Gina’s Birthday

There’s been an awful lot of crying going on around here about a certain Gina’s birthday—you see it was a big one or so she thinks.  Gina is a beautiful woman inside and out and it was a pleasure to be part of her birthday celebration!

We started the evening off enjoying a wonderful bottle of wine along with cheese and crackers outside in the beautiful weather we had today.

As the sun was going down Rollie fired up the grill to cook the tenderloin steaks and I finished up with the potatoes and vegetables.  We sat down to one fine birthday meal! 

Our friends Jeane and Steve back in Montana owned a dude ranch for many, many years.  Their cook, Marg, made many of these triple layer chocolate cakes for guest birthdays.  I have the recipe and for special birthdays or other occasions, I make one of these cakes.  Three layers of chocolate cake with a cream filling between each layer covered in a decadent chocolate icing.  Oh, MY!  Gina’s birthday was special enough to warrant one of these cakes. 

It was a wonderful day—my husband now has a week off from work.  Gina and Rollie leave tomorrow heading for Colorado to visit their daughter, son-in-law and those twin baby granddaughters born mid December.  Happy Birthday Gina!

Girl’s Day Out

We left the rigs just around 9am this morning headed to Corpus Christi—Gina, Peggy and myself.  Poor Emmi stayed home alone.

OK, we left this early what do we do now—quilt shops don’t open until 10am, mall doesn’t open until 10am and we will be in Corpus by 9:30—JoAnn’s to the rescue!  And thank goodness for smart phones which tell us those facts!  We managed to kill some time in there—batting was 50% off so I picked up a few yards of Warm & Natural which I didn’t bring with me from Montana.

On to the mall—one stop at Soma’s then on to PF Changs for lunch.  I don’t particularly care for Chinese food—your normal buffet Chinese food but I love PF Changs.  I’ve even taken Michael to one in Tucson and he enjoyed his meal.  Gina had told me she and Rollie didn’t eat Chinese food but I convinced she and Peggy to give it a try—they were both pleasantly surprised!  Of course I was delighted!

Next stop—The Quilt Cottage—a delightful small quilt shop with lots and lots of eye candy as Paulette would say!  We managed to do a little damage there then we headed off to Heirloom Elegance, another small quilt shop.  Gina found fabrics to make a quilt for a granddaughter but not quite all the colors she needed—back to the Quilt Cottage we went where she was successful in completing her color choices.

It was a wonderful day, beautiful weather spent in the company of wonderful friends. 

Back home we released the poor Emmi girl, took all three dogs for walks and I made a quick run to Wal Mart for Gina and me—our milk didn’t taste so good this morning! 

At this moment, Rollie is home and boiling the shrimp the “shrimp lady” brought by.  She comes through the park selling fresh shrimp—don’t have the schedule straight yet but believe me I will! 

Sunset over our neighbor’s rigs.

Trust

At some point in time when dealing with transactions involving significant sums of money there has to be a certain level of “gut feeling” or “trust.”  Let’s just say it’s a good thing I have unlimited talk minutes on my cell phone plan as many phone calls went back and forth between the trailer owner and myself as well as my Mom and myself.  We still have a deal but not without a lot of running around on the part of my Mother in AR as well as my losing it and telling the owner of the trailer what was NOT going to happen. 

Emmi and I went to the park early afternoon to play basketball and walk.  When we got home Gina and I took off to enjoy pedicures—helping to relieve some of the stress.  Back at the rigs, Gina kept refilling my margarita glass which also helped!  A lot!!

Pork chops on the grill and good ole southern crowder peas for dinner.  We also enjoyed Pioneer Woman’s Crash Hot Potatoes again.  Gina made a strawberry dump cake and we enjoyed that with some Blue Bell ice cream—YUM, YUM!!! 

Michael has only two days left to work of his 14 day shift and he is ready for a day off.  He took “climbing school” after work tonight—when I sent Rollie a text to ask him how long this school would last so I would know when to grill pork chops, I got this reply—“depends on how long it takes him to get to the top.”  Well all righty then!!!  Come to find out, he wasn’t really climbing, only learning how to get himself hooked up into a “climbing harness.”  Here I was envisioning my husband climbing around on top of some tower Rollie!!! 

The “girls” are off on a girl’s day out tomorrow—can’t wait!

Success!!

 

Mom saw this travel trailer on Craigslist when we first started looking.  The woman owning it was still in Minnesota and arrived yesterday in Port Aransas.  I took the ferry over around noon and bought the RV!  It is a 2002 and for a ten year old trailer—it is in great shape.  It’s 29 feet long and has two slides with a ton of inside storage space.  We will need to clean the carpets and possibly find some more comfortable furniture but other than that—it’s good.  The owner is leaving her dishes, pots, pans and lawn furniture for Mom and Chuck too.  Hallelujah!! My search is over!!

After we looked at the trailer Emmi and I went and took a nice long walk on the beach!

She was one happy little dog.  And although the wind was blowing it was not too bad out there in the sunshine. 

Gina spent the day working on her quilt—she got all the pieces cut and many of them sewn into squares—she did a lot of the work after I left without my help—good job Gina!!! 

I can relax a little now—still have to find a RV spot for this trailer which may present another challenge, we will see. 

Rain, Wind and Cold

Rain, nasty wind, 43 degrees—am I back home in Montana and just don’t realize it???

I won’t even bore you with today’s RV searching disaster—I’m starting to sound like a broken record!!  Gina and I drove around all afternoon looking at apartments here in Aransas Pass, Ingleside, and Portland with no success.  Seems ground floor level apartments are scare as hens teeth as we say here in the south!  Now, as for me, I never wanted to live in a ground floor apartment—one for security reasons—too many entrances (windows) for a bad guy to enter and two—I really dislike the sound of people stomping around above my head.  But Mom has a hard time with stairs and needs a ground floor.  Tomorrow is another day.

Did you hear our own blogland bird lady Judy has had her hip surgery and is recovering nicely with the help of her brother who she calls Nurse Ratchet. 

I got up just as Michael was heading out the door at 5:30.  By 7:30 I had my spaghetti sauce made and a load of laundry in the dryer.  Emmi got up, we went for our brisk walk, came back and dumped the black water tank—I’m just getting so handy!!  Off to the quilting trailer, I got my friend Jane’s first quilt loaded—it’s so bright I may need sunglasses!  Maybe the bright colors will ward off this winter gloom we are experiencing!  Gina spent some time cutting out pieces for her newest project.  Our little trailer is small but so far we have found room to do anything we need to do—it is so great to have a space to spread out our quilting stuff!  I think I never did much sewing in the RV as I used the dining table and it was just too much trouble to move everything each time we needed a spot to eat. 

Rollie and Gina are joining us for dinner tonight—spaghetti, YUM!

“The cold wind is continuing to make conditions miserable across the entire area, but especially along I-90 between Billings and Livingston in the Big Timber area. At least three semi-trailer trucks have been blown over along that area Tuesday morning. Gusts up to 60 mph will make travel difficult, producing areas of blowing and drifting snow.” 

The above quote was taken from the KTVQ Montana website—how would you like to be pulling one of those high profile 5th wheels in that kind of wind!!!!

The guys rehashing the day.

Wal Mart had really reasonably priced flowers the other day and I treated myself to these lilies—they were all closed buds until today.

Another One Bites The Dust

Yep, another one of those, “this is a a top of the line RV, in great shape, I fixed it up for my daughter, you won’t find a better one.”  This is a direct quote from the guy!  The roof had leaked at one point in time, the ceiling had never been repaired and was sagging, the carpet underneath the leak was disgusting.  The RV was filthy. 

Gina and I drove to Victoria to see this RV and thank goodness there was a wonderful quilt shop to save the day.  Gina is a new quilter and really got into finding just the right fabrics for our projects.  After our quilt shop recuperating we found a Jason’s Deli for lunch. 

Back across the fields and home on this gray and cold day.  I guess it is cold all across the country, the folks in Arizona are complaining as are the folks in Montana.  Of course the temps are just a little different but as Brenda in Arizona said on Facebook—”if I wanted to be cold I could at least be in Canada with my kids and grandbabies!”

Ms. Emmi got to go with us today, she is such a great little traveler.  Sleeps in the passenger’s lap—I’m glad Gina likes dogs—sleeps on my coat while we are shopping or dining.  A very easy keeper! 

It was a great day spent with such a good friend—unfortunately I forgot to take any quilt shop photos, shame on me!!

Who Turned Off The Heat

Yep, again, someone turned off the heat.  At least it isn’t as cold here as Montana or Arizona but that wind is not nice!

Gina and I went to church over in Rockport this morning and enjoyed it very much.  The minister, a woman, just has this vibrant, engaging way of speaking.  Throughout the entire service she uses no notes speaking entirely from her heart. 

Back home I began the RV search with the status quo results.  My definition and even Michael’s (who doesn’t see dirt) definition just doesn’t coincide with most other folks definitions of “clean” or “good condition” or “great shape.”  Why am I searching for a RV—well, remember Rollie’s driving job—Mom’s husband Chuck is coming down to take one of the positions and they need something to live in.  I looked at the outside of one 5th wheel today—will maybe look at the inside next weekend.  Then I drove to Portland—less than 10 miles—to look at a “wonderful rig, immaculate, great shape, one owner.”  You get the picture.  The carpet was trashed, the mini-blinds had food stuck to them, the stove was beyond filthy, the wall had a crack where the slide was.  Are these people blind???  I took about 5 seconds to look and say very abruptly, “I’m not interested.”  Got in my car with Emmi and drove back to Aransas Pass, GEEZZZ!!

A load of laundry (I love my on board washing machine), quilting bookkeeping and that was it for our day here in Texas. 

Michael got home about 6pm and sunset from our windows was beautiful—the photo didn’t do it justice.