Some repairs, Yard Sale, Library

Another week has passed and not to much excitement to talk about. Of course Larry watched all the MSU games this week and was please with the turn out.

• Daughter Renee' had this picture on FB a while back, Larry loves it
• 

Had a light frost on Tuesday morning that was a bit of a surprise to everyone, especially the weather broadcasters, didn't see that one coming. There wasn't a lot of damage to the flowers and plants so that's good.

One day I went to the mall with Marilynn, Pat and Helen and we met up with Linda there. It was a little disappointing, the sale items looked like they were left over from last Christmas. It was nice to not see any empty stores in the mall. Our poor one back in Lansing looks a little sick with so many boarded up. There were quiet a few people out shopping. The public schools here are still off for xmas break, they go back on the 9th. I'm sure my grand kids would love to have that much time off. So we had a good time and a nice lunch there in Luby's.

Been working on things for our annual yard sale here that will be Saturday the 28th. I need to get busy and start checking my stuff out. Each year I wonder if people will have enough to even have one but they always surprise me on the amount that is brought out.

The park is also having their Walk Thru the Park on the 20th. This is where people can open their carriage houses, homes or RV ports to the public and the developer provides hot dogs etc. There have always been several hundred people that come . We'll be helping out on what ever is needed so it should be fun.

With that coming up there are several of us that got together to get the library spruced up. We are over flowing a little with books and some are starting to look pretty worn so we're pretty much going through them all. Going to be a big job but there's five of us. Will post a picture of library's when we're finished. There are so many books that we had to expand and build shelving on one wall in one of the card rooms.

Larry's been busy with repairs this week. My dryer quit and it's the same problem that it was last year. So a new part was ordered. If this happens again next year we'll just replace the dryer. Also the light above the sink quit and because I wanted more lighting on the counter he put LED strip lights there. Gives me just the right amount of light when I'm working there, may have to look at doing this in the kitchen up north.

Pepper is doing good. She loves to sit outside and watch people/dogs walk pass. There's this one puppy that's a few months younger and those two act like two best friend kids. Both try to pull the owners up to the trailer when they walk pass and they just totally ignore other dogs when their together. There's this one Scottie that Pepper does not like. One night when we were walking this dog started growling and parking at us. It wasn't just us from what I understand, he's not a very friendly dog which isn't good for these close quarters. But anyway ever since then if Pepper sees him walk pass her hair goes up and this deep growling comes out. It's the only time I've ever heard her do that.

• Thought I'd share Peppers new coat and her favorite toy that she carry's around on walks.
• 

Weather this week has been wonderful except for the one morning of frost. Been in the 80's with lows in the 50-60's. I've been watching the weather up north and it's been rather mild there too.

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

It's been a uneventful week

Happy 2012 Everyone

Our New Year started out with warm temp's here in southern Texas of 70 degrees. But the cold front went through around 10am and the temperature has been dropping ever since.

The last week gave us more sun and warm temperatures which always brings more people out and about. We enjoyed the Paella that we had at Jack and Danielles so much last week that we decided to give it a try. We really didn't want to buy the whole grill thing so we went to this restaurant supply place and found just the Paella pan. Than off to the grocery store to get the fixings. Needed chicken, Chorizo Sausage, Shrimp, Spanish Rice, onions, lots of garlic, parsley, tomatoes and chicken broth. It takes awhile to make this but for doing it on our grill it really turned out good.

Doesn't this look yunmy

I think we have a new type of meal that we'll be making a lot more of. You can pretty much toss any ingredient you want and it's open for any kind of meat or sea food. Only thing it does make a lot and we cut the recipe in half. The last 15 minutes you leave it alone and the rice caramelizes on the bottom, Larry said it was just dump luck that it turned out the way it was suppose to. It's a bit spicy but leaves you for wanting more.

Every Tuesday there is a vendor that comes to the park next door. I try to remember to go there because his prices on veggies are normally a lot less than the store. Larry wanted a pineapple (they core it while you wait) and I picked up some peppers along with these unbelievable sweet cherry tomatoes.
Our renters Joe and Gloria arrived yesterday afternoon from IL. They were so excited to get down here where it was warm. Well at least they had one day of it. But don't worry the 70's will be back on Tuesday. They are a really nice couple and I hope they enjoy their time here in the valley.

Last night we went over to Gary and Marilynn's for dinner. Yummy ribs, Marilynn out did herself on them again. It was a fun quiet evening with special friends.

Lots of fire works going off last night. Started around 9pm and didn't stop until after midnight. And oh what a racket at midnight. I'm hoping all the pops I heard were fire crackers but I'm afraid they all weren't. Texans seem to think they have to shot off guns on holidays. But it quieted down by 12:30.

So that's pretty much our week. 2011 has been good to us and hopefully 2012 will be the same.

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

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...............................