Kingsville, Family, & Fashion Show

Tuesday October 22nd - Wednesday October 23rd, 2013

We travelled down to Victoria, Texas where we stayed at Gateway to the Gulf RV Park.  The scenery during the drive was beautiful. 

The fall colors

Wildflowers

Route 77 - Thoughts of Andy Murray

As we were on Route 77, I thought of Andy Murray who has just named his new management company and book "77" after his Wimbledon win on 7/7, and it was 77 years since the last British man had won Wimbledon.
Everything was uneventful, even the roadworks, until we arrived where the GPS was taking us and there was no sign of the park.  We found out that the GPS had taken us 25 miles further than we needed to go!!!  We called the park and they gave us directions from where we were.  We eventually arrived there a little later than we anticipated.

Thursday October 24th, 2013

We set out for NAS Kingsville RV park about 10:30am arrived about 12:45pm.  John, our son-in-law, arrived as we were setting up to say Hi on his way back to work.  We arranged for Brenda to call by after she picked up Aimee from school and we had a quick visit before she took Bryan to pick up Lee Anne.  They came back and visited with us for a short while before leaving.  We spent a quiet evening recovering from our drive.

Friday October 25th, 2013

We got caught up on chores and shopping before heading over to visit with Brenda.  She went to get the girls and we finished up our shopping.  We had intended to go back to visit but neither of us felt that good so we went home.  It seems to take us a while to acclimatize to the different areas. Bryan rested in his chair and I had a nap for a couple of hours.  I haven't done that for a while!!!  We went to bed at 10pm, which is early for us as we want to go to Aimee's soccer game in the morning and it starts at 9am.  Unfortunately, we both had trouble sleeping.....

Saturday October 26th, 2013

We got up, got ready and went to watch Aimee play soccer.  It was fun watching the kids as it is something we miss now that Ryan has grown up and left home.

Aimee getting ready for a throw in

What a lovely smile!!!

Discussing tactics!!!!

Lee Anne watching the game

After soccer, Aimee had girl scouts and we went home before going over for a BBQ later in the afternoon.  We fell asleep, don't know what the matter is with us!!!  We eventually arrived for the BBQ and had fun eating fajitas (Thanks John), potato salad (Thanks Brenda) and drinking beer and margarita's.  Met some good people and chatted into the evening.  We had a great time with everyone and are looking forward to the fashion show tomorrow.

Sunday October 27th, 2013

We went to the Coastal Bend Fashion Showcase in Corpus Christi today.  This is a fashion show that showcases local designers and this year was benefiting "Making Strides against Breast Cancer".  Lee Anne and Aimee were modelling for Sugar Pie Children's Boutique and they were great.

Aimee, Brenda & Lee Anne

Sorry the video's I took aren't that brilliant but they will give you an idea. 

Aimee on the catwalk

Lee Anne on the catwalk

Sugar Pie Finale

USS Lexington - View from window at American Bank Center, where the show was held, in Corpus Christi

Bryan 

After the fashion show we went for dinner at the Island Italian Restaurant on Padre Island.  On the way there John took us on the scenic drive along Ocean Boulevard. We saw the "Selena" statue, built for a famous singer who was murdered. Click Here to see a picture and read more about her.

Sue, Bryan, LeeAnne, Aimee, Brenda & John.  Thanks to Colette for taking the picture. :)

After dinner we drove home, the girls went to sleep after a long but exciting day.  

We had such fun seeing them showing off the dresses on the catwalk and they did extremely well as they had a long wait before it was their turn to go on. Their designer was the last one out of ten to show.

Monday October 28th, 2013

Well today is, our youngest, Ryan's 21st birthday.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ryan.  We love you. :)

We called him last night to wish him Happy Birthday as his ship is due to sail out today and so he will have to wait until he returns to officially celebrate this big birthday. BE SAFE RYAN......

Ryan - 1992

Ryan - 2013

We spent today resting after the weekend and did some chores around the house.  

That's it for now.  Take Care........

Texas Ranger Museum, Waco, Texas

Friday 18th October, 2013

We found out today that we are approved for our site in Louisiana and so are booked in there for our visit to Mom's.  Yay!!!

We made Pizza and took it over to J&K's and enjoyed another day/evening with them.  We completed our game of Mexican Train.  Bryan won, and I was last, with K & J in the middle.  So he got all the beginners luck, Ha!! Ha!!  I am not lucky and he is, that's just the way it is!!!!  Although I did win $7 on the lottery on Wednesday. I will have to decide what to do with my winnings...........

Saturday 19th October, 2013

Firstly, Happy Happy Birthday to my bestest friend Chrissy.  Here is a picture of us celebrating her birthday on an Alaskan Cruise two years ago.

We decided to go to the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, Texas today and have a look at the area.  Waco is North of Georgetown and unfortunately I remember it because of the siege in 1993.
We got held up in traffic and the road sign had us wondering what was going on!!!

An hour later and it turned out to be road works where they were working on the whole road and we got diverted onto a side road.  Needless to say this put a little bit of a damper on the day but it was soon forgotten as we reached the museum.

We arrived just in time for the start of a movie telling the history of the Texas Rangers. After that we looked around, I was hoping to see Chuck Norris, after all he is Walker, Texas Ranger, is he not!!! The best I got was this......

These pictures are for Ryan........

More pics....

A couple of squirrels entertained us....

We decided we were hungry and so had some dinner at Crackerbarrel before starting our return trip home.  

In the evening we skyped with Chrissy & Ian to wish her a Happy Birthday "in person".

It was another interesting day in the lives of Bryan & Sue.

Sunday October 20th, 2013

Today, our neighbors invited us over to watch Nascar with them but we had already arranged to spend the afternoon and evening with J&K so we politely declined.  When we arrived at J&K we watched football, drank, talked and had dinner.  It was the last time we will see them on this trip and so when it came time to say goodbye it was  a little sad but we will be back this way eventually and so we left knowing it is "Au Revoir" - Goodbye until we see you again.  We have had fun spending time with you.  Thanks so much.

Monday October 21st, 2013

We got everything as ready as we can in preparation for our departure tomorrow.  Bryan had a long and interesting chat with a retired air force pilot who saw our retiree number plates and stopped to chat. We got cleaned up, did laundry and had dinner before sitting down to rest for the evening.

Tomorrow we will head out toward Gateway to the Gulf RV Park in Victoria, Texas.

Till the next time.......

Georgetown, Texas

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Thursday 10th - Thursday 17th October, 2013

I know, I know, I have been bad and haven't updated the blog for a week.  Oh, how time flies when you are enjoying yourself and not really doing anything, ha!! ha!!  This is what retirement should be like.
We really have been doing everyday ordinary things, it is quite refreshing.  We have had more visits with J&K and have really enjoyed ourselves.  I did suffer from bites again, I think mosquitoes but they are getting better.  I am spraying myself with spray and wearing a bracelet when we sit out and that seems to help.  Only got bitten once instead of multiple times!!!

Highlights are:

We saw Texas Longhorn cattle.  Sorry, I was too slow to get a picture.

We discovered H-E-B, a Texas based supermarket.  I really like it, Walmart has a challenger here in Texas, ha!! ha!!

We learnt how to play Mexican Train, a dominoes game, thanks to J&K.  I have wanted to learn this since we decided to become motorhomers.  We will finish our game tomorrow.

Our awning decided it didn't want to retract anymore. We called out a mobile RV tech and he told us it is the motor.  He is trying to locate a new one but it seems they are hard to come by.  He will keep trying but we don't hold out a lot of hope that it will be found before we leave on Monday or Tuesday.  At least we got it manually wound in and have secured it as best we can.  We will have to find somewhere along the road where we can get a new motor and get it fixed.

I spent some time trying to update the map on the left hand side but it has a mind of it's own at the moment and what I used to be able to do on it is giving me some trouble now and I am having difficulty in adding certain parts of the route.  I will give it a break and try again another time.

We have been trying to plan and book our sites for Louisiana and Florida.  This takes longer than you would think and we are waiting at the moment to get approved by a site for our 3 weeks in Louisiana over Thanksgiving. We had to fill in an application complete with references etc., so we shall see.  I hope they hurry up though as we don't have a lot of options in the area and being over Thanksgiving means a lot of sites will be booked.
We are looking at going to Tampa for an RV show in January before we head over to Daytona but because it is snowbird season and the RV show, sites are already booked so that may have to change.

We had a cold front come through Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, it rained pretty hard and the temperatures dropped to the fifties during the night and the day on Wednesday.  We put the fire on to take the chill off and got the dust blown out of the heating system.  The temperatures appear to be back to normal today.

Kathy finished off the scarecrow by adding a face, hair and some accessories.  She did a really good job.  Here is the finished version, we present "Matilda Magillacudy"

Well, until next time.  Take care of yourselves.  :)

Arriving in Georgetown, Friends, Marble Falls, Fredericksburg

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Saturday October 5th

We weren't in any rush to leave our nice campsite this morning but we were still packed up and ready to go by 10:00.  We had a nice leisurely drive through London though!!!  Who knew there was a London in Texas??

We saw several animals, Bryan spotted the dead ones - racoon, deer, armadillo, skunk and badger and I spotted the alive ones - Llama, cow, horse, sheep and goats.  The poor armadillo was on his back with his legs in the air!!
We went through several cute towns, one of which was Mason, and it was a nice scenic drive.

Bryan driving

Buchanan Lake was beautiful.

 We arrived in Georgetown just before 2pm and checked into Berry Springs RV Park.

The plan is to be here until October 22nd when we will head toward Kingsville to see the kids and grandkids, yay!!  In the meantime we will visit with our friends Johnny & Kathy, and do some sightseeing once we recover from the last 5 days of traveling.

Sunday 6th

It is nice to be static for a couple of weeks.  We did some cleaning this morning and then got ready to go to J&K's, as they had invited us to dinner.  I believe they live on the outskirts of Georgetown and it was a nice drive to their place.  Kathy had just got in from work and we sat chatting and catching up with her & Johnny.  It was good to see them again.  They have visited Vegas a couple of times while we were there.  Bryan and Kathy are high school "sweethearts" and we first met up with them when we went to his High School reunion in Kingsville a few years ago.
Kathy also saved my life last year when we were eating at a Mexican restaurant in Vegas, and my cheese enchilada got lodged in my throat.  She had to perform the heimlich maneuver on me, fortunately she is a nurse.  Needless to say I am eternally grateful to her.
We sat on their back porch and had dinner and drinks. A hummingbird kept coming to visit and check on us.  It was a lovely evening and, apart from our continuous chatter, it was peaceful.  Before we knew it, it was time to go home.  We agreed to meet again on Tuesday and go to Marble Falls.  Thanks so much for the great food and company J&K.

Monday 7th

Today we had to go grocery shopping, so we searched for the local Walmart.  We had to pick up a couple of RV related things as well and we can usually get quite a few of our RV parts at Walmart.  We did our shopping and got home.  Bryan went and did laundry while I put the shopping away and cleaned Lily.  That was about it for today.

Tuesday 8th

J&K were going to take us to Marble Falls today and so we got up and got ready to go.  They picked us up and off we went.  It was a nice drive through some beautiful countryside.  The Texas Hill country really reminds me a lot of England.
We stopped at Sweet Berry Farm and had fun looking at the different pumpkins and gourds.

Bryan, Johnny & Kathy

We also posed using the props provided.......

The method they had for planting the crops was fascinating.  There was a tractor pulling a trailer which had four people in seats low to the ground so that as the tractor went along the people could plant from the seats.  This is probably common place but having not been around farming in the last twenty years it was the first time we had seen this.

Kathy & I stuffed a scarecrow for her front porch for Halloween!!!!

Kathy is going to finish the face and add some accessories at home.

Sue in the outside shop

 We went into Marble Falls and had lunch at the Blue Bonnet Cafe.  Everyone made sure that I didn't have Cheese Enchiladas as we didn't want a repeat of last year!!!  The restaurant had good reviews and the food was Ok but we were all a little disappointed.  They are famous for their pies but although they looked good they didn't seem to taste as good as they looked. Oh well, the conversation made up for the food.
After lunch we decided to drive on to Fredericksburg. This is a quaint town and we walked along their main street looking in the shops and stores. There are a lot of interesting stores to browse around.

And occasionally we had a rest.....

We stopped and had a beer at Fredericksburg Brewing Company.  Actually Kathy & I tried a couple of different ones.  We decided we had better start heading home as it was quite a long drive and would be getting dark.

It is nice to see green fields and hills again..........  We stopped at Marble Falls on the way back through and watched the sunset.

 This bird came to say Hi, he/she didn't have a care in the world and was not scared of us in the least.

We had a fantastic day in the good company of J&K.  Thanks & much appreciation to our driver for the day, Johnny.  

Wednesday 9th

After our long drive yesterday we stayed at home today.  We got up late and Bryan decided to wash Lily.  Most of the parks we have stayed in haven't let us wash the motorhome but this one said it was Ok with certain stipulations.  He washed the roof and one side and the front, which took quite a considerable time.  It hadn't been done since we started living in her full time last November and was long overdue. Understandably he was exhausted. I did more cleaning and cooked a roast for dinner.  After dinner, Bryan climbed back on the roof and put the sun shades on the windows.  Our neighbor stopped by for a quick chat and then we had a quiet night. 

The blog reached 1,000 views today, yay!!!!  Thanks to everyone following along.

Night Night Sleep Tight..........