Quiet house

The house is now quiet. Some little fingerprints have been cleaned. The sidewalk art on the drive way has been rained off but some of it still remains on the patio, bring sweet memories every time we walk around them. We really enjoyed "playing" with these two of our eight grandchildren but also relish the tranquility of our "old" age. We are hectic in the pace of helping the church prepare for charge conference. Richard will serve as treasurer again next year and Ginger as Lay Leader. We are also preparing the RV for a one week stay in Houston Sept 8 for Richard's knee replacement surgery. As Houston is a 2 hour drive, this will save a lot of time and stress for Ginger. The RV park, only 2 miles from the hospital, has a free shuttle so no parking fees.

Check out Debbie's Rescue riders for pictures of the floods in Melbourne, Florida. It's pretty bad. http://rescueriders.wordpress.com

Empty Nest

After a 10 hour drive yesterday with 2 active grandchildren we arrived at their home. They were most excited to see 2 year old sister, KiKi. Today, the next day, we drove another 10 hours back home. News reports say there are a lot less people on the road but we couldn't tell it. The traffic was thick and we went through many sections of heavy rain. When we finally headed west on 105 in Texas, we were rewarded with the most beautiful sunset sky, baby pink fluffy clouds against baby blue sky. It lasted the entire time we headed west on that road. As we turned north on 146 there was a read halo on the horizon. Then we were rewarded with a spectacular lightening show without the hazard of wet roads from rain.

Our house seems quite big and quiet to us now. I'm not sure how long I'll wait to take off the fingerprints from various surfaces. Tomorrow we resume a very busy and hectic schedule so this blog will not be updated daily.

Four States in One Day

We ate breakfast in Texas. We ate lunch in Louisiana. We ate supper in Alabama. We'll have our bed time snack in our house in Florida. What a day. We watched several DVD's during the 10 hour car trip. We also played card games Mrs. Nedra gave us. Grandma and Grandpa had to drive in a lot of rain. We made a rest stop in Camping World and got to look at a lot of neat stuff. The dogs rode in the shopping cart and Glee pooped in the cart. Grandma had to clean it up. Our little sister was really excited to see us. We think Mom was glad too. Grandma and grandpa will leave tomorrow. We'll miss them. We hope they'll miss us. We're turning this blog back over to our grandparents. To keep up with us you'll have to go to http://justus8.wordpress.com

Aunt Debbie leaves

This morning we posed for a group photo (on our photo blog) and then took Aunt Debbie to the airport. Traffic wasn't bad so we made a stop at Hobby Lobby to let Aunt Debbie look around. Grandma bought her some yarn and some Red Hot Candy for Uncle David's snack package she sends to him in Iraq every few weeks. We left Aunt Debbie's plane actually left a little early. Our grandparents didn't know they ever left early. That got her to Memphis early enough to get on a flight to Atlanta without waiting. She had to spend a lot of time in Atlanta because she just missed the earlier flight to Melbourne. At least there was more to do at the Atlanta airport than at the Memphis one. On the way back to our grandparents house we stopped at Lubby's cafeteria and ate lunch. We played when we got home then went swimming. After dinner we "worked" on our computers. Tonight we have to get cleaned-up for church tomorrow. Tomorrow night Grandma preaches at the vesper service. We get to go to the ice cream party after vespers. This is the last of our blogging. We leave Monday for our home. It sure has been fun here but we are starting to miss mommie, brothers, sister and Kevin.

Friday , August 8

We are so sad. Today is Aunt Debbie's last day. Tomorrow we have to take her to the airport. We went to our favorite, Taco Bell for lunch. It's one of Aunt Debbie's favorites also. Then we drove around. We went by the prison to see all the horses they have. We also went to the dam. We found a place on Lake Livingston where grandpa could launch his boat for free. There were a lot of birds there. It was very pretty. We came home to swim but it's raining. Grandma plans to clean out the refrigerator for dinner tonight. Photos are on the photo blog, You can get there by keying in this: http://community.webshots.com/user/Ginrich1

Thursday, August 7

What a day. We drove 1.5 hours to Fry's Electronics. In the car Aunt Debbie taught us how to crochet some more. Nathan is doing multiple rows already. We both think it is a lot of fun. At Fry's Aunt Debbie found the camera she wanted. From there we went to Panera's to eat and then to Barns and Noble. We looked at some magazines and then left Grandpa there looking at magazines while we went into this really big mall and went to the children's museum. We had such a good time. Highlights were the "critter room" and the obstacle course. Pictures are on the picture blog. When we got home we went swimming, then supper and more crocheting. We sure are enjoying Aunt Debbie.

Wednesday, Aug 6

Today we played with Aunt Debbie, went to "My Place" for lunch, saw the stock yards with baby calves, and went to Texas Pepper to have TexMex food. Early this morning Aunt Debbie helped Grandma and Grandpa put up a really big antenna for when the satellite has rain fade like during tropical storms like we had yesterday. With all that rain they are still 3 inches behind in rain fall for the year. We had another thunder storm today so we couldn't go swimming. Aunt Debbie tried to teach us to knit but we had trouble with 2 needles. Now she is teaching us to crochet. Grandma bought each of us our own crochet hook and yarn. Don't know what we'll make but it will be fun. Tomorrow we are going to Fry's Electronics so Aunt Debbie can buy a camera. We should be home in time to go swimming if it doesn't rain. Photos are on the photo blog.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Today we "worked" on our computers while the Tropical Storm passed over us. We had a lot of rain but because of the drought, it soked into the ground very quickly. We ate lunch at our favorite, Taco Bell then went back home because Debbie called and said she was delayed in Memphis for an extra hour because of weather. We parked in the passsenger pick up lot until her plane came in. We counted taxi cabs and watched planes fly in while we waited.

We ate supper at Lubby's Cafeteria. It is so nice to see Aunt Debbie. She is staying in our grandparents RV so she has her own space to rest. We have a lot to do while she is here.

Miranda celebrated her birthday after we got home. The grandparents gave her a baby doll that drinks and wets and a diary. Aunt Debbie brought us some souvenere pens from Atlanta.

We have a lot to do while Aunt Debbie is here. We are really excited about it.

Friday, August 1 and Saturday August 2

Friday and Saturday are "bum around" days. Friday we ate luch at Tacco Bell, our favorite place, and then shopped at Wall-mart, another favorite place. Grandma and Grandpa forgot it was the first of the month and Wall-mart was jammed with people who have just been paid. Grandma bought us some balls for the swimming pool. Someone was camping in the park with a boy and girl our age so we had fun playing in the pool with them. We played wii and watched videos that night.

Tonight we go to church for a country gospel concert. Afterward they will have finger food. We look forward to seeing what "finger food" is. We get to go swimming earlier today since we have to be at church by 6 PM. Nathan pulled up dead weeds in the yard Saturday morning. He has some chores to do to work off the payment for the wii remote he broke. It is supposed to be the hottest weekend this summer so we won't get to go to the zoo today. The animals won't do anything but sleep in the heat. Tomorrow is church day.

We are getting excited becaues Aunt Debbie is flying in for a visit on Tuesday. Grandma has been getting the RV ready for her "guest room." We haven't seen Aunt Debbie for a long time.

Johnson Space Center

Thursday we went to Johnsons Space center. It was a long ride because of construction detours without road signs. When we finally got there it looked like everybody from Texas was there. We saw a trampolene bungy jump and got in the long line for that. It was well wort the wait. It was so much fun jumping high. After that we went to a movie about space on a really big screen. It was a bit long but we enjoyed it. Then we played in the ball tower while Grandpa watched some more movies. Grandma let us play on all the stuff all over the center. There was so much we could do it was hard to choose what was next. Later we went to anouther movie with Grandpa. That screen was 8 stories high. After the movie we had a snack and played some more. We got to walk on bungie cords and work on a chair they use for astronaut training. We also took a tram ride and saw where they train the astronauts. We got to see some real astronauts. They sure have to train hard before they go into space. We also got to see a ranch with Texas Longhorn steers. It as a really long and fund day. We got to TGI Friday's for Grandma and Grandpas 44 anniversary dinner at 9PM. We got home at 10:30. Even though everyone (except Grandma, who was driving) slept in the car on the way home, we went right to bed. What a fund day. Photos are on the phot blog.