Aug 31st - K C

Kelsey, Andy & Lydia stopped by at 5:30 this morning to pick up Lydia's pack n play. They were headed for Indy. I slept through it.

We went up and worked an hour at the church work day this morning. About 3 PM we left for Kansas City. Trip was uneventful. Just got back to hotel after a good meal at Hong's Buffet. We will take a shuttle bus to the airport in the morning and expect to be in Seattle before noon.

I hope all of you have seen the photo of Lydia with her first black eye. It's on Kelsey's Facebook page.

Doing this post on my phone. Interested to she how it works.

Good night. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 30th - Packing

HOT again today. At 6:30 it is still 96 with a heat index of 100. Actual high tomorrow is supposed to be 103.

I spent about an hour mowing the high spots in the lawn. It has not rained here for weeks and in the 10 day forecast the only possibility of rain is 30% one of the days.

Kathy spent the day cleaning and packing. She checked to see if it might be possible to get Lydia to come along, by putting her in our carry on luggage. Not really, but Lydia did think it was fun to be carried around in the bag.

It will probably be in the mid 70's when we fly out of Kansas City on Sunday. The temperature will be about the same when we land in Seattle, but the humidity will be about 30% lower.

After a week cruising Alaska with high temps in the 50's and lows in the 40's I may not want to come back to the high 80's forecast for our return to MO. Although if it rains every day we are in AK, as is forecast, I may be ready to come back.

Tomorrow is a work day at church. We may go over for an hour or two in the morning since we don't plan on leaving for Kansas City until around 3 PM.

I hope it is cooler where you are. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 28th - HOT, HOT, HOT!!!

It has been a hot week in here in central MO. 90's every day. I think it was 96 today.

Monday I washed the car and the truck. Lydia helped some but she didn't like the noise the power washer made so she was pretty tentative.

Yesterday and today I did NOTHING. It was just to hot to even want to be outside.

Lydia was here Monday and Tuesday, and she and Kelsey came for lunch today. Monday she rode in the car with me as we hauled the trash can up to the road and then Tuesday she rode along when I picked it up. She LOVES to be behind the wheel while we go up and down the driveway.

She is just to cute for words.

We are getting excited about our upcoming cruise. We drive to Kansas City Saturday, stay there overnight and fly to Seattle Sunday. We board the "Golden Princess", for our cruise to Alaska, Sunday afternoon. We leave port Sunday evening.

Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 17th - Home Again

We made it home around noon today. No problems on the trip home.

Some photos:
Doug with Lydia, while we were still in Indy.

Eating at Bucca's while we were still in Indy.

 Lydia enjoys eating.

 

 

Pressley & Colton, two of my brother's grandchildren. As you will note, Colton was keen about having Pressley's arm on him for the photo.

 Swinging.

 Swinging is tiring.

Running the "digger". Right after taking this photo she sure gave us a scare. She bent to far forward while working the handles on the digger. She fell forward face first onto the sidewalk and then turned a somersault. During the somersault her neck bent more than we thought it could. She didn't really seem all that bothered by the whole thing, but I don't think she rode the digger again.

Vacationing is hard work.

Wednesday I replaced the floor under Mom's toilet. I had never used a cast iron pipe cutter before, Doug told me about them. I rented one to cut the cast iron pipe so that I could install a new toilet flange.

 

The new PVC pipe. 

Replacing the floor sewer pipe turned out to be the easy part of the job. The "floor filler" that I used to bring the new section of floor up to the level of the old floor turned out to be a nightmare. I got some stuff that was supposed to set up fast, because I needed to get the toilet back in service. The stuff set up so fast that I couldn't get it trowelled down to floor level. My brother David came down, after working all day, and asked if he could help. He tried grinding down the high spots in the grout and finally gave up. He knocked it out, went back to town and bought some more. He mixed it a lot wetter than I did and it worked okay for him. He does concrete and masonry work for a living. His skill level may have had something to do with it being successful the second time. I think it was about 10PM when we finally got things working.

Helping Grandpa lock up the "basement" doors before leaving Gramma Bev's (my Mom).

 

You can never be to careful, something might be luring under the RV.

We stayed at a campground in Effingham last night. Lydia went in with me when I registered. The campground owner was so impressed by her that he wanted to give her handful's of suckers and tootsie rolls. I let her have one of each. She didn't like the tootsie roll. She did really go after the sucker, until it got down to the tootsie roll center. I don't think she swallowed much, based on how much of it that she ended up wearing.

 

When Lydia saw the campground tractors, golf carts, etc., she was just oohing and awing. One of the campground ladies just had to give her, and Kathy, a ride around the campground.

Mid-morning we stopped to give Lydia some time out of her car seat.

 After some walking around she grabbed the railing, bent over, and pooped her pants. It was pretty funny that she did it while standing in front of the door to the men's rest room.

We have most of the RV unpacked. Kathy has been doing laundry for 8 solid hours.

I hope you all had a great day. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 12th - Fine Day in Indy

Today was a very enjoyable day here in Indianapolis. We drove in Doug & Anthony's to pick them up before heading out for the day. Also, it gave Lydia a chance to look at their chickens again. She wasn't to sure about this rooster.

After watching the chickens we went downtown and took maybe a 2.5 mile walk along the canal. It was a very nice way to spend a beautiful summer day. We had lunch at one of the restaurants along the canal.

After a stop for ice cream we headed to Stout's Shoe Store in downtown Indy. We looked at shoes but also wanted Lydia to see their parrot.

During the day the parrot is loose in the store. When we walked in it was up on top of its cage. When we started walking over to see it it climbed down the side of the cage, opened the cage door and went inside. Lydia didn't seem all that impressed.

By that time we were worn out. We dropped Doug & Anthony back at their house and we came back to the RV for naps.

Is this a little angel?

After we all finished our naps Doug & Anthony came to the RV park and we went over to Bucca's for Italian food. Lydia was the hit of the restaurant. Several of the waitresses had to stop and spend time with her.

In the morning we plan to pack up and head for my Mom's in Michigan.

I hope all of you had as nice a day as I did. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 11th - Travelling

I'm not sure where these tomato plants are going next, now that they have reached the porch ceiling.

Grammy & Lydia playing in the yard.

Andy & Lydia came over for supper Saturday night. Do you think this girl likes sweet corn?

Maybe she just likes eating. She looks kind of cross in the photo but was a happy eater.

Travelling ladies ready to head for Indianapolis.

Picnic lunch at a rest area.

Then some play time at the rest area.

You have to move fast to get in enough play time.

Just to cute for words.

 

 Fun with Grandpa's at the RV campground.

Time for a shower and bed. Kathy & Lydia are already asleep.

Hope you all had a wonderful day. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 7th - HOT! in Missouri

I'm sure it is hot in other places also, after all it is August. Right now 6:30PM WeatherBug says the temperature is 86 and it feels like 92. I came in about 45 minutes ago and it felt hotter than 92 when I came in. PTL for AC.

We had a good service at church Sunday, after a good Sunday School. Lots of visiting/chatter before and after Sunday School.

I had blood drawn Monday morning so that lab work could be done before my normal 6 month appointment with my Dr. Rauba, my Endocrinologist (diabetes doctor). I saw him yesterday morning. All is well. BP was 124/74. I've lost 6# over the past year. Cholesterol, triglycerides, etc., were all OK. Got the standard "pep talk", "Don't eat so much bread or potatoes or red meat." or anything else that tastes good. Also, in addition to whatever else I do, walk at least 30 minutes a day. I'm so pooped right now that there is no way I'd even consider going out for a 30 minute walk.

Yesterday afternoon I mowed the lawn, which take almost 3 hours. Still need to do the weed eating. It may not get done until next week. We had a couple from church over for supper last night and had a very enjoyable evening. It was the first time we have had a chance to get to know them.

Today I felt a little like one of the "senior jokes", where the person starts out to do one thing, then changes to something else, and then changes again and again. I went out this morning with the intention of working on the rock retaining wall at the back of the shed. I still have about 15' of it that needs to be built up. As I was scouting for rock I walked under some tree branches that bother me when I mow. It was in an area where I would drive the tractor to get more rocks. I got my pole saw and trimmed branches. After I finished, only in the "front" of the house, I didn't do any trimming on the pond side, I hooked the trailer on the tractor and drove it up in front of the shed to put some stakes in the stake pockets, so that I could pile more branches on it.

We had a half inch of rain last night and when I was in the shed I walked around to see if there was standing water on the floor. Water comes down the hill and when it rains hard it actually runs under the wall of the shed. I was pleased that there were only a few damp spots. I went out into the lean-to on the shed to see what it was like and there was about 3" of standing water all along the shed wall, in a little ditch. A plastic pipe is supposed to drain the ditch. I went out and cleared debris from the end of the plastic pipe and some water came out of it. I went back and noted that the water was still standing in the ditch, and it was not moving. I set up my shop vac to blow and stuck the hose well into the 4" plastic pipe. No water came out the far end of the pipe. After a minute I noticed water shooting up out of the gravel drive. I dug around and found an elbow that was not connected. I dug up the pipe, removed the elbow and stuck the shop vac in that section of pipe. Still no water at the end of the pipe, but soon I had water shooting up out of the gravel about 4' from the elbow. I dug that up and found a coupling that was not connected. When I blew out that section of pipe I finally was able to drain the ditch. The 45 degree elbow, the coupling and a 4' section of pipe are on the left. I need to get a rubber boot to be able to put things back together, without digging up a lot more pipe.

Then, after putting some stakes on the trailer it was off to pick up the limbs I had trimmed. Quite a few of these limbs are 18' long.

Once I unloaded the branches and put the tractor away I dumped the tanks on the motor home. I had left it parked back out behind the shed. Kathy and I then moved it up by the shed so that I could hook up the electricity.

Time for supper. Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.

August 3rd - Home Again, Home Again

I arrived back home at 9 PM last night. Kathy and I went down to Logan Valley last Sunday, after the potluck/pitchin at church. The McCunes, a southern gospel family group from Mountain Grove, MO; led the Sunday morning service. We thoroughly enjoyed them. They are related to the man who leads the music during our normal Sunday morning services.

We had supper Monday evening with Bruce & Charlotte Tremaine. Bruce is the lead carpenter for building projects at Logan Valley Christian Retreat, where I have been volunteering and where we both volunteered the month of Oct 2011. Bruce also Pastors a small church in Ellington, MO. I enjoy working with the people down there.

Kathy drove back home Tuesday, to resume her babysitting duties ;-). I drove the motor home back after work yesterday. I had planned on driving back Saturday but the weather forecast changed my mind.

During the week some of the guys ran the water line to the new building. They buried the line 3-4' deep, FAR deeper than necessary, 18" would probably be fine in southern Missouri. The backhoe has a 24" wide bucket so it was also a wide trench. I had to drive across the backfilled trench to get to the road. I was a little concerned about driving over the trench when it was dry, they just pushed the backfill back into the trench, although David worked hard to make sure the surface was well compacted. It was supposed to start raining Friday night and keep raining for several days. I knew I didn't want to drive over the trench was the soil was saturated, so I cleaned up after work, got the motor home ready for the road and left a little after 5.

We unloaded the motor home this morning and I'm ready to say enough for the day, and "rest" the remainder of the day. It was hot working down there this week, and even though I enjoyed it, it was tiring. I actually worked about 35 hours for the week. I had my "electrician's hat" on most of the week. I set boxes in both the walls and ceilings, set the fans in the upstairs bathrooms and wired up the lights in one half of the lower level (a walk out basement). I also framed an upstairs "closet" floor above the stairway down to the lower level.

Dave Williams, Dave & Sue are the camp Directors, has always made it known that he appreciates my coming down there. He gave me a Thank You card when I left yesterday. When I opened it after getting home last night I found that in addition to the Thank You note the envelope contained a $200 check for "gas money". It was a nice gesture, although not needed.

We received a much needed inch of rain while I was gone. We are supposed to get more over the next several days, and we can use it.

In case you don't follow Kelsey's Facebook postings. One of the events I missed this past week. Lydia helping Grammy clean up dishes, after mixing up brownie batter.

Have a great day. May God bless you and yours.