Seriously, where have we been. Yup I know Sisters Candy and Kimmy and dear friend "Good Paul", wherever we've been I haven't been on blogger!!! As John, Paul, George and Ringo said ... yeah yeah yeah ... here I am with tales to tell.
I guess the last post was a very brief one (I'm too lazy to even check) when I got my lovely pink, oh so very pink, cast off. That would have been when we were in the Richmond, VA area (where we'd been before and I did a post or two or three from there on our first, delightful visit there, in yet another area we loved). The post prior to that was probably when we were in Coatesville, PA, where the "accident" aka, broken arm happened, also did a post from there, more than one I am certain when we were there a couple years ago (another area we LOVED).
With all that said .... after we left the Richmond area this time around we headed to North Carolina. Again we stayed at the Neuse River campground of the Crotan Nation Forest, just down the road from my son Joshua and his wife and son (Trisha and Connor). We'd stayed at this lovely, peaceful campground before, but the last time we were there the new ranger had an issue with us leaving the trailer in the parking area where we had put it twice previously. With that being the issue we stayed elsewhere when we were in the area the last two times, but I really wanted to try there again, so I made a couple phone calls and spoke with the latest ranger there who had NO issue with the trailer being where we'd parked it before! The forest had suffered some tornado and hurricane damage this past season so it appeared a bit different than we remembered for sure! Still loved it though!
So, we were with Joshua, Trisha and Connor for Thanksgiving .... ahh what a wonderful time we had. We were there for about 10 days, got to see Connor and his class perform a Thanksgiving "pageant" for parents and grandparents etc. Unfortunately I am unable (my ignorance ... damn, damn, damn) to post videos here so trust me when I say it was awesome!
Also a missing video is one of Connor reading Rick "The Napping House" ... oh it was so much fun to watch them. Connor taking great joy in reading and Rick's antics acting out what Connor was reading!
After we left North Carolina we headed south to .... you guessed it, South Carolina. Where again, we stayed somewhere we'd been a couple times - Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet. A campground we all love, especially Sir Arlo because he gets to run and run and run on the beach and swim and play in the surf (sorry, no pictures of that, but there have been previously!)
One of the reasons we stopped here again was to purchase a new trailer .... oh such a pleasure! (not) But after replacing tires and axles it became quite obvious that we (the trailer, at this time I am not referring to the human(s)) were indeed overweight and in addition to being unsafe it was expensive!
Yup, she's a beauty! UGH
Next we are off to Gaffney, SC for repairs to the coach's exhaust system! Do ya think it's been an expensive few weeks!?!?
Then, finally we are in Florida and it is Christmas. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire we are missing our Princess set up the nativity scene made by her Grandmother (Patrick's Mom, Nancy) years ago. We had the Nativity set up in our house each year, but passed the tradition to Patrick (Rick's son) and his wife and daughter (Beth and Princess Paige) when we sold the house and "hit the road"
Isn't that marvelous picture of our girl with wonder in her eyes!!! Oh how I wish we were there - I had such a "melt down" on Christmas Eve when we spoke and she was telling me (aka "T-T") about her day and that she was eating ice cream cake that Uncle Tim made - I asked what kind (Uncle Tim is a cook from scratch guy, so it is ALWAYS outstandingly delicious) and she tells me it is "mint pepper" .... (aka peppermint) I had to hand the phone to Rick, I was incapable of continuing a conversation ... I wanted to BE THERE ;-(
Thankfully, we also got a photo of our Princess and her Vovo (I can't get the accent marks correct), Beth's father Roy, wearing "boppers" that we brought last year for the celebration, and thankfully got saved!
Meanwhile in North Carolina, Connor's class went on a field trip to the local airport to sing Christmas carols, sporting shirts they made. How cute is this? I can't imagine anything better to greet people getting off a plane than a group of six year olds, sporting these terrific shirts (look closely at what created the reindeer) and probably most of the boys and girls with missing teeth, singing carols!
Meanwhile, Christmas in Florida looked like this ...
On the 4th of January we moved over to the Osceola National Forest (Ocean Pond Campground) where I am doing a volunteer stint for a couple months .... more on that later, but I will leave you with a photo of our view ....
As the saying goes, stay tuned ....
