The first seven

As most of you know Twila and I had our seven year anniversary yesterday.  We had originally planned to go to a nice restaurant named Charlotte Plummers but Mattie had left over mashed potatoes and dressing and Betty made a green bean casserole, so we had another Thanksgiving Dinner.  Twila bought an 8 pound Honeysuckle White Turkey breast and she had the cranberry orange salad left from the Thanksgiving Dinner.  She also baked some hot rolls.  It was a really good supper.  The weather was great and we ate in the screened tent and talked till well after dark

We didn’t even leave the motor home today.  Well I didn’t anyway.  Twila went up to the office and picked up the mail.  We had a cold front move in today and at 9:40pm it is 53F with a light rain.  It’s suppose to rain all night and most of tomorrow.  If we don’t change our minds we are planning on going to the restaurant tomorrow night. 

New Trailer

I finally took a picture of Gary and Mattie’s new trailer.  As you can see, its a Montana and it’s really nice.  It has a 4 four door refrigerator, a ceiling fan in the living room and all the slides work off a remote control as do the jacks.  Cool.

I also got around to putting the screened tent up but you may notice the awning is down.  Even with the claws holding it down, I couldn’t sleep good for worrying about the wind tearing it up.  I guess I will put it out in the day and put it up at night.

Gary and Mattie bought a new trailer

Gary and Mattie House, our next door neighbors, bought a new trailer.  They bought it from Camper Clinic in Rockport, Texas.  They had to get everything out of the storage area of their old trailer and put it on the ground around their pad and then take it to Rockport and put everything from inside the old trailer into the new trailer.

Been there, done that, lots of work.  They had to be there by 8am and they got back just before dark.

Getting set up for the winter

Twila just loves to tell everyone that she knows we have an awning cause she saw it once.  I, like a lot of RVers, have a problem with putting the awning out.  I had to replace an awning on a 5th wheel trailer years ago because I left it out when I left.  A strong wind came up and bent the arm on one side.  Well I bought an item called a claw at the “Rally” in Albuquerque last spring and it is to help hold down the awning in the wind.  I got it out and actually put the awning up today.

 

Twila couldn’t believe it.  The orange straps are attached to the Claws which have 3 spikes about 12 inches long that are driven into the ground.

Playing catch up

Man!  How easy it is to get behind when your having fun and being lazy.  I will try to fill in the gaps as best my memory will let me.

9-14-09

Tonight was a night for playing games and as you can see most everyone was busy at it.

 

The boy is our grandson/great nephew Justin.  He is playing Skip Bo with the “Old People”.  He had never played the game before but with a little help from Margie (left side of picture below) he managed to win 3 out of 4 games.  Twila finally won one and said she was quitting while she was a winner.

9-15-09

This morning we all loaded up our RV’s and left for our homes or in our case, we left for Texas. But we didn’t quite get there, but that was planned, it just wasn’t my plan.  We dry camped overnight at the Winstar Casino in Oklahoma at the Texas border.  The camping was free except for what Twila gave the Casino, but I’m not suppose to talk about that.

They have done a lot of face lifting at the Casino since we were there last.  They are now calling it a “World Class Casino” and have put different fronts on the different sections of the casino.

This is probably a famous pagoda but I don’t know what it is called or where it is located.

We actually saw this tower in Florence, Italy when we took our trip to Italy in 2006.

Here’s a picture Gary House took of the tower when we were there.

The building below on the right is in Venice, Italy and I think it is the palace of the Dodgy.

Actual building taken in 2006-

Of course the building on the left (second picture up) is the Coliseum in Rome and yes we just happen to have an actual picture of it also.

 

Needless to say this was the best part of the casino for me.

9-16-09

Today we drove to Weatherford, Texas to stay with Dale and Lue Prior for a couple of nights.  We just parked the motor home in their driveway and stayed in their spare bedroom.  Guess I was too busy having fun cause I didn’t get any pictures but we sure had a good time.  We went to a Mexican Restaurant and I can’t remember the name but it was gooooood!!!! 

9-17-09

Today Dale, Twila and I met Dale’s long-time friend Max for breakfast.  We visited quite a while and heard lots of stories about Dale and Max’s younger days and some not so younger days.  They really have a good time and we enjoyed meeting him and hearing their stories.  In the afternoon, Lue and Twila went to Sam Moons and Dale and I went to Cabello’s.  Sam Moons was a new experience for Twila and she will be looking forward to finding another one in the future.  Cabello’s is like Bass Pro, only bigger.  There were lots of stuffed animals, not just the usual deer, elk, and moose but also African animals.  Then they took us to downtown Fort Worth which we had never seen or even heard about.  It is the area of town where the cattle were brought to the packing houses for processing.  Several of the packing houses have been turned into shops and there are several restaurants.  We ended up at Boo Rays which is a seafood restaurant.  Really Great.  They are talking about coming down to Aransas Pass this winter, January or February, we will be looking forward to their visit.

9-18-09

We left Weatherford this morning heading for Aransas Pass but with the intention of stopping somewhere along the way to stay overnight.  We ended up stopping at a roadside park for lunch about 3pm.  We started thinking about getting an RV park about 4:30pm but Twila said we might just drive in and stay at Wal-Mart overnight so we did.  We got to the Wal-Mart at Aransas Pass about 6 to 6:30pm.

9-19-09

We got up this morning, went into Wal-Mart to the Mc Donald’s for breakfast, then to the Murphy’s Station to fill up with Diesel, then pulled into Portobelo Village RV about 9:30am.  When we left last year I told Larry, the park manager, that I would pay an extra $200 if I had a slab on my site.  We had already heard from Gary and Mattie House that the slab had been installed.

As you can see by the date on the picture I didn’t take this picture until the 22nd but it does show the slab.  We were sure glad we had the slab by this time since we had a 10 to 11 inch rain and ended up with our usual lake where we normally park the car.

9-26-09

We went to our annual Thanksgiving Dinner today at noon.  The park furnished the turkey and rolls and everyone brought a dish or two.  Twila made a cranberry orange salad with pecans in it and cheese grits.

Sim-er-on Sams

That’s the name of our Good Sam chapter.  We have 10 rigs parked at the Chandler City Park.  It is an unusual park.  They have an open building with a cement floor that is around 240 feet long and maybe 40 feet wide.  The RV hook ups our on the outside of the building and the rigs are backed up to the building but not inside it.  We have 50 amp electric and water faucets.

They also have an enclosed building across the road, about 2 blocks away, that we use to play mexican Train and other games.  It has a kitchen and we use it for our meals when we eat together.  Tonight we had soup in which everyone brought something to put in it.  We had two electric roaster that we had all kinds of vegetables, stew meat, and hamburger with tomatoes and tomato juice.  It may not sound good the way I described it but it always turns out good.  Of course we had some cornbread and crackers and several different kinds of desserts.  We will have a pot luck dinner at noon tomorrow.  I took some pictures today when we were eating.

 

Starting South

We left out today heading to our Good Sam Chapter Campout at Chandler, Oklahoma.  I had to stop in Cushing to fill up with diesel and propane.  I couldn’t believe it when I got to Cushing and the price of diesel was $2.629.  I had checked the Flying J in Oklahoma City and it was $2.659.  Since I had to stop for diesel and propane we didn’t even hook the car to the motor home.  Twila just followed me to Chandler.  It was really good to see the club members that we hadn’t seen since our May campout at Pawnee, Oklahoma.  Jerry and Sharon Sloan came down in the evening and we meet at the “Boomerang” restaurant for supper.  Really good hamburgers.  After supper they came by the motor home and we played “Jokers” till about 10:30pm

Bill, Pat, and Bre

My brother Bill, his wife Pat, and their Grand daughter Bre came over this evening to see us.  They are planning on going to Branson over the Thanksgiving Holiday and we had some coupons for 1/2 price on a one day ticket to Silver dollar City.  Since it was a school night they couldn’t stay long but we did have a good time visiting.

Jerry and Sharon

Wow!! How good can it get?  Twila and I went to Tryon, Oklahoma to have supper with our good friends Jerry and Sharon Sloan.  Sharon and Twila both worked at the Payne County Bank for umpteen years and Sharon retired just shortly after Twila.  Jerry cooked some really good steaks on his grill and Sharon made baked potatoes and salad.  The salad was real good too, it had everything in it.  You know tomato, cucumber, onions, ect.  Just like we like it.  She also had rolls and a chocolate cake for dessert.

After the wonderful supper, she gave us a tour of their home.  They had added a second floor since we had been there.  It is really beautiful and they have a really nice ‘suite’ upstairs.  Sharon is a fantastic decorator and everything looked like a picture in a magazine.

I forgot to take my camera so I had to take this picture later.  That certainly gave it away that I am posting this a little late.  Anyway, after supper we played a game called Sequence.  This was a new game for Twila and I but it wasn’t too hard to learn.  Sharon and I were partners and Jerry and Twila were partners.  I don’t thing Jerry and Twila want to talk about who won. We played until 11:30 pm.  We made plans to meet them at Chandler, Oklahoma when we go to our Good Sam Chapter Campout Thursday night.  Yes that’s where the picture came from.

Angel and Justin

Well probably everyone reading my blog knows Twila and I have an unusual family tie in our marriage but I will explain it a little in this post.  Angel and Justin are Twila’s grandchildren so of course they are also mine, however Justin also happens to be a great nephew of mine since his daddy is my brothers youngest son and his mother is Twila’s oldest daughter.  Angel is Twila’s youngest daughter’s daughter.  They are almost the same age with Justin being 4 months older than Angel.

 

They both spent Saturday night with us and then went to church with us this morning. Needless to say they are a “hoot”.  Most of the time they really get along with each other, in fact, last night they giggled themselves to sleep but by the time Justin’s mother picked him up about 6:30pm they were at each others throats.  The picture above was taken just before we left for church this morning and that is the way I like to think about them. 

Jokers

Richard and Alice McEwen came over for supper tonight.  Alice is Twila’s youngest sister.  They live in Perry, Oklahoma.

No, the blog entry title isn’t named for them but …… well that’s another story.  It’s named after the board game that’s on the table.  I charcoaled some steaks and Twila made baked potatoes, a salad, hot rolls, and a wonderful cake.  It was a really good supper.  Then we played “Jokers” till after 11pm.  We played 3 games and the girls beat the boys 2 out of 3 games.  By that time “Max” was getting pretty tired.  Max is their dog, but I hope he can’t read cause he doesn’t know he’s a dog.  He’s a real cutie as you can see in the picture although his eyes aren’t really yellow.  I know how to remove red eye from a picture but I don’t have a clue how to get out yellow.

Birthday Party

We went to a Birthday Party for Sam Koble and Lawrence Carrier at Joseph’s Steak House in Drumright, Oklahoma tonight.  They are both elders in the church and I have known them for years.  Sam is 11 years older than me and I have known him since I was a child.  My first memory is when I was probably in the 8th grade and he was dating the preachers daughter at our church.  That would be Kay, formally Kay Smith.  She and my older brother Hap were the same age and her younger bother, David, and I were the same age.

I first met Lawrence when my oldest son, Thad was just a baby.  He was the song leader at the Ninth Avenue Christian Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma.  Guess what, he is now the song leader at our church in Cushing, Oklahoma.  He is now married to Delois since his first wife passed away.

Here’s Twila and I doing what we do best.

This is my brother Bill, his wife Pat, and his granddaughter/daughter Bre.  That is Bre behind the fork and I’m not sure what Bill is doing, maybe sneezing.

We really had a good turn out and everyone had a good time.