Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Oops!
If you received a blog from me today, it was a very old one....not to confuse you.Sorry about that!
Visiting Jason, April and Bella
Ken, me, our son Justen and our granddaughter Bella went to Vegas for a long weekend, to visit our other son Jason, his wife April and other granddaughter Lola. It's Superbowl weekend! Here is a copy of the Travel Blog:
Bella’s dad dropped her off at our house around 8 pm last night. She and Pops played, shooting rubber bands (actually hair ties) at each other. After work I had done last minute errands, grocery shopping, stopped at Henna’s to wish her a Happy Birthday. We will miss the party Nancy is having for Saturday. I spent the evening packing up the rest of our stuff in the RV: food, clothes, shoes, etc. I said goodnight and went to bed…reading a bit first. I’m reading “Fortune’s Rock” by Anita Shreve. So far it’s OK, not the ‘page turner’ the reviews claim. Maybe after I get in to it. I set the alarm for one hour later than our normal time: 6:30 instead of 5:30. I really should leave it on 5:30, but can’t resist the luxury of sleeping an extra hour and not having to go to work. I’m not sure what time everyone else retired; I didn’t wake up when Ken came to bed. The alarm went off, two snoozes later, I got in the shower. Bella was still sleeping. She likes to sleep in our room on the floor. I guess it is pretty comfortable on the purple shag carpet. I have to be careful when I get up; she moves around so much in her sleep; I don’t want to step on her. When I come out of the shower, Pops is trying to wake Bella up. She has set her alarm on her Nintendo ds and does not want to get up before that goes off. I totally relate to her! How awful it is when someone wakes you up before you have to get up!
We finish packing up; I make some egg/cheese burritos and bacon, wrap it in foil to keep it warm and we are ready to leave. Ken come in and says he has some bad news. I hate it when people say that. The few seconds before you actually find out what is the matter, are always horrible for me; my pulse immediately goes up and I get a bad feeling. Just tell me straight out what it is. Don’t preface it with the horrible warning. Anyway, he tells us the batteries for the RV are dead and won’t hold a charge. Probably has something to do with the fire we had last summer, but we have used the RV since then, with no problems. So, we have to go to Wal-Mart before we can leave. Fortunately, Wal-Mart has the correct kind. We are about an hour to an hour and a half behind schedule. No worries. We are on Tangerine heading for I-10 and Bella asks, how long has it been?
I pass out the bacon and burritos as we head north. We have plenty of gadgets and books and magazines to keep us busy: Bella has her Nintendo ds, another electronic game, I have my laptop, my IPod; Justen has his Iphone and his MacBook. Bella falls asleep for 1 ½ hours and when she wakes up she is disappointed that we are not almost there. We stop for gas in Wickenburg. Bella’s dad gave her $10 spending money and she wants to get some candy. She picks out a Hershey’s bar. We all use the bathroom in the RV. There is some kind of metal shop/store next to the gas station. There are huge metal dinosaurs, horses, etc and I take a picture of Bella next to one. Justen is watching Dexter, season one on his MacBook. He’s never watched it so we told him to catch up so when the next season comes out on DVD, we can watch it together. After about another hour, we stopped for lunch; just parked in a large parking lot and went in to the RV to make sandwiches. Back on road, started to rain just outside of Kingman. It’s cold, rainy and dark. Bella and I played hangman for awhile. We are about 45 minutes from Hoover Dam. I hope it isn’t raining when we go over the dam. Bella and Justen have never seen it. Security checks before the dam were very fast. The inspector spend less than one minute looking through the RV. There was slow moving traffic over the dam, but it wasn’t bad. Really, it gave you a chance to really look (and take pictures) at the dam. Bella wanted to get out and go down to the lake to look for minnows. We arrive at the Oasis RV Park around 5PM. We quickly set up and head to Jason and April’s. Lola greets us at the door. She is so excited to see everyone. She keeps wrapping her little arms around Bella’s waist and says “I missed you Bella”. It’s amazing how much she has changed in only 3 weeks. She is talking so much more. She tells me too, “I missed you GeeGee”. It makes my heart melt. Their house is so, so cute. It is so cozy. It is a two story with a wrap around staircase. We chat for a while and now it’s time to go out to dinner. It is raining. We go to an Irish pub/restaurant. It’s so enjoyable to have everyone together. Lola warms up to Justen and Bella already thinks he is ‘so awesome’. It was a nice time. Justen decides to spend the night with them, so Ken and I go back to the RV. I’m so happy for Justen to be spending time with them. It is still raining and my sore throat and cough are getting worse. Good thing I have Ken’s leftover cough medicine with codeine.
I’m not sure what time Ken got up; I got up around 8:30. I didn’t have a very good night with the coughing. Ken and I drink our lattes and OJ while listening to the rain outside. We call Jason and kind of plan the day. April has to work until 4pm. We are going to buy them a grill for their 4th anniversary. We pick up the grill and head to their house. It is raining very hard. Justen has been enjoying getting to know the girls. We spend the afternoon playing, drawing, painting and simply taking it easy. It is still raining so we will be indoors today. Ken and Jason head to Home Depot to pick up a few things for some ‘handyman’ chores. Justen is sitting on the couch, with both girls on each side of him, looking at chipmunk videos; Lola is singing along. Lola and I take a walk around the neighborhood when the rain stops. April got home and we started up the new grill for hamburgers. It was nice that we were able to eat outside. They have a nice view of the snow capped mountains. After dinner, Justen, Ken and I go back to the RV to ‘clean up’. We are all headed to Mandalay Bay’s Shark Reef. Jason, April and the girls arrive at our RV and we follow them to Mandalay Bay. It is really raining hard now and we get a little confused as to where to go in. It is a huge place. Ken and I have been here before but we took a taxi and got dropped off in front. Jason and Ken drop everyone off because of the rain. The girls look so cute and they are so excited. The exhibit is so cool and I highly recommend visiting it if you get to Vegas. It’s so cute the way Lola wants Bella to hold her hand the whole time; she wants to be by her big sister’s side. Everyone had a good time. The exhibit cleverly leads you through a gift shop to exit. We let the girls pick out a gift (and so did Jason and April). Justen helped Lola pick out a turtle. She knew exactly what she wanted. Bella had more trouble, deciding between a hammerhead shark and an octopus. She finally decided on the shark. I bought a cute crab magnet for the refrigerator. We decided to walk around Mandalay Bay a bit. The place is huge and beautiful. There is a reason why the resorts look like this. Not everyone wins here. Lola’s little legs look so cute running through the massive hallways. Time to go home; it’s still raining so again Ken and Jason go to get the vehicles. The plan is for Lola to come back to the RV to spend the night and Bella spend the evening with her mom. Jason and Justen are going to go out for a couple drinks. Justen has never been to Vegas and a couple of his friends are in Vegas for the Super Bowl. As we start to pull out of the parking lot with Lola in our backseat, she starts crying, asking where Bella is. She thought Bella was coming with us too. I ask her if she wants to be with Bella and Mommy and she says yes. We flash our lights and pull along side Jason to get him to stop and little Lola is now with her big sister. I like that she wants to be with her, you can see how much she loves her.
Ken and I go back to the RV; Ken watches a little TV and I go to bed, reading a little of ‘Fortune Rocks’. It’s getting a little better, but certainly not the page turner it’s critiqued to be.
It rained very, very hard all through the night. I slept pretty well. We wake up about 7:30 and it is not raining. Hopefully it stays this way. I wake up with no voice. We are drinking our coffee. I’m going to make some oatmeal. I thought I brought a 2 lb package of apple smoked bacon, and when Ken opens the package it is a pork tenderloin…so we stick it in the freezer. After breakfast, we head to the grocery. We are going to get food for the Super Bowl. I decide to get some pork ribs. We get to Jason’s and I put them in a marinade. Ideally they should have been marinating overnight. I make a veggie tray; we have blueberries, strawberries, chips/dip, nachos, and salsa. April is at work; Jason and Justen are tired, the game doesn’t start for awhile, so we decide to take the girls to Lake Mead. Bella would love to catch some bugs or something alive. Even though the lake is very low, it is still very beautiful. The ranger told us it recently has raised 7 feet from the snows melting. We hope we can get close enough without walking through lots of mud. We arrive at a boat launch and we can park and walk down to the lake. The girls have their nets and Bella has her containers. There are ducks, a few boats. The sky is party sunny; I’m glad the rain has stopped! Bella finds some clam shells but that is about it. They enjoy walking through the water and mud. Lola calls it ‘sticky mud’. Their boots are wet, well actually their pants are wet too. Bella wants to stay; Lola wants me to go get the kayak that is on the shore but it is time to go if we want to have ribs for the Super Bowl. I called Jason on the way back and asked him to begin grilling them. After they are seared, I put slow cook them in the oven for about 2 hours. The game is already starting and I make some nachos, get out all the snacks. Lola lasts about 5 minutes watching the game and then she says ‘come on GeeGee, let’s paint’. Jason tells her ‘no, Lola, GeeGee is watching the game.’ I say, that’s OK, I’d rather paint with Lola, which is true. Already, I think about how much I am going to miss her and even more, how much she is going to miss Bella….and all of us. Bella took a turn painting and produced many beautiful paintings. She really is talented. We finally were able to eat the ribs (they took longer than expected)….they were just OK..I think the overnigh
t marinade is the secret. The rest of the evening is spent playing with the girls, watching a bit of the game when possible. After the game, it’s time to go back to the RV. We all are tired, Jason has to work tomorrow and we have a long drive; should get an early start. Justen has spent the last two nights with them. I’m sure it has been so great for him to get to know the girls and to spend time with Jason and April. He is coming back with us tonight. We say goodbye to Jason; he will already be at work when we stop by in the morning to get Bella. Back at the RV, Ken and Justen watch a little TV; I go to bed and read for a while.
We got up around 7 am. Coughed a lot last night. We have coffee and juice and pack up. There isn’t a lot to pack up from outside since we never were able to sit out. It was always raining. We called April to let her know we were on our way. We parked the RV on the side street so Lola wouldn’t see it. If she did, she would want to go with us. We say goodbye to April and Lola :( and we are on our way. We didn’t have breakfast, so we stopped and picked up egg mcmuffins, hash browns, apple slices. We decided to go home a different way, through Needles, Parker, hit the 10 and cut down to the 8 via 85. We’ll see if it is shorter. Probably is because going through the dam takes about 45 minutes. We only stopped for gas and bathroom breaks. One gas station had a Dairy Queen. Bella got a banana shake, I got a vanilla cone. Bella also got a giant lollipop. It’s as big as a golf ball. We got swiss and muenster cheese, (Bella thought it was Monster cheese)turkey and pastrami and snacks from the refrigerator in the RV. Bella is always so good in the car. She asks a lot ‘how much longer’, but the answer doesn’t change her pleasant mood. She asks for gum, saying she needs two pieces because her mouth is big. I give her two big pieces of bubble gum and now she is chomping away. The gum is actually too big for her mouth. It was a good trip. The most enjoyable thing for me was to see Justen bond with his brother Jason and his granddaughters. To see Bella and Lola run up to him, sit on his lap, etc. That’s the important stuff in life. Wonderful!!
Bella’s dad dropped her off at our house around 8 pm last night. She and Pops played, shooting rubber bands (actually hair ties) at each other. After work I had done last minute errands, grocery shopping, stopped at Henna’s to wish her a Happy Birthday. We will miss the party Nancy is having for Saturday. I spent the evening packing up the rest of our stuff in the RV: food, clothes, shoes, etc. I said goodnight and went to bed…reading a bit first. I’m reading “Fortune’s Rock” by Anita Shreve. So far it’s OK, not the ‘page turner’ the reviews claim. Maybe after I get in to it. I set the alarm for one hour later than our normal time: 6:30 instead of 5:30. I really should leave it on 5:30, but can’t resist the luxury of sleeping an extra hour and not having to go to work. I’m not sure what time everyone else retired; I didn’t wake up when Ken came to bed. The alarm went off, two snoozes later, I got in the shower. Bella was still sleeping. She likes to sleep in our room on the floor. I guess it is pretty comfortable on the purple shag carpet. I have to be careful when I get up; she moves around so much in her sleep; I don’t want to step on her. When I come out of the shower, Pops is trying to wake Bella up. She has set her alarm on her Nintendo ds and does not want to get up before that goes off. I totally relate to her! How awful it is when someone wakes you up before you have to get up!
We finish packing up; I make some egg/cheese burritos and bacon, wrap it in foil to keep it warm and we are ready to leave. Ken come in and says he has some bad news. I hate it when people say that. The few seconds before you actually find out what is the matter, are always horrible for me; my pulse immediately goes up and I get a bad feeling. Just tell me straight out what it is. Don’t preface it with the horrible warning. Anyway, he tells us the batteries for the RV are dead and won’t hold a charge. Probably has something to do with the fire we had last summer, but we have used the RV since then, with no problems. So, we have to go to Wal-Mart before we can leave. Fortunately, Wal-Mart has the correct kind. We are about an hour to an hour and a half behind schedule. No worries. We are on Tangerine heading for I-10 and Bella asks, how long has it been?
I pass out the bacon and burritos as we head north. We have plenty of gadgets and books and magazines to keep us busy: Bella has her Nintendo ds, another electronic game, I have my laptop, my IPod; Justen has his Iphone and his MacBook. Bella falls asleep for 1 ½ hours and when she wakes up she is disappointed that we are not almost there. We stop for gas in Wickenburg. Bella’s dad gave her $10 spending money and she wants to get some candy. She picks out a Hershey’s bar. We all use the bathroom in the RV. There is some kind of metal shop/store next to the gas station. There are huge metal dinosaurs, horses, etc and I take a picture of Bella next to one. Justen is watching Dexter, season one on his MacBook. He’s never watched it so we told him to catch up so when the next season comes out on DVD, we can watch it together. After about another hour, we stopped for lunch; just parked in a large parking lot and went in to the RV to make sandwiches. Back on road, started to rain just outside of Kingman. It’s cold, rainy and dark. Bella and I played hangman for awhile. We are about 45 minutes from Hoover Dam. I hope it isn’t raining when we go over the dam. Bella and Justen have never seen it. Security checks before the dam were very fast. The inspector spend less than one minute looking through the RV. There was slow moving traffic over the dam, but it wasn’t bad. Really, it gave you a chance to really look (and take pictures) at the dam. Bella wanted to get out and go down to the lake to look for minnows. We arrive at the Oasis RV Park around 5PM. We quickly set up and head to Jason and April’s. Lola greets us at the door. She is so excited to see everyone. She keeps wrapping her little arms around Bella’s waist and says “I missed you Bella”. It’s amazing how much she has changed in only 3 weeks. She is talking so much more. She tells me too, “I missed you GeeGee”. It makes my heart melt. Their house is so, so cute. It is so cozy. It is a two story with a wrap around staircase. We chat for a while and now it’s time to go out to dinner. It is raining. We go to an Irish pub/restaurant. It’s so enjoyable to have everyone together. Lola warms up to Justen and Bella already thinks he is ‘so awesome’. It was a nice time. Justen decides to spend the night with them, so Ken and I go back to the RV. I’m so happy for Justen to be spending time with them. It is still raining and my sore throat and cough are getting worse. Good thing I have Ken’s leftover cough medicine with codeine.
I’m not sure what time Ken got up; I got up around 8:30. I didn’t have a very good night with the coughing. Ken and I drink our lattes and OJ while listening to the rain outside. We call Jason and kind of plan the day. April has to work until 4pm. We are going to buy them a grill for their 4th anniversary. We pick up the grill and head to their house. It is raining very hard. Justen has been enjoying getting to know the girls. We spend the afternoon playing, drawing, painting and simply taking it easy. It is still raining so we will be indoors today. Ken and Jason head to Home Depot to pick up a few things for some ‘handyman’ chores. Justen is sitting on the couch, with both girls on each side of him, looking at chipmunk videos; Lola is singing along. Lola and I take a walk around the neighborhood when the rain stops. April got home and we started up the new grill for hamburgers. It was nice that we were able to eat outside. They have a nice view of the snow capped mountains. After dinner, Justen, Ken and I go back to the RV to ‘clean up’. We are all headed to Mandalay Bay’s Shark Reef. Jason, April and the girls arrive at our RV and we follow them to Mandalay Bay. It is really raining hard now and we get a little confused as to where to go in. It is a huge place. Ken and I have been here before but we took a taxi and got dropped off in front. Jason and Ken drop everyone off because of the rain. The girls look so cute and they are so excited. The exhibit is so cool and I highly recommend visiting it if you get to Vegas. It’s so cute the way Lola wants Bella to hold her hand the whole time; she wants to be by her big sister’s side. Everyone had a good time. The exhibit cleverly leads you through a gift shop to exit. We let the girls pick out a gift (and so did Jason and April). Justen helped Lola pick out a turtle. She knew exactly what she wanted. Bella had more trouble, deciding between a hammerhead shark and an octopus. She finally decided on the shark. I bought a cute crab magnet for the refrigerator. We decided to walk around Mandalay Bay a bit. The place is huge and beautiful. There is a reason why the resorts look like this. Not everyone wins here. Lola’s little legs look so cute running through the massive hallways. Time to go home; it’s still raining so again Ken and Jason go to get the vehicles. The plan is for Lola to come back to the RV to spend the night and Bella spend the evening with her mom. Jason and Justen are going to go out for a couple drinks. Justen has never been to Vegas and a couple of his friends are in Vegas for the Super Bowl. As we start to pull out of the parking lot with Lola in our backseat, she starts crying, asking where Bella is. She thought Bella was coming with us too. I ask her if she wants to be with Bella and Mommy and she says yes. We flash our lights and pull along side Jason to get him to stop and little Lola is now with her big sister. I like that she wants to be with her, you can see how much she loves her.
Ken and I go back to the RV; Ken watches a little TV and I go to bed, reading a little of ‘Fortune Rocks’. It’s getting a little better, but certainly not the page turner it’s critiqued to be.
It rained very, very hard all through the night. I slept pretty well. We wake up about 7:30 and it is not raining. Hopefully it stays this way. I wake up with no voice. We are drinking our coffee. I’m going to make some oatmeal. I thought I brought a 2 lb package of apple smoked bacon, and when Ken opens the package it is a pork tenderloin…so we stick it in the freezer. After breakfast, we head to the grocery. We are going to get food for the Super Bowl. I decide to get some pork ribs. We get to Jason’s and I put them in a marinade. Ideally they should have been marinating overnight. I make a veggie tray; we have blueberries, strawberries, chips/dip, nachos, and salsa. April is at work; Jason and Justen are tired, the game doesn’t start for awhile, so we decide to take the girls to Lake Mead. Bella would love to catch some bugs or something alive. Even though the lake is very low, it is still very beautiful. The ranger told us it recently has raised 7 feet from the snows melting. We hope we can get close enough without walking through lots of mud. We arrive at a boat launch and we can park and walk down to the lake. The girls have their nets and Bella has her containers. There are ducks, a few boats. The sky is party sunny; I’m glad the rain has stopped! Bella finds some clam shells but that is about it. They enjoy walking through the water and mud. Lola calls it ‘sticky mud’. Their boots are wet, well actually their pants are wet too. Bella wants to stay; Lola wants me to go get the kayak that is on the shore but it is time to go if we want to have ribs for the Super Bowl. I called Jason on the way back and asked him to begin grilling them. After they are seared, I put slow cook them in the oven for about 2 hours. The game is already starting and I make some nachos, get out all the snacks. Lola lasts about 5 minutes watching the game and then she says ‘come on GeeGee, let’s paint’. Jason tells her ‘no, Lola, GeeGee is watching the game.’ I say, that’s OK, I’d rather paint with Lola, which is true. Already, I think about how much I am going to miss her and even more, how much she is going to miss Bella….and all of us. Bella took a turn painting and produced many beautiful paintings. She really is talented. We finally were able to eat the ribs (they took longer than expected)….they were just OK..I think the overnigh
t marinade is the secret. The rest of the evening is spent playing with the girls, watching a bit of the game when possible. After the game, it’s time to go back to the RV. We all are tired, Jason has to work tomorrow and we have a long drive; should get an early start. Justen has spent the last two nights with them. I’m sure it has been so great for him to get to know the girls and to spend time with Jason and April. He is coming back with us tonight. We say goodbye to Jason; he will already be at work when we stop by in the morning to get Bella. Back at the RV, Ken and Justen watch a little TV; I go to bed and read for a while.We got up around 7 am. Coughed a lot last night. We have coffee and juice and pack up. There isn’t a lot to pack up from outside since we never were able to sit out. It was always raining. We called April to let her know we were on our way. We parked the RV on the side street so Lola wouldn’t see it. If she did, she would want to go with us. We say goodbye to April and Lola :( and we are on our way. We didn’t have breakfast, so we stopped and picked up egg mcmuffins, hash browns, apple slices. We decided to go home a different way, through Needles, Parker, hit the 10 and cut down to the 8 via 85. We’ll see if it is shorter. Probably is because going through the dam takes about 45 minutes. We only stopped for gas and bathroom breaks. One gas station had a Dairy Queen. Bella got a banana shake, I got a vanilla cone. Bella also got a giant lollipop. It’s as big as a golf ball. We got swiss and muenster cheese, (Bella thought it was Monster cheese)turkey and pastrami and snacks from the refrigerator in the RV. Bella is always so good in the car. She asks a lot ‘how much longer’, but the answer doesn’t change her pleasant mood. She asks for gum, saying she needs two pieces because her mouth is big. I give her two big pieces of bubble gum and now she is chomping away. The gum is actually too big for her mouth. It was a good trip. The most enjoyable thing for me was to see Justen bond with his brother Jason and his granddaughters. To see Bella and Lola run up to him, sit on his lap, etc. That’s the important stuff in life. Wonderful!!
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