Happy New Year

Just one more day left of 2010. It has been a super year, but sad too.

We were excited to have bought a park model in our Arizona park. (now at the end of the year we are wondering WHY!), but we do like being close to everything & all our neighbors so far are wonderful.

We are thankful that our daughter & family have moved from Maryland back to our hometown of Warren, PA. It was so nice to be able to spend so much time with them & the kids this summer. We enjoyed having them camp with us.

We made a trip to Michigan again over Labor Day to party with family, visit with relatives & friends & tour around our friend, Shirley's, hometown of Cedar Springs, MI.

While in Michigan, we got a call that Bill's brother was diagnosed with lung & brain cancer. We cut our visit short & came home to see him in the hospital. We visited as often as we could knowing that when we left to come back to Arizona, we wouldn't get to see him & visit again.

We visited our son Mark & family in Virginia Beach for about 10 days & then began our trek across country.

Stopped in Pine Mountain, GA to visit friends MaryJo & Frank, Dianne & Dave. Had a wonderful time for 4 days. Toured & visited lots.

On to Texas & visited with friends Judy & Jerry for 4 days. While there we spent a day in Madisonville, TX at the Texas Mushroom Festival where a former classmate, Father Mike, has his church & chairs the festival. We had a great time.

Finally we arrived in Apache Junction on Oct. 26th. Bill broke 2 ribs the day we got here. We have made many, many repairs to this candominium. From new water pipes to new wood on outside of AZ room, to new decking & carpet. Still more to be done, but we will get there slowly but surely. If we do it all this year, we won't have anything to do next year. LOL If we could only find where the rain comes in the AZ room & the shed!!!!

We flew home Nov. 18th to attend the funeral of Bill's oldest brother, Bobbie. We are so grateful to God that he did not suffer any more than he did. He was in a lot of pain toward the end, but thankfully he went without further hospitalization. He was able to be at home & even went fishing the week prior to his death. Thank you Lord, for his life & all he did for us over the years. He was a beautiful woodworker. Unfortunately, with not having room in our 5th wheel, we didn't get to keep any of the beautiful things he gave us. That is the sad part!

We returned from PA in time for me to begin having laser surgery on my varicose veins. So far everything has gone very well. A long way to go yet. Will start on the right leg in January.

We spent a nice Thanksgiving & Christmas with friends here in the park. Dinner at the club house with friends & the rest of Christmas day with friends.

This was our year in a nut shell. Nothing very exciting, but at our age, we like it that way!

Today at my stained glass class the girls said "oh look, it's snowing!" Sure enough. For about 2 minutes, Apache Junction had snow!

Looking forward to a fun & busy, and healthy 2011. Happy New Year to you all!

Until next time..............The Traveling Cardinal's

MERRY CHRISTMAS

We hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas and spent the day with family or friends no matter where you were. We missed our little guys at Christmas this year, but we did enjoy the day with friends.

We shared fellowship & dinner with 22 friends at our table at the Club House. Thanks to Norma & Ralph for inviting to share with them. In the afternoon we came back to the trailer & got ready to have good friends, Camilla & Roger, over for the afternoon. We decided the four of us would go down & play some pool, then come back for goodies.

After talking with my daughter, Renee, again, I hit the bed. I was exhausted. I couldn't believe how tired I was & I didn't even have any grand kids around!! I slept from around 8:45pm until 6:30am this morning! That isn't like me at all!

This morning after church we finally reached our son, Mark & his family. They had spent Christmas week in the Bahamas. They returned to snow in Virginia last night. He said they had about 6" & were expecting another 6" before night fall. I hope those crazy drivers there are careful. They aren't used to driving in that stuff. They had a good time on their trip, but the weather was rainy off & on & cool according to grandson, Samuel.

Renee will be jealous to learn that they got to swim with dolphins. I think that is something on her bucket list. Both Samantha & Samuel said it was fun & neat.

Again, no pictures. I didn't take my camera to the Christmas Dinner yesterday & there isn't much to take when it's just two old people opening simple Christmas gifts! Why does it feel so awkward when there is only two of you? Maybe that's a sign to not do it any more. Better to give to those in need instead.

One of the best gifts I received, was that my brother is coming to visit us for a couple weeks the middle of Jan. I can't wait! I don't think we'll fight like we did when we were kids. LOL We hope to show him a little of our area & pray for nice weather while he is here. I certainly will take pictures then!

Our Warren, PA friends, Chuck & Denice will be heading here to their new park model on Thursday. Should arrive on Sunday! We are getting excited to see them & share some quality time with them too!

We wish everyone a blessed & healthy New Year.

Until next time..............The Traveling Cardinal's

Christmas Baking & Candy Making

No pictures this post. Been a pretty relaxing day. Did Zumba class this morning, played shuffle board then came home & took a nap.

We've been having Internet problems so today we may have got that straightened out. Hopefully anyway.

Last night our friend passed away around 9:40pm. I was there at a little before 7 to visit & I knew it wasn't good. Thankfully he is in a better place & pain free. Our thoughts & prayers go out to Clem's family as they travel back to Nebraska.

Tonight after my walk with the girls I made a batch of cookies, seafoam candy & peanut butter fudge. Bill played cards, but I left some of the dishes for him to wipe when he came home. I'm beat. It's early, but I'm ready to hit the bed.

Tomorrow I have my leg done & won't be able to do anything for a couple of days, so I guess I'll start with resting tonight. Will post sometime this weekend to let you know how things went.

Until next time...............The Traveling Cardinal's

Am I Still a Blogger????

So much has happened since I lasted posted I don't even know where to begin. I guess I just need to catch up briefly by looking at the pictures.

Shortly after our arrival on Oct. 24th, we had both the 5th wheel & the park model pressure washed. The 5th wheel had tons of bugs & the park model had tons of dirt & dust. Just one of those jobs it takes too long for us to do anymore, so we hire it done. Of course, the first day we arrived, Bill slipped off the running board of the truck & broke 2 ribs. Needless to say, he was out of commission for lifting for the next several weeks. Consequently I did all the moving from the 5th wheel to the park model.

Here you can see Willy cleaning the park model.
Willy's helper cleaning the windows. Hope he remembers there is a prickly cactus behind him!
Now the fun begins. A friend who is a contractor in the park paid us a visit one day & said we'd better get some paint on the AZ room. I said we were told it never had to be painted. He said, oh no, that's just primer & all that trim on the outside is INTERIOR Trim! Oh thanks! Pressed paper! Thankfully we have a very dear friend (or several for that matter) who came to our rescue. Gene is the master mind that helped us get a lot of work done all for a few meals, some cookies & lots of hugs. God bless him!

These are the some of the trim boards I primed & then painted.
Another dear friend, Mark D., painted the outside of the AZ room & then helped Gene with several projects. Here Bill is watching as Gene installs trim around the French doors.
While the guys are working outside, I painted & decorated my kitchen. As you can tell, grapes are my theme. Thanks to my niece Deb from Michigan, I was able to stamp cloth napkins for my curtains & then stamp my walls. Those scrapbook stamps work wonders everywhere!
Since I now have a bigger place than my 5th wheel, I was able to buy back my punch bowl that was my moms. A girl I worked with had bought it & she said I could buy it back, she was just holding on to it for me anyway. That was one of the pieces I didn't want to part with when I sold our home. Now I have it again to enjoy!
The early part of November brought us visitors from home. Rayetta & Fred came to Chandler, AZ to visit their daughter, hubby & twin granddaughters. So they were able to come & spend a couple hours with us & have lunch. The twins are just adorable!!!
On to the next projects. Since we have a dually truck, it wouldn't fit on our patio until we could put extender posts out. These have to be ordered. Here Gene, Mark & Fred are getting them set in cement.
Gene & Mark getting ready to put the top framing on. The roof pieces will come next year. Our expenses are ahead of our income! :)

Oh the projects just keep going!!! We thought when Mtce. put dirt behind the trailer they were doing us a favor. NOT. It was about 4" too high & therefore the rain water would run right into the back of the AZ room. So here I am digging down all that extra dirt. Fortunately we got Mtce. to come & haul it away for us.

Next Gene & Mark put in a French drain for us so the water would have some place to go.
It connects into another drain on the other side of the shed.Now this project we left to the Mtce. guys. We didn't want to be responsible for breaking a water line. We had this big, ugly ornamental orange tree in front. In case you are wondering, you always are cleaning up leaves from an orange tree. Lots of work & no oranges to eat??? I don't think so. We got permission to replace it with an edible orange.
So out came the old tree. Look at the size of those roots!!!
This is the new one. They had to wait until the next day to plant it because.....yup, they broke the irrigation line.
Well, since there are projects going on outside, I have to do inside too. So I ended up painting the bathroom & putting up a border. That's because I moved the toilet paper roll to the inside of the cabinet & then had to repair the wall. Good excuse....we got rid of the pink bathroom! It's now green like the kitchen, but different trim. Notice there is no spigot either!!! That was another projects! Went to replace the spigot in the bathroom & kitchen & the water lines were bad. Kept springing leaks, so on Nov. 20th we had the whole system replaced along with a new hot water tank. Did I say we were running out of $$$$. I'm glad this little home didn't take anymore feet of plumbing!!!!
On Nov. 17th early in the morning, we got the call that we had been dreading since we returned to Arizona. We knew when we left to return to Arizona it was a hard & tearful goodbye to Bill's oldest brother at the health care center where he was. He was diagnosed with cancer of the lung & brain while we were in Michigan over Labor Day week. He will always be missed & loved by his family & friends. He was a wonderful husband, dad, grandpa, brother, brother-in-law & uncle & a friend to many. We just thank God that he did not have to linger & suffer as so many of our friends have done with this nasty disease. May he rest in peace & be pain free for eternity.
While we were home for the funeral, Mark came home too & we got to have part of our family together again. Here we gathered at Renee & Tom's for Mark to cook us a meal. He & Renee did a super job! Nick & Noah love their Uncle Markie.
Our family, plus Noah.
We returned on Sunday, the 21st as I was scheduled for laser surgery on my varicose veins on Monday morning. Everything has gone well so far. I've had 2 treatments & am scheduled for a microphlebectomy on Dec. 16th. Praying for good results with this also.

On to one of the last & final projects for the year. We need a break! Here friend Mike is helping Gene glue down the new carpet for our deck.
The end result is beautiful! We will wait until after the first of the year to put up a railing.
The pattern is called Stone Garden & if you click on the picture you can see it has green in it. Since everything out here seems to be sandy, dusty brown, I wanted some color!
We did do one more project - & that was to replace the trim boards around 2 of our windows. Again, Thank You Gene!

We got a call from some people in the park that wanted to get rid of their sofa/hide-a-bed & we went to look at it. It was so much nicer than the one that was left here. If you look to the left of the picture, you can see that ugly reddish/orange flowered sofa. Yuck! It didn't even sell at the patio sale, so we had to load it up & take it to a 2nd hand store.
The ladies Bible study group sponsor a Ladies Christmas Gathering each year. This year we overflowed the room. Next year it will have to be moved to the ballroom. What a fun time we had.
I bought this Merry Christmas from our group that was selling things at Monday Market to support Sunshine Acres, a childrens home in the area that our chapel supports. I wanted my sister, Romayne, to see it. It is reversible & says Happy New Year on the other side with a poinsettia between each word. I love it.
I finally got some Christmas lights up outside. You can't see the ones on the handrail by the steps as the table is in the way. Look at the size of the poinsettia! It's as tall as the table. We got that from friends, Jim & Ruby. It was setting on our deck when we got back from PA.
Our new Christmas tree.
We bought this rocker/recliner from the lady down the street on patio sale day last Saturday. Matches the rest of the furniture. You can also see our new area rug we bought at the same time we bought the outdoor carpet for the deck. Eventually I'll get the floor painted dark green. I have the paint, just not ready to do the floor yet. Other things have to be corrected before that gets done.
Just had to take a picture of my Christmas cactus! It is loaded with buds! I'm hoping they will start to open by Christmas. This is the first year for this many flowers. I think it's had 3 or 4 before but that is all. It has traveled back & forth across the country with us for 4 yrs. Not sure what I'm going to do this time. It's getting pretty big. I may leave it with the lovely lady down the street who said she would babysit it for me. She is just like having another mom. She is a dear.
Both sides are loaded, some even have double on each leaf.
This is a site that will always mean Arizona Home to us. The Superstition Mountains. No matter where we travel in the area, you know if you are headed toward this you are going toward home. Such pretty colors in it. At night when the sun sets, it has the most beautiful colors of red reflected on it. This was taken from the art studio of the people who come to the park & teach the Bob Ross style of painting. I took their class a couple years ago & I think I might paint a couple this year. Time will tell.
I know I have missed a lot of news, but my brain gets dead after awhile. It's all there, I just can't retrieve it. We have been praying for my niece's husband, Larry, with his Leukemia; Bill's brother-in-law, Neil, who had a stroke & then a stint put in & is doing better; a dear friend, Clem, who is in his final days with cancer; our friend Sandy who is still fighting her pancreatic problems. So many heart wrenching prayers.

But among the bad is always the good. My brother Ray, turned 80 last Monday & we celebrate with him as he enters another decade. Today, my sister, Romayne, celebrated her 79th. I talked with her this morning & she was doing well........sitting by the fire, keeping warm in 16 deg. weather!!! I just fear for all my relatives who have to walk & drive in that nasty snow & ice.

Last week our son-in-law, Tom, was hit by a pickup with a snow plow on it. The lady was going too fast to stop at the red light & slid through. Fortunately Tom was alert & saw her. He gunned it & she hit the back end of his car instead of T-boning him. So thankful that he was not hurt & the kids weren't with him!

This should catch everyone up for the time being. Hopefully I will get back to my blog more often. I seem to update Facebook more frequently with posts & pictures. Here I seem to write too much. Just call me Gabby!

Until next time...................The Traveling Cardinal's