Busy......Busy.......Busy

After returning from Corpus Cristy, the guy we bought our new place from, informed us they would be leaving and returning to Canada on the next Saturday. At least a week before we were expecting. We were so excited. On Saturday the (20th) we got up early and saw them off and then proceeded to go into house and look things over. We hadn't told our friends, Larry and MaryAnn that we were getting in early, and had invited them over for the afternoon. I think they were a little surprised to see us standing on the deck when they got here.

From RV.net party and New place

After moving some furniture around and checking on many different things, we got busy moving stuff over from the motor home and then the things we had packed and were in the shed. It was hard to decided where to put some things, but I think we are getting settled in now. Moving the furniture helped it to feel more like our place. We still don't have our pictures and other things set out as they are still in storage in Iowa, but we will get there. Please check out all the pictures on the web album to get a full tour of our new place.

Tuesday we went with Larry and MaryAnn to the RV.net party that is held here in the Rio Grande Valley. It was somewhat smaller this year as the organizer had an emergency and were out of town and the party had to be postponed till Feb. It was suppose to been in Jan. We had a great time, it is so good to see friends we have made in past years and meet new ones that are on the RV.net forums. We all had grilled hot dogs, chips, soda and Klondike bar. They then passed the microphone around and each couple got a chance to tell a little something about themselves along with there RV.net user name. Door prizes were given away and a group picture taken, it was then time for some more chit-chat and making more new friends.

From RV.net party and New place

On Thursday of last week, I called DirectTV to arrange for our move into house and have them come out and put up new dish. Roger decided he wanted to go the extra and get high definition. When calling I made all the arrangements and set up an appointment for Saturday afternoon. The installer came out, but..............he informed us he could not put the high definition dish on our metal roof. OH, we could pay an extra $100 to get a pole, dig a hole, pore cement and make sure it was completely plum then they would put it there. We told them "No Thank-you" I called DirectTV back that afternoon and arranged to have them come back and install a standard dish for our use. At least that is what I tried to do. After talking to the first lady, she insisted on having a tech guy call us back and see what the problem was. I think Roger must of talked to him for at least a half hour, at the end of that time, he connected me back up to costumer service to make an appointment for installation of the standard dish.

Now this gal got all my information, and then informed me they would call me back within 72 hours to make an appointment. Now wait a minute, I asked her why she didn't make the appointment as that is what they have done ever other time I have called. She said they would call me. This was Saturday, now what? Roger took the cables we had ran for satellite in the RV and ran them into house, we are using that now. Monday, I called costumer service back again, had to go through the whole thing again and set an appointment for Wednesday morning. A different guy showed up this morning and guess what, he like the first guy, had a work order for the High Def and didn't have a standard dish with him. He called someone with his phone, and talked to them, put me on the phone to talk to him and he set up another appointment for tomorrow afternoon. We are keeping our fingers crossed. When the guy calls before he comes, I am going to ask him about the order and if he doesn't have a standard dish, I am going to tell him to save the trip and boy is the #$%& going to hit the fan.

Till later, all our northern friends and family, stay warm and we will see you in the spring.

Corpus Cristy

Wow, where do I start........we were getting ready for a pot luck at our park on Thursday and received a phone call from Roger's brother, Larry. They were headed for Corpus Cristy and wanted to know if we wanted to meet them there the next day. I was suppose to have a table at craft sale in Bentsen Grove, but decided to call and cancel my table and we would head out to meet up with Larry and Sharon.

We took off Friday morning and them at a Denny's, ate lunch and decided which motel we would stay at. We spent sometime chatting and catching up, then went for a walk on beach. Got checked in later on (they didn't have our rooms clean, first time we stopped at motel). Went to a small shop by motel for supper and decided what we wanted to do the next day.

Friday night, Roger and I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, or should I say, we tried to watch. We were both having a hard time trying to stay awake. Good thing I set the DVR to tape them while we were gone.

After breakfast this morning, we took off for the USS Lexington for a self guided tour. There are 5 different tour routes to take and we made two of them in a little over 3 hours. Wow....so much to see. One really gets a workout climbing up and down all the steps on board that air craft carrier. Roger took many pictures.............till while we were up on the flight deck, his battered died and guess what, he left the extra (charged) battery at the motel. After the tour we returned to motel for battery and continued on with our days journey. Be sure to check out all the photo's in "My Web Albums"...........Roger had camera and was having fun taking pictures.

From Corpus Cristy

From Corpus Cristy

Larry drove to Port Aransas and take the ferry ride. We spent the day exploring the area and eating out again. It was fun to spend the day with them and get a chance to do something different. We have been living in RV waiting to get into our new place and the change of scenery is nice.

We will be leaving tomorrow to return to Mission and get back in the swing of things there.

Moved into RV

Selling our place at Bentsen Grove was a hard thing for me. I got to know so many nice people there and between the Computer Club and Line Dancing, I am going to miss everyone. We must move on and that is what we have been doing the past few weeks.

Our new place in Valley View Estates, is still occupied by the couple we bought it from. We were nice and let them stay there (even tho we now own it). So we have now moved into the RV which is sitting on an RV pad next to house (mobile home). This move was confusing as there were things to move back into RV and some things to go to house. Since we can not get in house yet, they needed to be packed and put in shed till such time we get house. That was hard part as it ended up much was just packed, moved to RV then if I didn't have room, it was repacked and put in shed. I think we are finally to the point that the RV is live able for now.

I have not been able to get the satellite dish set up here, I don't understand why I have so much trouble with it. Seems like every time we move the RV I have this problem. I called DirectTV and they are sending someone out on Monday to help me get it set up. I am sure I have all the settings right. Roger is also expecting the guy to come fix our steps on RV. They would not come out and it was very hard to move in with no steps. Roger met the guy here last week and it seems the motor is shot, so had to order a new motor for steps. If it's not one thing it's another.

While trying to get the satellite stuff out from under belly of RV, the neighbor came over and informed Roger, he didn't want him walking on his grass, he is trying to grow grass there. Take my word for it, the grass is a mess on both sides of his place and there is no way he is going to get grass to grow there. He wanted us to move RV over so Roger would walk on driveway. We moved it and Roger can walk on driveway, but he will still have to step off when he gets into bays or has to dump holding tanks. I don't know what it is, but somehow we always manage to get a neighbor that has some kind of complaint for us. When we lived in Cedar Rapids (17 years) the lady next door was upset because we were parked in alley buy her trash cans and they were sitting way far back off alley and the garbage men would not walk the extra feet to get it. I was all our fault. Then we moved to Stanwood, there the town held a meeting to get us to install special skirting on mobile home so it would look like foundation, then one guy complained about our mail box. Then we get to Bentsen Grove and the neighbor there complained about our dog. Now it is the grass. Guess we just can't win. We will be nice about it and maybe kill them with kindness. LOL

Went to a program at hall last night. It was a family from Alaska that have a show in Branson. They have 7 kids and travel with all of them in a motor home. They call themselves "Redhead Express" The girls are the main entertainment. Ages 20 - 18 - 16- 14. The 20 year old writes many of their songs and plays lead guitar, the 18 year old is the banjo player and has a smile that you can not forget. The 16 year old is a fiddle player and Madelin player and boy can she yodel. The youngest girl (14) is a base player and she is good. Mom and Dad both sing and then there are three younger brothers (11 - 9 - 7) and they play banjo, Madelin and base also. Really cute to see the 7 year old try to play that big base.

Till next time. Stay warm and remember............spring will come, just don't know when.

Sold our place at Bentsen Grove

While visiting friends on Saturday, Roger received a phone call from a couple who were at our place in Bentsen Grove and wanted to look at it. We were across town, he really didn't want to go as so far all of the showings have not amounted to anything. He gave in, told the guy he could be there in 15 minutes. That was a good move as they bought it, put money down and now we are working on paper work. They wanted to move by Feb. 1st and since we have the motor home to move into, we agreed. We will be moving into MH until we can move into new place before March 1st. The motor home is located at the new place and has full hookups, so it is going to work out okay. Now I am trying to decided what to move into motor home and what to pack to go into house when we get moved into it. There are two storage sheds at new place, so we can store stuff there.

Till later...........will keep you posted.

Winter here in Mission, Rio Grande Valley, is not as nice and warm as the past two years we have been here. We have been having some cold and rain and everyone around is hoping it will warm up soon. I am sure it will as winter can't last too long around here. I just keep telling myself that it is not as cold as it is in the North and we can live with this. We did have some very cold nights, below freezing and a warning was put out for the fruit corp. Since we have two ruby red grapefruit trees and 4 orange trees, we had to do something. We were told at the park meeting that if it gets below 28 degree for more then 6 hours it would ruin the fruit and it would be best to pick the fruit. We did just that and then got out our juicer and made orange juice and froze it. We were lucky that the place we are buying has a very large freezer in the shed and that is where the juice ended up.

From 2010 - January

All the parks are filling up and all park and valley activities are in full swing. I am still doing computer club on Monday mornings. Over the Christmas break, we offered informal computer help instead of the class like setting we do. That format went over very well. The skill level of seniors are so different and it is hard in class to make sure everyone is understanding what is going on and what to do. Then too, we have new people arriving new each week and if they are new to computers, it is a catch up to what we have covered already in class. Thanks to one of the instructors, he has offered to open up the meeting room and have that informal one on one help for 3 days a week and some of us go up to help with that. My other big activity is line dancing and if I get a chance, it meets four times a week. Due to my having a cold or sinus problems the past week or two, I have not been attending line dancing but hope to get back to it this week.

On Friday the 8th we had an appointment with our lawyer and cosed on our new place. We are now the proud owners of our next home. I still do not have photos to share with you of the inside, as the couple we bought it from are still there. We will be getting it on March 1st. We have spent a lot of time with them and feel like old friends. They are from Canada and we have agreed on March 1st as they want to spend more “warm time” here. We have started to move some things over to the new place. We had some things at our place in Bentsen Grove that we wanted to take with us and since we are selling it furnished, we needed to change out a recliner. We took Roger's new lazy boy over to new place and brought one of their recliners over here. We also had an area rug we had bought last spring and we wanted to take it with us. When we show the place at Bentsen Grove we felt we should have the things in it we are going to be leaving, not have to tell them “ and we are going to take this, replace it with this, we are going to take that, etc. Also, it doesn't hurt to declutter. Now Roger is wondering what he is going to do with all the things he kept when we sold our place in Stanwood. We have a storage garage rented and I must say, it is full. When we get back to Iowa this spring/summer we will have to go through things and do some more sorting and thinning out. When you buy a furnished place, you just don't need all the things you thought you needed.

After waking up Christmas morning and opening our gifts to each other, Roger decided to take the trash to the dumpster and drop our plates off at the hall so we could get our place for dinner. After going outside to get his bike, he came back inside and informed me someone stole his 21 speed bike. We ended up calling the Sheriff after dinner and making a report, but it seems there have been many, many bikes stolen from this park and others in the area. Who ever it is, crawls under the fence, finds the bikes and throws them over the fence where they are loaded into a truck and then they are back under fence and gone. We did do some looking at pawn shops to see if it showed up, but that didn't do any good. Spent a day checking out new bikes, but decided to wait. Our friends (Larry and MaryAnn) from the park next to our, called us and said they had friends in their park who wanted to sell a 7 speed bike. That is what Roger had decided he wanted. He never did use all the gears on the 21 speed. He ended up buying it and is now back to riding his bike.

From 2010 - January

We are keeping busy despite the cool weather and the time seems to be flying by. Still have our place at Bentsen Grove up for sale and seem to show it a couple times a week. With all the people arriving in the valley, we are just waiting for that right person to come look at it.

Merry Christmas

Boy, have we been busy. We put our place here at Bentsen Grove Resort up for sale and have had a few lookers, but nothing serious yet. It takes a little extra time each morning to make sure it is all clean and ready to show, just in case some one stops in or calls to see it. The park has a notebook in the office with a listing of units for sale. I made up a page to add for our place. We also have a sign up on the unit so and then it is word of mouth. We will put it in the "Winter Texan Paper" after the first of the year. Hopefully we will get someone that is interested in it.

On the 14th we made a trip to Hidalgo for their Christmas light display. Hidalgo is South of McAllen. We went with Larry and MaryAnn from the park next to ours. Of course we went out to eat first then went for the light show. This is our 3rd winter here and the first time we made it down to see the lights. What a great time we had and the lights were wonderful, so much to take in and it seemed like I was sitting on the wrong side of the trolley to get the pictures I want. Now if I can remember next time to site on same side as driver, I will get pictures of other side. LOL Most of the pictures we taken from moving trolley, so not as good as I would of liked. Also, I haven't learned how to use all the features on the new camera, so that would improve them also. Be sure to click on picture to take you to rest of photo's in "My Photo Album".

From Hidalgo lights and Green Gate parade

Roger has signed us up for Christmas dinner here at the park, it will be at noon, then we will pack up and head to Valley View (were our new place is) and have pot luck with them at 5pm. Boy are we going to be stuffed. I just don't know why we need to have two big meals that day, but as the saying goes...............whatever.

Yesterday morning, I received a phone call from my sister, Linda. She drives truck and was headed this way with a load and wanted to know if we could meet up with her. We had made planes to meet with the couple we are buying our new place with, to go see a lawyer. So I told Linda we could meet her before that. We then took off to check at our old park to see if our packages had been delivered there, then on to meet Linda. She wasn't here yet, but would be around 10:45am, so we headed for Weslaco where she was to unload. We waited till she got there, which was around 11:30 and then went for lunch. Left there and met with Jack and Sharon and lawyer and waited for Linda to call after she got unloaded and knew what her next load would be. She hadn't called, so I called her and she said she was just finished unloading and didn't know about another load yet, so she was going to head to Flying J and park there and get back to me when she found out. After leaving Jack and Sharon, we started for home, on way got a call from Linda, she didn't have a new load and would find out in morning if she got one then. I dropped Roger off at home (we were almost there) and I took off for the Flying J in Edinburg to pick her up. She was going to spend the night at our place, and I would take her back to her rig in the morning or when she found out about a load. Low and behold, we weren't even back home yet and she got a call, she had a load to pick up in Huston by 11am the next morning so she couldn't spend the night and would need to go back to Flying J. Roger was at park next to ours watching a gulf cart Christmas parade so we went there to get him, so he could ride back with me. Buy this time I had not had any supper and hadn't eaten since the Subway sandwich we had for lunch. It was back to Flying J and home again. I felt like I had been driving all day. Regardless, it was good to see Linda and spend a little time with her.

Like I said before, Roger went to Green Gate park to see the gulf cart parade there. We have some friends there (the ones we went to Hidalgo with) and he had is gulf cart in parade. Roger took pictures, so be sue to check them out.

From Hidalgo lights and Green Gate parade

I seems we are ready for Christmas, both of us have finished our shopping and have our cards and packages mailed. We have received packages from three of our five kids and know of one more on it's way so everything is a go. Then we have our plans for 2 dinners and the day spent with friends, Dick and Darlene. All that is left is to wish:

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends from Mission, Texas

Our New Place

We made it back over and took some pictures of our new place. Now please remember we are still at Bentsen Grove and won't be moving into new place till March. We did take the motor home over and have it parked on the pad there and hooked up to electric. The couple we are buying from are so nice, we seem to stay and have a good chat with them each time we go over. It helps to have our good friends, Dick and Darlene across the alley, so we stop and chat with them also. Here are the pictures, be sure to click on the first one and it will take you to My Photo Albums. Then you can view all of the pictures of the place.

From Our new place

The computer club went to lunch yesterday and we had a good time. Class seemed to go pretty good. I did a hands on class with everyone making a file, saving it, then going to documents and making a folder to put it in. We then dragged and dropped it into the folder.

While we were out to eat, the subject came up of our moving (some of them read my blog) and one of the couples wanted to come over and look at our place here. We haven't put it up for sale yet, but they seamed interested. Have to wait and see, we have a lot of time.

Hope you enjoy the photo's, till later..................Happy Trails