Meet Sophie!

We thought we would be getting our new motorhome some time this week of June 23rd, but since we decided not to accept the one that arrived for us because of a couple of items that were not correct, the week has been open with no appointments!  That some times gets you in trouble!

That brings us to Sophie Kercher!  Yes, we got a new puppy.  I'm pretty sure we have lost our minds, but we did it!  We went on the internet looking at sites that have puppies to adopt.  We saw a Cocker mix liter of six available puppies.  There were three girls and three boys.  Two of the boys were black and one looked somewhat like Max.  We decided on one of the "golden" girls.  The mother was pure cocker but the dad was unknown.  We have a suspicion that he might have been a golden retriever!  The foster mom had named all six puppies...Bonnie, Melanie, Scarlett, Ohara, Rhett and Ashley...notice a theme!   We chose Melanie but changed her name to Sophie!

We brought Sophie home on Sunday.   She was born on April 11th and is a sweet little girl.  She was spayed on Thursday and on Sunday she was still pretty mellow and slept all the way home from Whittier, California.  She is still taking lots of naps but is perking up and staying awake more and more and she is keeping us busy!  Since it is easy to take her picture, I've already taken a ton, but with the bad wifi connection I can't get the pics to post.  I'll post pics when we get up to Wilderness on the 8th!

On the way home we stopped to see Jeri and Stach and introduce them to Sophie.  I called ahead so they went out and got her the pink toy in the picture and a cute little card.  Sophie was very pleased and is enjoying the toy.  When she woke in the middle of the night and played with it, I wasn't sure I was so pleased because it has crinkle plastic in the body and makes noise!  LOL

After we got home Peggy and Scott (her son) came over to meet Sophie.  They brought her the cute doggy pillow in the picture that she lays all over and just loves!  It makes a great lap pillow for Sophie to sleep on as well!

On Monday evening Trent had a baseball game.  He was selected for the All Star game.  The games are being held in Ramona.  Sophie is too little to stay home so she got to go to the game.  She was such a good girl and pretty much slept through the whole game either in my lap or Trent's mom, Gina's lap!  Unfortunately his team lost but they will play a second game.

Tuesday night was the second game and this time they won by a landslide.  It was like 26 to 3 or something like that.  Sophie was a good girl and actually watched the game and all the kids all around us between naps.  The next game is Thursday night and I'm wondering if she's going to be willing to lay on my lap!  She's getting more perky and playful!  Will keep you posted!

Wednesday night Sophie went to play with Rose.  Rose belongs to Meg, Jeri's sister!  Rose is a 9 year old Golden Retriever and such a good dog.  She tolerated Sophie mostly, giving her a whap in the head with her big paw to remind her who was boss!  Sophie had the best time and was a crazy girl running around!  So cute.   Meg had pizza for us and we enjoyed visiting with her and her friend Ann.

Thursday night Trent's team played again.  It was a really good game and ended up on a bad call by the Umpire.  Without some early errors, they might have been able to win.  Trent was brought in to pitch in the first inning after they got 3 runs.  He pitched five more innings and  only gave up 1 run.  His team caught up by the 6th inning.  Another pitcher gave up one run in the 7th inning and because of a bad out at first, our score at home to tie it up didn't count and they were out of the tournament!

Last night  we were invited to dinner at Jim and Della's.  We are only getting this invitations to eat because everyone wants to meet Sophie!  She was a good girl at their house and we were even able to play a game of Phase 10 cards and I was the big winner.  Jim barbecued ribs and boy were they yummy!  We had a fun evening!

Sweet little Sophie...""Ain't Life Grand!"

Motor Home has arrived...yay...not so fast!

It has been an interesting few days!  We had lunch with Ted's classmate Steve and his wife Kathe on Tuesday.  We had a nice lunch and caught up with them and their new gorgeous SUV.  Since we were over by Ideal Plumbing, Heating and Air, my last place of work, we stopped by and said hello to friends that still work there and the owner, Don Teemsma.  I always enjoy stopping by and seeing how everything is going!  In the late afternoon we headed home.

Wednesday morning we left the campground to have lunch with Dottie Bates Stamper.  She went to high school with Ted and is a kick!  It's alway fun to see Dottie and love her sense of humor!  On the way to meet her we got to an area with cell service, and had a call from Scott at La Mesa RV!  He said he had news for us and was sure I would want to call back as soon as possible!  Yikes, I could barely dial the phone I was excited and nervous!  Our new motorhome was due in on the 21st and we knew it had left the factory and was at the transportation company.

When I finally got Scott on the phone, he told me it was about time I called him!  Our RV had arrived Tuesday afternoon!  He told us we could come see it, and reminded us they needed to get it cleaned up and check it all out.  We met Dottie and had a great lunch and then headed to see the motorhome!

They took us back there and we came around the corner and man it looked huge...and beautiful!  We didn't exactly know what the paint design and colors would be on the 2014 model.  We had picked out the color based on the 2012 and 2013 colors, but every year they change the design and colors a little!  So that was the first hurdle out of the way!

We got inside and the floor was different than we thought.  It wasn't the shiny tile they used to put in and at first I was disappointed.  After they opened the slides, I decided I really liked it and it wouldn't be slippery when wet!  I saw the counter tops right away and loved the colors.  They look very warm.  That was another thing we didn't know the color of and I really was happy with it!  We looked all around and were really happy.  We discovered a couple of small things that were fixable and then...Ted went outside!

He looked up on the roof and only saw two air conditioners.  Our salesman, Andres, got out a ladder and climbed up and sure enough there were only two, not three and the generator was the smaller one.  This doesn't sound like a big deal and most of the time, we have found two to be plenty, but we were in Indiana and it was 108 degrees and one of our air conditioners went out.  One air conditioner would not cool it down or even keep it cool so we decided it was important to us.

Long story but they have reordered our motor home, exactly like it this one, except with 3 air conditioners and the larger generator.  We also noted one item that was a production item problem with electrical switches in the wrong place but everything else will be the same.  We also requested a side by side refrigerator instead of the four door, but not sure if they will get a different refrigerator or not.   We are very happy with our choices and sad we have to wait until August to get the new one!  They have given us a new date of August 10th.

I have a good signal tonight so I have added LOTS of pictures, just hope it will post!

Mallorie at Graduation:

Mallorie and her Mom, Gina!

Mallorie and her Nana, Jeri!

Trent getting ready to pitch!

And, last but not least...pictures of our almost new motor home!

Front  (generator door is open)

side (only one small slide out is out)

Ted & Jeri

Stach

Susan

The bed spread was not the one we requested but they will get the right one for us!

This gives you an idea of what our new home will look like...I just hope we get it soon!  We have had to change our travel plans for July and August and of course our open house!  We have a commitment in Chama, New Mexico on August 26th so we hope the new motor home will arrive on time and is perfect!  We will keep you posted on our open house!

Excited about our new home..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Back at Pio Pico...

We got back to Pio Pico last Monday.  We are still struggling to get our car licensed in South Dakota! We bought our F450 truck in Texas and it was a piece of cake to register but this little car (because we are in California and the dealership) has been a pain!  I believe we are getting closer to a resolution after jumping through a bunch of hoops but we shall see!  Tomorrow we go back to the dealership to sign and form and have them fax it to South Dakota...keeping fingers crossed...and then it will get registered!

On Tuesday we attended Mallorie Gutowski's graduation from Horizon Christian Academy!  I have some nice pictures but the internet here at Pio Pico is at a snail's pace...and we have to pay for it...and I can't get pictures to download!  It was held at Point Loma Nazarene and was a beautiful day.  The ceremony was very nice.  Tony and Gina (her Mom and Dad) had a party at their house with lots of good food.  Being on a Tuesday a lot of people couldn't attend but she was well represented by those of us who were there!  She is going to Mesa College in the fall.

It's been a busy week with errands and things and on Friday evening we had dinner with Jan Mellinger, a friend of Ted's from his horse days!  He and Jan met at one of the barns and became friends.  We had a good dinner at a taco shop in Bonita.  Jan and I got to know each other and she and Ted were able to catch up!

Yesterday, Trent played with one of the travel teams at a Father's Day tournament in San Clemente.  We rode up with Jeri and Stach, stopping at Tip Top Meat Market in Carlsbad for breakfast/lunch!  They have really good food.  Traffic was terrible the rest of the way to the tournament and several kids were late.  Our team played two games that they lost and it was a really bad day for them.  They do play today but we aren't driving up there.  Today's game started at 8:30 a.m. and we would have had to leave last night to make it in time!!!  Lol.  We hope they did better today.

We found out on Tuesday that our new motorhome was in the paint shop and still on schedule.  We don't know for sure what the exterior paint will look like.  We picked the color based on the 2012 and 2013 exteriors and it should be similar!  Hope we like it!  Lol!  They will deliver it to the transporter who then has up to two weeks to get it to San Diego.  That means it will definitely be here some time after the 25th.  Hopefully it will be sooner.  Then our dealership will make sure everything works, is clean, set up our hitch and our tow car and make sure we know how to work everything!  Then we will move over the last few things and off to Yuma we will go to take possession.   We are thinking we will have an open house one Saturday in July.  With our fifth wheel we took it down to the bay really early one morning so we could get a good spot, and then some friends stopped by.  We will probably set that up for the motorhome as well.

Packing and getting excited for the new motorhome..."Ain't Life Grand!"

TRUCK TROUBLE...WHAT!

On Monday Ted and I decided to spend the very hot afternoon at the movies!  We decided to see "After Earth".  We both enjoyed it but Ted thought it had a few slow spots.  I was so busy seeing how much Will Smith's son looked like him I was somewhat distracted but it kept my attention and was an interesting movie!

On Tuesday evening we had dinner with Chip and his girlfriend Laura.  They have been dating about six months.  We went to an Italian place that we like and Sid, a friend of our nephews, works there as a waiter.  Sid was busy with a large group of women on the patio who were eating and meeting about some "make up pyramid scheme" according to Sid!  He managed to spend a bit of time with us.  We got to know Laura a little bit.  She's very pretty and has a good sense of humor.  We'll have to wait to see what happens with them!  Here is a picture of them from two weddings they attended together!

On Wednesday we left Fresno and are back down by Hemet.  We had been noticing a funny noise with the truck.  When you are going slow and making a turn either left or right, there is some times a noise and slight vibration... we both describe it differently!  So we made an appointment for Thursday, left the campground at 6:15 a.m. (still a lot of traffic) and got over to Sunrise Ford in Fontana.  Donald, our trusted service guy sent the tech out with Ted so we could show him the sound.  Of course the truck ran perfect!  The tech put some stuff in that goes to the back wheels because some times dual tire axles can have one tire trying to go one way and the other tire trying to go backwards and this helps lubricate them so this won't happen (something like that)!  He said it takes several months for this to help.  Of course as we drove away, it made the noise!  Maybe it has to be cooled down.  Anyway, they checked it out and don't seem to think we have a problem with the wheel bearing or anything, so we are not going to worry about it right now.  We will mostly drive the car except for when we take the RV to San Diego on Monday and then to turn it and the RV in for the Motor Home!  It is interesting to note that our first truck was perfect the first two years and then we had trouble and oh by the way...the 2nd anniversary of the new truck is June 13!  Hmmmm.

Hopefully keeping the truck running for another month..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Law School Graduation!

Saturday was a big day for Craig and Claire, their graduation from Law School!  They graduated from the San Joaquin College of Law.  The ceremony was at the William Saroyan Theatre in downtown Fresno, California.  There were 53 graduates!

We enjoyed speeches from the Valedictorian and the Commencement Address given by the Honorable Stanley Boone, a Federal Magistrate Judge and one of the Professors.  For the presentation of the graduates, they lined up and received their graduation stole (sash), a paper representing their Law School Graduation Certificate while one of their teachers gave a personal bio on each student.  The students wrote them and some were serious and others had humor in them.  They were all very interesting.  The pictures I took inside the auditorium didn't come out very well unfortunately!  It was too dark inside.

After the ceremony they had a champagne reception for the graduates and their guests.  I think Claire and Craig had more than 20 people there for them.  They were surprised that some of their friends came to see them graduate.

 Proud Aunt and Uncle!

Linda, Ernie, Craig, Claire and Ernie Jr.

(Claire's parents and brother!)

Chip, Craig, Claire & Stephen

(Brothers of Craig)

Chip, Craig & Stephen!

 

Tassle!

We left the theatre and went to Ernie and Linda's.  They had a dinner party for the graduates and family.  Linda ordered food from a Mexican Restaurant in town.  We had a delicious dinner and Linda made a great cake and fresh fruit for dessert!  It was nice for the kids to relax a bit after their hectic study schedule.  They have moved over to Ernie and Linda's condo in San Francisco to study for the bar and they study 12 hours a day.  They are smartly taking some time at lunch to exercise or run and two nights a week they step out for dinner.  They are very committed to passing the bar.

On Sunday morning the kids slept in so Ted and I went out to breakfast by ourselves to Huckleberry's, one of our favorite places here in Fresno!  They have Sweet Cream Pancakes...my favorite!  After breakfast we went over to say goodbye to Craig and Claire as they headed back to San Francisco and their tough study schedule!

Law School Graduates..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Fresno...here we come!

We left Menifee and Wilderness Lakes behind Tuesday morning and arrived in Fresno about 4:00 pm.  It was pretty windy and a pretty good dust storm when we left I-15 for Highway 395.  We drove through the dust without trouble but when we turned west on CA-58 we had a pretty good head wind and our miles per gallon dropped to 7.2.  But we've had worse!  In New Mexico we averaged 6.0 in one of their wind storms!  (Must look at the bright side)!

We had dinner plans on Thursday night with Chip (middle nephew), Stephen (youngest nephew) and his girlfriend Marissa.  Stephen came up with a flu bug so we had dinner with Chip.  It was good to see him and how happy he is.  He loves teaching at his former Alma Mater, Central High School.  He is the assistant wrestling coach and really enjoys teaching the kids wrestling!   He's had various offers from other high schools especially since he teaches math.  But he likes who he is working with and the kids so has chosen to stay where he is!  We are so proud of him!

Chip

After dinner the three of us visited with Marissa and Rocco.  Stephen was sick in bed.  Rocco is the latest edition to the family and is adorable!  Their new house is coming along slowly but surely.  It looks great!

Sleeping Rocco!

Cute Rocco!

Stephen (before he got sick) and Rocco!

Marissa

Yesterday we ran some "graduation" errands for the big day!  Claire and Craig graduate from law school today!  We are so excited for them and so very proud!

Graduation pictures to come..."Ain't Life Grand!"