Wishing Thomas the Very Best on Starting his Life as a Marine

First, I would like to say thank you for the comments about my previous entry on marriage. I would like to clarify that Gina and I do not care if someone gets divorced because that is something that happens in life. However it is sad to us to see our friends part ways. The point that I was trying to make was, we don’t care why it happens nor will we choose sides. We just want to stay friends since we were friends before and we would like to stay friends afterwards. We acknowledge and know that it takes two people to fall in love it just as it takes two people to part ways. Enough said about relationships and our friends. Gina and I love this life of RV'ing and the people we meet along the way and cherish the memories we have enjoyed and look forward to seeing all of you down the road to make more memories with.

I guess I need to catch everyone up since I have not posted since Wednesday morning. Not much has happened to write about since I have only went to work every day and Gina has been working on moving our stuff around in the house. I drove back to Louisiana Friday afternoon and got home around 8:30. This would be Thomas’s last weekend at home before he leaves for the Marine Corps and working on becoming a Marine. Gina and I just wanted to spend some time with him before he leaves.

We all woke up around eight o’clock Saturday morning and Gina and I enjoyed our coffee outside together. Gina’s garden is looking so beautiful. She has some plants that did not produce flowers last year but are blooming this year. Here are a few pictures of them.

A Beautiful Flower growing in the Pond

Another Flower called "Lily of the Nile"


Another Beautiful Flower

We called Dana & Rickey to come down and eat pancakes and bacon with us so we could talk about our upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon. We have progressed our plans and bought our tickets for the train ride from Williams, Arizona to the Grand Canyon and reserved a spot at the Pet Day Care for our babies, Angel & Zoey and Rickey’s baby Addison. We decided that they would meet us in Aransas Pass on Thursday and we will leave Friday Morning, June 19th. Our first stop will be Saturday in Albuquerque to visit the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center Museum then leave Sunday toward Williams with our arrival there on Monday. We want to stop and see the Petrified Forest along the way so we will stop somewhere near there on Sunday. We expect to arrive in Williams on Monday and taking the train ride on Tuesday. That is as far as we have planned since we decided that after the Grand Canyon we will just plan the remaining trip as we go with no set itinerary other than being back in Aransas Pass on Sunday July 5th. Follow along and you can see how the trip comes out.

Once they left Gina put a pot roast in the crock pot to cook all day. Everyone is coming over tonight for dinner to spend a little time with Thomas before he leaves. Right after Gina put the roast in the crock pot Nicole showed up. She has a full day planned of baking. Soon after her arrival Shane arrived and then Gina and Nicole went to the store to pick up some groceries while I visited with Shane. Uncle Jim came by the house and we all talked for a while. Shane left to go see his parents and then Uncle Jim left as Gina and Nicole were getting back to the house. Nicole started her baking. She made a cheesecake, two keylime pies, a peach cobbler and a dessert called “Death by Chocolate”. Sometime in the afternoon Ashley & Parker showed up and Ashley baked oatmeal & raisin cookies along with some chocolate chip cookies and a pan of brownies while Parker watched LSU beat Rice in the NCAA baseball super regionals. I must clarify that all this baking wasn’t for us. Most of the baked treats are for an auction at church tomorrow to raise money for a mission trip to Mexico for a young woman at church.

It was finally time to eat that roast that we had smelled all day cooking. We had roast & gravy, mashed potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and fresh corn. Now if that wasn’t enough we still had a lot of dessert to eat which Nicole had baked today. I don’t know why we are not 400 hundred pounds around this house since everyone here can cook and bake really good.

Let’s see we had everyone in our family to include Dana & Rickey for dinner. Shane was in the Marine Corps so we got to hear about his boot camp stories to Thomas.

All of us Laughing and Telling Stories about Thomas

We laughed and laughed since we all know Thomas and we all said that we wished we could be a fly on the wall to see him humble himself at boot camp. Especially since he is so headstrong. I guess we shall see how things come out in three months. He should be graduating sometime in September. That about wraps up what we have been doing, we’ll all say our goodbyes on Sunday as he heads down to New Orleans before flies out to Paris Island, SC on Monday. I’ll be driving back to Aransas Pass on Sunday. We have had a wonderful weekend and wish the best for Thomas as he begins a new chapter in his life called the “United States Marine Corps”

Somewhere in there I forgot about Gina taking corn off the cob and putting it in the freezer. Gina has a full week of this planned as Uncle Jim has approximately 500 feet of corn planted in his garden ready to be picked on Monday & Tuesday. He will pick it and shuck it while Gina cleans it and removes the kernals off the cob and then puts it in bags for freezing. This is only half of his corn because he still has another 400 feet of corn that should be ready for picking around the beginning of July. So as you can see Gina will have a very busy week. However, her reward will be on Friday she heads to Gulf Shores, Alabama for a weekend of fun on the beach. Well that’s about it and there are things that I need to get done before I get on the road later today. You all take care and for those on the road Safe travels.

Until tomorrow, Gina & I hope everyone has a pleasant and wonderful day, enjoying what our Father has so graciously blessed us with.