Thanksgiving Day November 26, 2009

Dick, Peggy, Christine, Jerry, John and me
John carving "the bird".

The table is set.

Girls against guys playing sharades.

John acting out?????what????

Jim trying to get the guys to guess.

Thanksgiving day in Florida was beautiful but it definitely was a little cooler than it has been. We actually had a full day of rain on Wednesday and after the rain left we are now having a little cooler weather. 70's...I know you all are crying.

We had the Chafton's and the Bouchard's over for Thanksgiving dinner. The Lockwoods would have come but Susan just had to go home to Bowling Green, Ky to see her grand kids.

We had a fabulous meal...too much food, but some really good "southern" recipes!

Finished off the dinner with a pumpkin and a key lime pie.

After dinner we played a game called Phase 10. It was pretty fun! Can't remember if I won or if Christine did....I think we had one too many drinks.

All is well, but we did miss our family. Sounds like they all did just fine without us.

Drove up to Port Charlotte to a bead shop today. Ran into a bunch of the girls from RiverBend Motorcoach Resort.

We will be going home on Dec 18 and returning on Jan 6. The house is now livable and ready for company.

We have moved in! After 1 week...Nov.4, 2009

The front....yep looks the same. Didn't really want to

upload this picture.
Family room. Doesn't this furniture look familiar?

Breakfast nook looking into the living room.

Side view..didn't mean to upload this one either.

Dining room. This picture doesn't really do the room justice.

I am not the best picture taker.

John's office and den.

What a process! We originally planned to leave Minnesota on Thursday the 22nd. The day after the movers were there. So, Thursday am we get up early and go out to start up the coach and wouldn't you know, our old problem of "no air in the air bags" is back. You can't drive with the coach down...you can but you bounce all over. So we called Siewarts towing, they had helped us before with this problem, but because there were so many accidents on Hwy 52 that am they couldn't seem to get to us as quickly as we wanted. Mom called and suggested that we go down to Filmor and see if they could help because they have the same freightliner trucks that we have on the RV. They looked at it and our air bag was totally destroyed! So, they called around to get a part and wouldn't you know there weren't ANY in Minnesota but they did have one in Chicago. We had our office in Chicago pick up the part and put it on our truck to Minnesota in the am. John met the truck at 0600 Friday, brought the part back to Cannon and Filmor had the part on and we were on the road by 0745 Friday am. So, now we really have 3 long days of driving because we have to be ready for the moving truck first thing on Monday am. We drove all day and went to Paducah, Ky the first night. On the road, our back TV in the bedroom decided to pop off the wall and onto the bed and night stand. Luckily it didn't break and John got it re-mounted, but the picture is pink and green.!!!! The joys of an RV.
Saturday am we were on the road before light. Headed for Jennings, Fl. Just a side bar, but Fred Neumann an old employee and friend of ours, volunteered to drive our car down for us. He was going to stop in Joplin, MO and visit an old Viet Nam pal of his for a few days the head to Florida and spend a couple days with us. Well, on Sat. am at 1030, Fred called to say that his father in law had passed and he needed to get to Lubbock, TX to be with his wife and for the funeral. After many phone calls back and forth Fred decided to dead head to Jennings, FL to meet up with us Sunday am and then I would drive him to the Tampa airport so he could fly out to Texas. He was there at 0530 Sunday am....but very tired. (He had just had hernia surgery 3 weeks prior, so I am sure he wasn't 100%) Bottom line is we got him to Tampa, and we got the coach and 2 vehicles to Ft Myers. (John towed the one.)

Our friends from Kentucky (two different couples) both have lots in RiverBend where we stayed last year. Susan and Jim were on the way to RiverBend via Texas, but weren't going to arrived for a few days yet, so we stayed on their lot until they got there. It was nice because we could live in it for the first few days until the house was livable.

Monday Oct, 26th, our furniture came from Minnesota, so did Comcast, the Security Co etc...

We got all those boxes unpacked that day. Tuesday the 27th the furniture that we purchased came from the furniture store and also the pool co, lawn service, bug sprayer etc...

Got all that moved in and Wed. I went shopping. I mean power shopping. We got the necessities, but will be a while before I would say the house is complete. No paintings yet, bedspreads, rugs...lot of colors to pick etc.

We are fairly settled and pretty organized...ready for company!!! We even had Susan and Jim over for dinner and christened our gas grill out on the lanai.

(Forgot to tell you that the morning that Fred met us in Jennings, John was wiping down the shower stall in the RV and moved one of the doors just right and the whole thing shattered all over everywhere! We just can't seem to do anything without a lot of drama!)

Now we are going to take the RV out of RiverBend and to the shop to get those things fixed, then put it in storage until we take a trip around here.

I will try for better pictures later .