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.