely on electricity until it's not there.

We've had all kinds of weather this week. The beginning there was frost two nights, middle of week we were back up around 80 and end of week lots of rain. So now lets get back to the kind that we come down here for, days of sun and warmth, nights of sleeping with windows open.

We went for a bike ride over to the State Park last week. Everything was so dry and burned up. Hardly looked like the same park. We still haven't seen any of the animals since the flood two years. But hopefully after today we'll start seeing some green in there.


Some of you might remember me talking about our friends Donna and Grant Zinnecker an their dog Wendy.

Well Wendy had her 15th birthday just a few weeks ago but this last week she was having some major problems. They knew this day would be coming soon and on Tuesday they brought Wendy over so we could say our goodbyes too her before taking her the vet. She was such a neat girl and just loved to going hunting. She would act like a puppy when she and Pepper got together at happy hours and Pepper seemed to sense when it was time to be a little careful. Sad day for Donna and Grant.

I guess it's been a quiet week. Marilynn and I met Linda one morning for some coffee and a little shopping. We always have a good time.

Jim/Pat Olsen and Dick/Helen Goodman both arrived this week and are getting settled in. I've blamed them for the cold frosty mornings.

Tomorrow is puppy play day at the park and I sure hope the weather is decent to go there. Pepper so needs these days to get rid of some of her energy.

Have a couple of pictures to share. Larry purchased a Kindle Fire a few weeks ago and loves reading his books on it. Pepper seems to think he should be finding some puppy books.
And one night we had happy hour up at the clubhouse and had our picture taken in front of the tree.


So guess that's it for this week. Till next time.............................

Christmas arrives at Retama's Clubhouse

As mentioned in last weeks blog there was a Christmas Open House at the Clubhouse the day after Thanksgiving. A special fund raiser last winter brought in enough $$'s to purchase some fantastic decorations over the course of the last year. Three ladies, Bonnie Fogg, Vicki Ogg and Kathy Pike (plus husbands) designed and purchased all the decorations.So here's just a few pictures but there are a lot more decorations than this.

The first one is the Tapestry that Donna Zinnecker, Betty Miller and two other ladies spent hours and hours designing and making.

Donna gets all the credit for the tree skirt. Each ball on the skirt has the name of a street here in Retama. Again she spent hours on this with a lot of it being hand sewn. Unbelievable!!!!

Here's the fountain at the entrance of the patio. Because of the winds here everything had to be secured tightly and so far it's all staying put

Here's one of the tree. Not sure how it happened but yours truly who never goes higher than the third step ended up on the ladder putting the bulbs at the top of the tree. They say we had 600 ornaments and they were all used in the front/sides of the tree. I believe it as there were five of us and it took almost three hours.

Here's one of the living room

As I said there was a grand opening that Friday night and the RV Park next to us was invited. Rhodes (owner/developer of both parks) furnished over 600 cookies and hot apple cider. The weather was perfect for wondering from the clubhouse to the patio and the turn out was great with over 200 people enjoying the treats and getting to know each other.

Not much happening this week. Marilynn, Donna, Danielle and I had a girl trip to Mexico on Wednesday. Had a great time shopping and having lunch at our favorite place.

Larry and I celebrated our 34th anniversary yesterday with going out for a Mini Blizzard with Jack and Danielle. We always pat ourselves on the back for remembering it on the right date. Seems the first 20 years we were celebrating on the 2nd and after having to get our marriage license out for some reason we realized we were married on the 3rd. Ha it was close.

So that's it for this week. Time to start heading for the Dog Park for our weekly play date with all the other puppies. We try to get Pepper there to get some of the energy released.

Oh have one more picture. Again our gr-gr niece Delilah seeing her first Xmas Tree.

That's all for now. Till next week...............................

Happy Thanksgiving, Excitement in Retama

Had some excitement today around noon. As Danielle and I were walking the dogs down our street there were two young men walking along the fence behind the rigs. As we watched them they started walking faster than started running. They ran along the front wall than came back. About that time one of the border patrol guys arrived on a ATV and we pointed to him where they were at. But they were able to climb the wall and the BP took off back out the gate. There was another BP walking behind our place and he was trying to find a place to climb back over so I got our 3 step stool out for him. Than I spotted another guy walking down the street towards our place and another BP on ATV came up too him, the guy raised his hands and the BP pointed to the front of the ATV to climb on. A little later one of the BP stopped and said they had caught 15 of them in our park. So our normal lazy Sunday afternoons turned into something to watch. We head the helicopter over head with the spot light around 10pm last night so I'm wondering if this group was part of the one from last night.

On to other things, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with some special friends. It was a perfect day to have our dinner outside on Dave/Sue McCarrons patio.

The guys did the turkey's

And the ladies did the rest
There were 4 turkeys - 2 grilled-1 deep fried - 1 smoked
Pepper couldn't have turkey but we gave her a nice rawhide bone

Friday we had left over day and there was plenty of food left. That night we went up to the clubhouse for the Christmas Open House which I'll share next week with you.

Saturday we put up some lights around the window and Marilynn and I went to the nursery and I got some plants to put in the pots.
That night we were invited over to Gary and Marilynn's for dinner of steaks on the grill, sweet potatoes, salad and a yummy desert. Than this afternoon was our Turkey Soup day that Dale makes every year. I'm thinking it's time to quit eating completely until say mid January.

One of the nice things about Facebook is having family put pictures on. This one is our great great niece Delilah who seems to be gearing up for Black Friday
Also our gr-daughter Anissa picked up her senior pictures on Friday and Brandi posted a couple of previews. Can't wait to get ours but this is one of my favorites too,.

So that fills you in for this week. Our beautiful weather turned on us on Saturday and we had strong (30mph) winds out of the north with gusts up to 40. It didn't let up until tonight and now they are saying we could be in the high 30's tonight. Words can not express how I feel about these temps. Actually there are words but I'm not allowed to use them.

That's it for now, Till next time........................................

Shopping, Puppies, Getting even

This last week seemed to be shopping week. The best part is I did lots of looking and not much buying. Wednesday I went with Marilynn to the McAllen Mall and just walked around. This is a pretty good size mall and one thing I noticed there wasn't one empty store front. The other thing I noticed was there were lots of shoe stores (with the 4" heels) and if your a size 2 this is the place to be. Thursday I meant Linda C. for a cup of coffee than did a little shopping at Target. Saturday Donna wanted to go to the new Hobby Lobby so of course I couldn't let her go alone. So lots of window shopping which is the best kind.

I did pick up a album. Thought it would be neat to have a recipe book up at the clubhouse for everyone to either share or copy a recipe. So passed out some 4x6 cards so hopefully the ladies will fill up the book. For those of you here in the park that are reading this I'm putting more index cards up in the clubhouse.



Larry also did some shopping this week only he never left the house. He ordered a Kindle Fire. So the last couple of days he's been having a love/hate relationship with it.
Pepper has a new friend called Foster. Foster and his friend arrived in our park several weeks ago. Not sure where they came from but eventually Foster was caught by one of the residents and his friend avoided the animal control guys for about two weeks. Anyway the bigger dog may be adopted by another resident (still up in the air on that) as he has a lot of problems but little foster has found a home. He's pretty much been adopted by the whole community. The vet figures he is about 4-5 months old and is such a cutie. He was very shy and scared but with the help of other dogs and especially Pepper he has become a active friendly little guy. Here's Pepper and Foster enjoying their play time together that we try to do often.
Speaking of new puppies in the neighborhood Gary and Marilynn were feeling a bit left out with all the newbies so they decided to get themselves a puppy. We have some strict covenants here and one is that all pets have to be on a lease at all times. Well Larry didn't want them to get into trouble so he took a lease over and made sure it was safely secure.
So far they haven't named their puppy that I know of. He/she (to be determined) seems to be fairly quiet and doesn't bark too much. But if he continues we may have to loan Peppers bark collar (which by the way he no longer needs) to them.

Plans are being made for the big Turkey Day. There's a group of about 20 of us that will gather at Sue and Dave's home. Weather looks to be perfect for having dinner outside on their patio, sure hope so. Since I probably won't post until next Sunday I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

OK, so I do have one more picture to share. As most of you know I'm not one to have my picture taken and I've shared some photo's of Larry that he's not thrilled with. Well the other day he said he had a picture on the camera and he wanted it on the blog as a "small" pay back of all the ones of him. So here it is:
Enough said: Till next time..............................

New steps, Luncheon, City Market

Can you believe how fast this month is going. Turkey day is just around the corner than Christmas, New Years and than we all have to get use to writing 2012. Not sure about you but I'm just getting use to the 2011.

A few weeks ago when we were in the local HEB (like Kroger's back home) they had these mini crock pots. I've been keeping an eye out for one that has duel temps (high, low, warm). The one I have is just too big but this mini one is perfect for the two of us. So this week I've given it a work out on different recipes. What really caught my eye on this was the color.

Orange

For those of you who don't no my Michigan kitchen is done in gray's and oranges and this will fit right in. So I had to stop back this week and pick up another one to take home.

Another project completed this week was new steps for the trailer. I love them, so much easier to try and carry groceries in without having to balance on skinny steps to open the door. Of course if I'd quit trying to make only one trip and have bags hanging all over me I'd probably have an easier time but who wants to make two trips.

Here's my new steps.

We had our first community meeting this week. Interesting meeting but was a little long. These clubhouse chairs are only good for about an hour of sitting and by the time it was over everyone was ready to get out of there.

Wednesday Donna Zinnecker and I were the hostess for this months Ladies Luncheon. A new tradition was started last year on having some of the men in the village plan, shop, cook, serve and clean up on our November meeting. Our head chef was Dave McCarron and here's a picture of him with some of his helpers.
L/R Dave McCarron, Ken Adams, Mark Bruss, Richard Shong, Grant Zinnecker. Not sure where Gail Quinn was but he also helped.

So what was the menu you ask. First we were served with a Fresh Garden Salad with Italian dressing. Than came Roasted Pork Loin, Red Potato's covered in real butter with parsley and Home Made Applesauce (made from 4 different apples). Than cookies to top it off. The service was great and the food was wonderful, thanks guys. That day also went over the 1-hour chair limit after the program and visitors we had lined up but it was fun.

Here's a couple of pictures

Have to share this picture of Darrius that Brandi had on Facebook this week. Seems he felt he needed to watch TV in this for protection. Not sure what he was watching??
Today we went down to the City Market in Donna. Picked up some peppers (.50 ea), radishes (.50 huge bunch), 10lb each of oranges and grapefruit ($3 ea), and a whole fresh cut pineapple ($3). I wanted to check on the price of pecans. Not sure what it is up north but it was $4.50lb in shells and $9 lb shelled.

Since I've been working on and off all afternoon on this blog I guess it's time to close and fix dinner. Till next time........................ which seems to be on Sundays

Helicopter, Mexico trip, Dinner w/Friends

So did everyone remember to set their clocks back. Not sure how a person can forget with all the reminders on TV, Internet and newspapers. Of course it was one of those nights that I was wide awake to meet the time change in person. After watching Brothers & Sisters, and two repeats of Cheers I was just about ready to fall asleep. But it was not to be as the helicopter arrived and started to make a circle over our trailer and out in the field west of us. I finally got up and looked out as this was continuing much longer than normal and saw the big spot light so knew they were after someone. This went on for over an hour and I was about to call my brother Bob and find out how long it takes for these birds to run out of gas. But figured that wouldn't be very nice at 4AM. Found out this morning from a neighbor that they were after a fairly large group of drug runners who were carrying bundles. The only reason we new about this is while she was walking her dog she came across one of the bundles and called the border patrol. We don't normally get drug runners around us so maybe it's time to have the border patrol people come here and give us an update again.

We were invited over to David/Linda's for dinner one night along with Gary/Marilynn. David put some ribs on the grill and were they good. Had a great time with them at their home.

Thursday we decided to make a quick trip down to Progreso Mexico. We needed to pick up some heart worm medicine for Pepper. We did some comparison and found there wasn't much difference in price for the Frontline med's but a big difference on the Heart Guard Med. In the states you have to have a prescription from a Vet but like people med's we can buy it over the counter in Mexico. We got six months worth (once a month chewable tablet) for $17.00.

One of the first things we noticed after crossing the bridge was all of the military men, tanks, sandbag barricades and the 12 year old looking soldiers with their machine guns were all gone. We had heard the the town was trying to make tourist feel safer and one way was to move all the military on the outskirts of town. They also did some major clean up along the streets and painted the outside of the buildings. This town relies on the Winter Texans and with all the News about problems in Mexico the last couple of years have really hurt this small town. It was a short visit there but we did stop and have lunch at our favorite place.

My brother Bob was released from the hospital on Wednesday and has been enjoying being home in his recliner and own bed. Not to mention having Diane fixing some of her wonderful home cooked meals.

Have a few pictures to share this week. The first one is from my sister Nadene. It was taken off their patio at the cottage at Lake George MI.
Here's our Grandson Darrius all ready to hit the streets to collect as much candy and he can.
We decided to start taking Pepper out on our bike rides to use up some of that energy she always seems to have. She does very well on staying along side of Larry unless she see's another dog or someone calls out her name.

She really loves going as fast as she can down the road.
Two mornings a week there's a Play Date at the dog park. I'm not sure who enjoys it more, the dogs or the owners.
But when it's over we have a good two hours of piece and quiet.

So that's about it for this week. Till next time...........................

Friends returning, Brother Bob, Oktoberfest

Guess I'm really slacking on posting this blog. Like others that have blogs once you settle in one location for awhile there's not much to write about.

My brother Bob had open heart surgery this week so we anxiously wait for update phone calls. And my dear SIL Diane has been wonderful on calling me and their son Brian has been sending emails out to family and friends. Bob is still in ICU but after a few speed bumps after surgery he is amazing the Dr's on how well he's doing. Hopefully he will be moved from ICU in the next day or so. So Big Brother keep on amazing those Dr's on your recovery but don't push it to far.

Lots of residents arrived this week. Needed to do walk abouts ever few hours just to see who's here. Which never seems to bother Pepper. She too likes to find out if the new arrivals have any new playmates. Donna/Grant Zinnecker that are parked right next to us came in on Tuesday. They had their trailer painted over the summer and is it gorgeous. We were happy to see their dog Wendy is still with them. She's almost 15 years old and she looks and acts like a kid. Pepper seems to sense that Wendy isn't up to her normal standards of ruff housing so is content to just be with her. We also introduced Pepper to Lucy their cat, which is a first for Pepper. Lucy seemed to want to set some ground rules and every time Pepper gets too close to her, Lucy hauls off and whacks her on the end of her nose.

On Thursday Gary/Marilynn Orthober pulled in who are on the other side of us. Lots of hugs and a great catch up time at happy hour. Also that day Mark/Dale Bruss arrived. I found that my walks around the park are back to taking a hour or two by the time I stop and chit chat.

David/Linda Cypcar stopped over on Thursday (busy day). David had a set of steps he made for their 5th wheel that they know longer need so after Larry makes some adjustments we'll be able to use them for our door. Can't wait, much better and safer steps for getting in/out of the trailer. Course we had to do a little payment so we jumped in the car and went over to the Dairy Queen for one of their yummy Blizzards. Linda got me started on those darn things a few years back and now I'm hooked. At least they came out with a mini blizzard which is not quite as bad in calories.

News flash, just got off the phone with brother Bob and he sounds great. All the updates are wonderful but there's nothing like hearing his voice. Great talking to you Bobby

Yesterday afternoon I went up to the clubhouse and helped with the fixings for the Oktoberfest dinner that was last night. It was a perfect evening to sit out on the patio, enjoy a good meal, have a little wine and see everyone.

There were a couple of pictures on FaceBook this week that I want to share.

This says it all
Love this one

Daughter Renee' had to fly to Norway last week for work. I love this real-time flight tracker where I can log in and see where the plane is at and when it arrives. You can even see a picture of the plane so I could see what seat she was sitting at. Pretty cool. Luckily she returned on Friday before all the snow on the East Coast and got back home in Cleveland without problems.

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

Pepper update - have some pictures to share but instead of putting them on here I will upload them on our Webshot site under a Pepper's Album later today. The training is an on going thing but we, I mean she, really picks things up quickly. The hard part is remembering she is a puppy and if there are other dogs around all bets are off.