December in Lousiana

Wow, it’s been a busy month back in Louisiana. Gina and I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and A Happy New Year. We pray that Gods blessings will be bestowed upon you and your family during 2010.

I would like to thank all of our blog followers for the emails inquiring about our status and wanting to make sure we were both alright. I would have written something sooner. However, I was consumed with our solar electrical installation beginning from early morning to it getting dark every day. The first two weeks I had to work around the rain and the final three weeks I had to work around the extreme cold in Louisiana. Gina and I are both doing fine and yes, we are finally back on the road enjoying all the rain in southern California. Now that we are finally settling down I decided that I would try to bring everyone up to date. Instead of one really long entry I decided that I would catch you all up over the next few days. It will be mostly pictures just to give you a glimpse of what we have been up to last month.

Here's a picture of the finished project.
(I will do a separate entry on our electrical system)


Solar Panels mounted on top of the truck in the raised position


Gina and I with Brandi

Gina and I attended Brandi's commencment ceremony as she was awarded her BA in Education from South Eastern Louisiana University. Brandi was our oldest son's girlfriend and will always have a special place in our hearts. She will forever be a part of our family. We love her very much and are extremely proud of her.

Later that evening Gina and I, along with Nicole and Shane attended a graduation party for Brandi.

Brandi and Gina

Brandi was hired to teach at Denham Springs High School. She gave me and Gina a tour of her new classroom. Brandi and Gina minds were tossing around ideas for decorating her classroom.

Brandi in her Classroom

After Brandi and Gina had spent several days up at the high school her classroom was finally done. Gina really enjoyed the special time helping Brandi prepare her classroom for her students. She is going to be an outstanding teacher!!!

Ashley and Parker along with their dogs Jada & Sophia flew home from Grenada. They both finished another semester of medical school and we were thankful that they were able to be home with us for the holidays. In celebration for Parker's birthday, Gina made homemade lasagna and made a brownie birthday cake.

Thomas and Gina

Thomas flew home from 29 Palms, California December 19th and will have to report back on January 3, 2010. Now that all of our children are home it's time for making memories with our family.

Me, Thomas and Gina on our way to church in celebration of Our Saviour's birth.

Gina with our daughters Ashley Jenkins and Nicole Young. Then Wanda Jenkins with her daughters Paige Seals and Paiton Achord. They had a girl's day planned. First it was breakfast at a restaurant named the "Broken Egg" then they all went and got their hands and feet pampered by getting manicures and pedicures. They all had a fun and relaxing day.

Here I am playing Santa Claus. Gina thought it would be a nice idea since I had grown a beard during the month of November. Really I was just tired of shaving for awhile.

We gathered at my brother-in-law and sister’s house for our traditional family Christmas get together. It was especially nice this year with seven great grandchildren. We all had a great time and I really enjoyed playing Santa. I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids or the adults laughing at me.

Here is Ashley with her cousin Stephen. They are the same age and have always been real close. In reality they are more like brother and sister than cousins.

Thomas telling Uncle Rickey what it’s like to be a Marine and what it’s like being stationed in Twenty-nine Palms, California.

Ashley making up for lost time visiting with Aunt Dana.

Nicole and Shane holding my niece’s newest baby, Danny Lopez

As they say all good things must come to an end. It was nice not shaving for six weeks but I was really getting tired of the beard. Ashley had asked me when she got home if she could shave my beard before she left and I said ok. It was one of her Christmas wishes.

Not only did she shave my beard but she got carried away and included shaving my mustache too. I told her that since she got to shave my mustache too then she would have cut my hair too. Here is the finished look. Gina said that I look 15 years younger. What do you think???

Thomas sitting in front of the fireplace Christmas morning trying to wake up and get warm before opening presents.

Nicole and Shane opening presents and Nicole showing off her new coat.

Ashley and Parker along with Sophie having fun opening their presents.

Thomas admiring his new ostrich boots with Angel being content laying in his lap.

Ashley and Nicole posing with Santa

OH, it’s Dad not Santa

Christmas morning after we exchanged gifts with our children we all loaded up in the truck. Now picture me as Santa driving my truck around town Christmas morning. Everyone on the road either waved or blew their horns. As we drove into the Seals subdivision children would be out playing with their new toys and then they would see me (Santa). They would either have shocked looks on their faces or they would run to get their parents.

After driving through the subdivision we finally arrived at Josh & Paige Seals home. It’s a Seals tradition for Josh to make homemade waffles for everyone on Christmas morning. Gina had prearranged our Santa visit. So for the next few hours I greeted the neighborhood children with candy canes and posed for pictures.

We were all having so much fun so we stopped by Shane’s parent’s home for a visit. Dave and Chris Young are proud grandparents of Evangeline Young. Her parents are Judy and Brandon Young, Shane’s oldest brother. I posed for pictures with Evangeline who is nine months old. Gina and I enjoyed catching up with everyone and talking to Jessica and Cato about RVing. They are living fulltime in a fifth wheel while they work.

It was such a joyful morning visiting with family and friends. We all had so much fun with me as Santa that we decided to make this our new family tradition. Next year Gina will join me as Mrs. Claus. Our day was definitely filled with memorable moments that we’ll always treasure.

Well this about sums it up for the month of December. Just to bring everyone up to date. We are camping at Lake Oneill, located on Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base which is between Los Angeles and San Diego, California. Thomas is only working about 20 minutes away from us so he has a buddy drop him off in the evening. I think he comes here every evening just to see what mom has cooked for him. I think Gina is spoiling him by cooking all of his favorite meals. Plus it’s been an extra treat that he gets to spend the night with us.

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

In Louisiana For The Holidays

Thursday through Tuesday
December 3 – 8, 2009

We got on the road at 9:20 after we said our goodbyes to all our friends. We were going to stop south of Houston. However, after talking to our daughter about the weather forecast for Friday morning which was snow and cold. We didn’t want to get stuck so we decided to drive through Houston and then since we were only 3 and a half hours from our house we just decided to drive on. We arrived at our house in Denham Springs, Louisiana at 8:40. Only a 720 mile day. I keep telling Gina that I havt to stop these long travel days. Anyway we decided to just sleep in our trailer since it was late and it had been a long day and we both just wanted to relax after our drive.

Friday morning after we woke up we went inside our house and made coffee. Once we finished our coffee I got our trailer turned around and backed in to its place since rain & snow was forecast for later this afternoon. We didn’t have anything planned for today since we knew it would be a day of visiting family. First, Uncle Jim stopped by and while he was there my sister stopped to pick Gina up and have breakfast together at IHOP. Around noon my brother stopped by and then a few minutes later my dad stopped. Gina arrived back home with my sister and we all visited for a while. Of course we took some pictures.

Me and My Dad


My brother, dad, and Uncle and of course me


Gina with her favorite Dads

While my dad was there Gina sweet talked him in going to get her some firewood so she could enjoy her fireplace. My dad got back with a quarter of a cord which should last us while we are here for the holidays. Gina then left to go shopping for a little while and then stopped by Wal-mart to pick up a few items. Once she arrived back home we got ready to grill steaks since Nicole & Shane, Rickey & Dana and my dad were coming over for dinner. We enjoyed a great dinner that consisted of steaks we bought during our stay in Nebraska and baked potatoes. After dinner we just sat around a glowing fire in our fireplace talking, visiting and watching it snow outside.

Gina says there's nothing like chatting by a warm fire


Shane, Dana & Nicole keeping warm by the fireplace


Dana showing her excitement with the snow falling


Shane & Nicole enjoying the snow


A little snow on our truck

We enjoyed a great day with family.


First thing Saturday morning once Gina woke up was she had to go outside and take a picture of our house so everyone could see that we really do get snow down south. Of course most of it had melted by the time she woke up.

Our House with just a little snow left on it

After Gina's picture taking I dropped her off at the beauty salon to get her hair done. I then went back home and took the Christmas tree out of the attic and put it up. I didn’t decorate it, I only put it up. Decorating is what Gina’s enjoys. Nicole picked her up at the beauty salon so they could spend some mom and daughter time together. Really it just gave Gina an excuse to go shopping for Nicole’s Christmas presents. I spent my time getting our DirecTV dish set up so I could watch some football. The satellite dish is mounted on my roof and after going up and down over twenty times and still not able to receive our local channels for some reason so instead I went down to my sister’s house and watched the SEC championship game between Alabama and Florida with Rickey, my brother-in-law. After the game was over I went back home to wait on Gina. Once she got home we went back down to my sister’s house to watch the Nebraska and Texas game. Another great game and I was disappointed that Nebraska didn’t win but it was close. Bo Pelini has done an outstanding job in the two years that he has been there. We then went back home and went to bed. I had a great day watching college football while Gina enjoyed her day shopping with Nicole.

We woke up Sunday morning and after we had our coffee we went over to MawMaw Sue’s for lunch and to visit with them for a little while. We then decided to stop by Nicole & Shane’s house to visit with them and I got to watch the ending of the Saints game. What a great ending. Can you believe the New Orleans Saints are 12-0? I sure wouldn't believe it. We then went to Wal-mart so Gina could buy two poinsettias for the house. Once we got back home we went up in the attic to get all our Christmas stuff down. We then sat back and watched a little TV while eating leftover Taco soup before going to bed.

Monday morning after we woke up and enjoyed our coffee Gina was off to drop Zoey off to get groomed. She also had a doctor’s appointment for Zoey but due to traffic in Baton Rouge she couldn’t make the appointment so she rescheduled it for tomorrow. While Gina was gone my brother stopped by to use my computer to get online. After he did what he needed he helped me get my satellite dish aimed correctly so I could start receiving our local channels. I had it close but close wasn’t good enough. He left to go back home and I checked on the shipping of my solar equipment. I got one item today but I’m still waiting on the rest. The weather has been nasty since we arrived back to our house Thursday night. Gina finally made it back home after it took her over an hour to go seven miles. If you don’t know it already I’ll tell you that you do not want to be driving through Baton Rouge after three o’clock in any direction. My dad stopped by and we worked on the design for mounting the solar panels. All I need to find now is a 30 inch linear actuator. This will allow me to tilt the solar panels up to 60 degrees automatically. I may not need to tilt them. However, I want to have the ability to hit a switch and they tilt automatically. Once my dad left Gina and I just relaxed on the couch watching Carrie Underwood’s special show on TV while listening to it rain cats & dogs outside. It has rained every day here in Louisiana since we got here and I’m getting really tired of it. I feel trapped. We still have one more day of it then hopefully we’ll have a few days without rain.

Tuesday morning we didn’t have anything planned other than Gina had to take Zoey for her vet appointment at 11:30. She went by herself while I watched it flood around our house. I don’t know the official rainfall. However, there were a lot of roads flooded out including three roads around our house which only left one way out. After Zoey’s vet appointment she dropped Zoey off by the house and then went to Hobby Lobby to do some more shopping. By early afternoon it looked like most of the rain had left the area. I decided to go visit some friends that own a tire / automotive shop. I wanted to see if they could get me some tires for our four wheeler. Anyway they didn’t have what I wanted. However, I still had a good time visiting with them. They own and operate the most honest and fair tire and mechanic shop that I know. From there I went back home. I received another piece of electrical equipment for my solar system. Slowly but surely all of it will get here. Gina finally made it home around six o’clock and we grilled chicken breasts to go with homemade Alfredo sauce. We enjoyed a nice dinner together. After dinner we discussed some of our plans for the next couple of weeks. Most of our plans all depend on and center around getting our solar system installed before January 4th. Other than that we just relaxed before going to bed. Tomorrow will be a decorating day for us. Gina wants to finish decorating our house for Christmas.

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

Happy Holidays To Our Retama Village Family, We'll Miss You All

Tuesday
December 1, 2009

I woke up this morning with my cold getting worse. Took some more medicine and crawled back in bed. There was no need to stay up since I could hear the rain falling on the roof. Gina and I finally got out of bed around nine o’clock and started the coffee brewing. With the weather terrible outside we knew it would be an inside only day. Besides that I didn’t want my cold to get any worse. Gina played on Facebook while I wrote and posted an entry to our blog. I don’t know how I caught this cold but I hate them. We discussed leaving here on Thursday since I wasn’t feeling well and it would allow us to take our time heading to our house in Louisiana. Outside of that Gina bounced between reading a new book by Mitch Albom titled “Have A Little Faith” and seeing what our friends on Facebook were doing. She just finished another book by him called “For One More Day”. I kind of played on Facebook but really I played with an application called networkedblogs. There are a lot of blogs that I read and I was looking for a way to see them all in one place. I already have most of them listed as links on our blog. However, what I wanted to see more is, if I could get facebook to automatically post an update on our wall when I posted a new entry. I finally got it figured out but don’t ask me to explain it. The functionality is greatly limited if you have not been confirmed as the author or if you do not have a minmimum of seven followers. Now I should tell you that instead of Gina and I having separate facebook accounts we just share the one account. We do this with our email too. It just works out better for us. By the time I finished playing with networkedblogs and reading all the blogs it was five o’clock. Ok, I might have had a little nap in there too. I asked what was for dinner and Gina said she was making chili. I said, Great since it was getting colder outside and I love chili. The chili tasted great at least from what I could taste. We watched a little TV before we both went to bed. Gina was reading her book as I told her goodnight.


Wednesday
December 2, 2009

I woke up and looked at the clock and saw that it was six o’clock and decided to just take some medicine and crawl back into bed. I must have fell back asleep since I woke up smelling fresh coffee brewing and Gina wasn’t lying next to me. I got out of bed and fixed me a cup of coffee and realized it was nine o’clock. Didn’t think I had slept that long. I decided to get online while I drunk my coffee. I always enjoy reading blogs and this morning was no exception. I did write a few emails while Gina wrote a few replies to some friends on Facebook. I was feeling a little better this morning but I still felt the pressure in my head. I looked at the weather and it would be clear for the next few days between here and Louisiana so Gina and I made the decision to go ahead and leave tomorrow. That put Gina in the pickup and stowing mode. I walked down to Mike & Pat’s and Mark & Dale’s to let them know that we would be leaving tomorrow. After that I walked back home and realized Gina was almost finished with the inside and I hadn’t even picked up the first thing outside. Now, I believe we had just about everything that we keep either in the truck storage or the trailer storage was pulled out. It was going to take me a while to get all this put away. I just started working on it one item at a time. The first item was to get the satellite taken down and get that secured in the truck storage. The next was to rearrange the trailer storage. That was a job since we acquired two new chairs and a new storage bin for can goods that is now stored in the trailer. Right after I finished with the trailer storage area Doug walked up and asked if I was interested in selling my spare Brakesmart controller. I said sure but I wanted to make sure it worked so we hooked it up and verified that it worked. All was good so he took it home. I then went inside only to find Gina baking brownies for our little potluck this evening welcoming Larry & Geri up at the clubhouse to Retama Village. I didn’t get everything loaded into the truck but it will not take me long to finish up in the morning. Around three o’clock Doug walked back down and said he called Brakesmart and they were backlogged and they couldn’t even give him an answer on when he would be able to get the required pressure sensor to go with the brakesmart I gave to him. So he decided to just give it back to me and that he would just go with a Maxbrake. If you want to read more about the two different brake controllers I recommend you read about them on Mark Bruss’s website http://www.dmbruss.com/. By this time it was a little before four o’clock so we got our drinks and the plate of brownies and as we walked out the door Dale & Mark were getting in their jeep. We were going to walk up to the clubhouse but since they offered us a ride we hopped in with them for a free ride up to the clubhouse.

After we enjoyed happy hour it was time dinner. Everyone brought their own meat to grill. However, with our colds Gina and I were not hungry. We enjoyed the fellowship with our friends and it gave us some time to tell them goodbye. I know that we don’t really say goodbye but rather we always say “see ya down the road”. We all live fulltime in our RVs and we know that we will see each other again. It still doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier. These friends are part of our family and we will miss them all and will long to meet up with them again real soon. We all took pictures in front of the Christmas tree tonight. Thought I would show you all some pictures of our family here in Mission Texas.

The Girls


The Guys


Larry & Geri Gustafson


Mike & Pat McFall


Mark & Dale Bruss


Doug & Jutta Franks


Rocky & Sheri Rhoades


Me & Gina

After the picture taking was done we said our goodbyes and caught a ride back home with Dale & Mark. After we dropped off our stuff at home we walked down to Mike & Pat’s since I told Mike that I would bring the pictures that we took tonight down to him so he could load them onto his computer. I also wanted to buy a new hardwire connection for my pressure pro monitor. We discussed meeting back up in February at their place in Congress, Arizona since we intend to spend the month of February in Arizona. We said goodnight and walked back home.

On a final note: There are no words that I can write to describe what Gina and I feel as we live this lifestyle or the people we meet. For us it’s like stepping back in time when there were no strangers just family members you hadn’t met yet. I still know friends of my parents that we met when we were camping over forty five years ago in our popup and we still stay in touch with each other. We are so thankful for the people we meet out here in our travels because without them this lifestyle wouldn’t be the same. Our family just keeps growing bigger and bigger and we love it and wouldn’t change a thing!!! We are grateful and feel extremely blessed that Our Heavenly Father is allowing us to live this lifestyle and for the people he brings into our life.

Our Final Sunset Here at Retama Village

(until the next time)

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