"The House" and fun at RiverBend

They broke ground a week ago and

here is how far they have gotten.

This gives you a little idea as to what our
lanai will look at in the back.

Wednesday night at the clubhouse.

A few drinks and it's all good.

Our neighbors Susan and Jim from

Bowling Green, KY

Susan and I at the table....hot dog night and

karaoke. :)

Yes, we seem to be pretty busy here at River Bend. (I think my kids think we are definitely "Dell Web"). RiverBend has it's winter Olympics and they have a million games you can sign up for to play. John and I are playing tennis, I played pool and won the first round...playoffs are next Thursday. We are play Wii bowling and also Corn in the Hole....basically throwing a bean bag into a hole..sorta like horseshoes. Its all fun with a million different personalities. Corn in the hole started at 1000 am...and Susan and I were already consuming "aiming juice" by 1100.

Oh well, if we go broke tomorrow...at least we can say it's been a good ride.

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The house is coming...we have been busy picking colors...inside and out...tile, cabinets...we now will meet with the pool guy on Wed. and also with a decorator. We get 3 hours with a decorator and she will tell us if what we have picked so far is good or not. We pretty much know what we want but it's nice to get another opinion.

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We will have more "Olympic" pictures later.

Verandah Weekend January 23rd and 24th

The Orange River
More Orange River

My first kayak experience.

It's been a while since I have written, but we really haven't done anything to take pictures of until this past weekend. The Verandah's, where we are building a house, had a number of activities last weekend for people to get to meet each other and to promote the area. I took a Yoga class at the fitness center and then John and I went kayaking for the first time. The Orange River is really peaceful and pretty. We kayaked down to Manatee Bay to see the Manatee's. There are so many in the river because it has been so cold and they are trying to stay warm. While we were paddling we passed a couple that told us a guy's kayak was overturned by a Manatee that went under his boat. OK, that was a little scary, but when we got down to the bay...we SAW a Manatee go under a girls boat and jostle her pretty good. I decided then that maybe we should head back!!!! I really wasn't afraid of the Manatee's but I don't like the snakes and alligators! It was fun. Then that night they had an awesome concert in the park and the food was incredible! On Sunday we took the dogs to the dog park with about 30 other dogs. It was fun. Kate actually behaved herself for the most part. Maddie and I entered an event that you had to weave around cones and then sit in a ring. We made it...but knocked down a cone so were out. Then we went on a dog walk for about an hour. The dogs were tired.

I also attended a class put on by Williams Sonoma about cooking. It was interesting. John and I went to a decorating seminar put on by Rob and Stucky which is a nice furniture store here in Florida. Overall it was a good experience.

We have met with the builder a couple times and are starting to pick out things like tile, colors, faucets, etc... Both of us want to be excited, but our spirits are pretty dampened by this economy. I will take pictures of the "dirt" and put them on the blog soon.

Finally Ft. Myers!!!

Here is Kate..."hanging" out.
Looking at me like, "what are you doing?"

Checking out the neighbor.

Maddie, assuming "the Position".

We finally made it to Ft Myers. Pulled in around 7:00pm on Monday night. Set up camp and headed to dinner. We found a rib place that we like pretty well. Was so nice to walk outside without a jacket on ....I know, it has been horrible at home! But, even in the panhandle of Florida is was cold. Sunday morning it was only 30 degrees warmer in Destin, Fl. than it was in Cannon Falls.

Got back in to the exercise classes, and met a bunch of girls that I knew from last winter.

Today John and I had to go to and get a new printer for our laptop because it is a new computer and wouldn't recognize the driver from the old printer and we didn't have the disc. We did try to download from the Internet...but wouldn't recognize it. Oh well, such is life.

Well, off to walk the dogs and finish watching American Idol.

Lafayette, Louisiana Friday 1/9/09

Danny Wessel and his friend were sealing

the pavers on the walkway. The sun was in the

wrong direction and it is not a very good picture.

Pat and Skog...on their side! Couldn't figure

out how to turn the picture.

"Maggie" Skogerboe. Another fellow

Westie.

Pat and Skog's daughter Annie (in blue) and their grand daughter

Sara in yellow. The three Wheatens are all Annie's!!!

Yep, we had a houseful of dogs! Good I didn't bring

Maddie and Kate with us to dinner!

More puppies.

We arrived back in San Antonio on Wednesday with both our dogs. They did excellent on the plane ride. Hardly a peep...well, Kate had a little peep.! We were pleasantly surprised at how good they were. Jim Wessel picked us up at the airport. Pam was pretty sick with a bad cold so we decided that we would settle in again and then see them on Thursday.

Thursday John and I did a shopping expedition to get a charger for his phone...(we forgot ours) and I forgot my jean...so got a pair of them, and then the normal grocery run. After we were done we went over to their house and took the dogs. They were very good....Kate didn't run off and they even got along with Pepper...Wessel's dog. Jim had been up to Dallas to a horse sale and purchased two thoroughbreds that are both in foal. We locked my dogs up in a stall because they probably would have chased the horses and I didn't need one of them to get kicked.

We viewed the photographs that Pam had taken of us and picked the ones out that we want to choose from. She really did a great job! After that we went to Papa Gallos to have lunch. We have eaten there about 3 times...counting the times we went in for Flan to go! Flan is a Mexican custard and they make it fresh every day and I just love it. We then met up at our motor home to catch up on some more pictures and say good bye. Pam and Jim decided not to go with us to Pat and Skog's for dinner due to Pam's cold. Skog has been having some health issues and is scheduled to go to the Dr. today (Friday). Apparently he has an infection that makes his blood pressure go WAY low and he passes out. Annie, their daughter, came up from Dallas to manage all his medical records and help Pat get some answers.

We had a lovely dinner with Pat, Skog, Annie and Sara, their grand daughter. Annie has 3 Wheaten terriers. She shows them and one is the top Wheaten and the other is number 5. She will breed the female in two years. Need a pup????? Their only about $2,000.00.

We had a great time and got home around 10:30.

This am we got on the road about 9:30 and got here to Lafayette about 4:00. Ran into some slow traffic that cost us about 30 min., but it was an uneventful trip.

Tomorrow I think we will go to Destin, Florida. The two couples we were going to meet in Orlando are having delays, so we might not be able to hook up with them until February. We would have to go back to Key West to see them in January and we're not sure we want to pay what it costs to stay at Blue Water RV Resort. It is pretty spendy...about $800.00 a week.

We will see...

"Our Christmas" on Saturday December 27, 2008

This is a wall hanging I made that took me

about 3 years to complete due to the fact the way

it was constructed was a process I knew nothing

about and had to find a class to take to learn it.

It really turned out awesome.

Guy (John's nephew) and his wife Kim snow-

mobiled over from Cross Lake on Friday to

visit us.

This is a sledding hill over by Breezy Point where

you can rent a tube for $13.00 each for 2 hours

and slide down this ICY hill!!! That is Brady in the

white coat getting ready to hold on to the tow rope to

get to the top of the hill.

You can't tell, but this is Ryan, Heather, Jackie

and Brady coming down. I am still at the top.
John came out long enough to get a few photos
of us all.

Heather laughing at someone....

Jackie

The whole crew, including Maddie, Kate and

Princess Bella!!!

Heather and Ryan

Jackie and Brady

We had a wonderful Christmas. We have had quite a bit of company which is always fun. On Saturday, our Christmas day, we went sledding and also the kids did a bit of snowmobiling. We had a nice Turkey dinner and played many games. We covered ping pong, Aggrevation, Parcheesi, Monopoly...everyone got a chance to win!

On Monday, we got together with a few of the neighbors up here that were either here for the holidays or permanent residents. We had a fun time catching up on the neighborhood news.

John's sister Sharon and her husband Denie came up on New Years Day and I will tell you all about that later.