House papers to be signed Monday!

The lender for Craig and Claire's home phoned this afternoon and we are schedule to sign loan documents Monday morning at 8:00 a.m.  That is good news because we were almost positive they were going to be held up.  The lender has been great to work with and has really worked hard to push it through. The house should close some time next week.  We are going to see the inside of the house tomorrow!  We will head out of town after docs are signed.

We had lunch with Craig and Stephen today.  Stephen finished finals Thursday and he's excited!  Today he was volunteering at the High School he attended, Buchanan, as a wrestling assistant for a tournament.  Craig and Claire have been busy at work and after work with parties and dinners.  When they are in school they just don't have time to do anything but work, school and study so all of their friends want to see them and they are having fun!  We still haven't seen Chip and as assistant wrestling coach at Madera High School, they took off yesterday for Las Vegas for a weekend tournament, so chances are we won't see him this time around :(

In the morning we are going to help Craig and Claire organize some of their stuff for the move before heading over to see the house.  We'll be their worker bees!

Loans done on schedule..."Ain't Life Grand!"  (hope I didn't jinx it)!

This and That!

We've been enjoying ourselves in Fresno.   We've gotten most of our Christmas shopping done, we've had some meals with the kids and spent some time up at Chukchansi yesterday!  It wasn't a profitable meeting at Chukchansi but we played for several hours and had a nice lunch and drive!  Ted's also been working on hooking upa replacement amplifier/tuner for our built in surround sound.  It's working for some things but not for everything!

We thought we were going to see the inside of Craig's house but unfortunately the realtor had to cancel so we have to wait until this weekend.  We did have dinner with Craig and Claire and Stephen and Marissa Sunday night.  Marissa has left for Missouri to spend some time with her Mom's family, so we were happy to have a chance to visit with her.

We are still waiting to see when Craig and Claire's house will close.  They are shooting for Monday but the underwriter needed a couple of things so it may hold it up.  We have to figure out if we are going to leave Monday as scheduled and sign from some place on the road or stay here in Fresno.  Just not sure yet.

On Sunday Craig, Claire, Chip and Stephen had some pictures taken.  Here are a couple of the pictures:

Ten days before Christmas..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Dinner at the Tuttle's!

Last night we enjoyed a great dinner and evening at Claire's parents, Ernie and Linda.  They also invited one of Craig's law partners' (and very good friend) Kim and her husband Don and their son Trey.  Stephen made it to dinner and of course Craig and Claire.  Chip had a wrestling tournament, he is the assistant wrestling coach at Madera High School.  Linda made a great pot roast, Claire made a delicious Risotto that she said was easy and Kim brought a great salad with a yummy homemade Champagne vinaigrette dressing! We brought a cake from the bakery and it was delectable!  It was a very nice evening.

Stephen has really turned into a man this past few months.  He is no longer that skinny little kid.  He has filled out and is very handsome!  He won't be embarrassed because he doesn't read the blog!

I did forget to take pictures...shame on me!  There will be more chances for pictures!

Good food, good friends and family..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Time with Craig

We got to Fresno Thursday afternoon and rushed over to Craig and Claire's lender.  We are co-signers on the loan for their new home and needed to sign some papers.  We are hoping they will close next Friday but it may not be until Monday.  It would give them an extra weekend to move in if it closes on Friday.   Everything is falling in place so hopefully it will work out.

The lender is right down the street from Craig's work and we knew he was still there so we headed over.  We had a bunch of mail waiting for us so picked it up and found Craig was available for dinner.  There is a bar/restaurant within walking distance of his office, the Elbow Room and so we had wine and dinner with him.  Claire was getting her hair done for Craig's office Christmas party which was last night.  I asked Craig to text me a picture of the two of them all ready for the party!  

Tonight is dinner at Ernie and Linda's (Claire's parents).  We are bringing desert which Craig ordered for us from the bakery where he worked when he was in High School!  Chip and Stephen will be there with dates and I believe Claire's brother and family may be down from Sacramento as well.  It will be a lot of fun.  I hope to have some pictures tomorrow!

A very happy nephew..."Ain't Life Grand!"

Enjoying Sacramento!

We arrived here in Sacramento on Monday afternoon. We thought we were going to have to have an RV repair service out immediately for our refrigerator which was out again in the morning, but then it started working again! We think we have figured out a pattern with it. Every night when it gets down in the low 30's it stops working. Then in the morning around 8:30 when it starts warming up (to the 50's) outside we can get it to come back on. It is so strange but think we will wait until we get to Fresno to see about getting it checked out.


Vicky sent out a picture of the group from the Atwater weekend, taken by her granddaughter which turned out much better than the ones I had taken, so I'm adding this picture:

Yesterday we visited our friends Joel and Lale' that live here in Sacramento.  Joel and Ted used to work together at the County of San Diego.  They are having some medical issues right now but we had a good visit with them.


Today we visited Old Town Sacramento with one of Ted's classmates, Sharon Gillam.  She is in the above picture, lower right in the pretty blue jacket.  It was fun getting to know her better and after a nice lunch we did some shopping and we both found a couple of things to buy!  There are nice shops, museums, the Sacramento River and the Train Station and museum, It's an interesting "old town"!


Tomorrow we leave here and head for Fresno.  We will be there for 10 days visiting the "kids"!


Ready to visit "the kids"..."Ain't Life Grand!"

RLS Christmas Party 2011!

Yesterday we waited and waited for the RV service guy who was "on his way over" about 11ish.  I called at 1:00 and was told that he was on another call.  Hmmm, that wasn't mentioned when I spoke to them at 10:00.  Since our refrigerator had started working again I cancelled the repair guy and we got ready to go to the party.

The band was in full swing when we got there and sounded great!  It was chilly but beautiful afternoon!  There was even some dancing going on!

Craig (friend of Bob's) was busy making balloon art for the kids!  He made a great Spiderman,  Aliens, Santa hats and more!

There were tons of appetizers and drinks for all!

The band stopped at 6:00 and we had a fabulous feast!  Duane's pulled pork cooked all day in a crock pot with apple juice and liquid smoke and was scrumptious!  Everyone contributed and we had the best brussel sprouts I've ever had, Mexican slaw, potato salad, a great bean dish, a wild rice dish, a great salad and probably more that I can't remember!  Everything was delicious.

After dinner and dishes, the gift exchange started!   Della came with "her bells on" little elf shoes!   Vicky drew number 1 and opened the first gift...a spiked dog collar and the fun began!  There were some very nice gifts such as a platter, chip and dip set, flash light set, alcohol, RLS Starbuck glass and card, indoor/outdoor thermometer, candles and more!  Mr. Dick Head (somewhat like Mr. Potato Head) made a comeback (unfortunately), Redneck Wine Glasses, a pig, emergency underwear, a dog that laughed and rolled around, a talking old guy and more!  It was lots of fun.  When it was all over we took our 2011 RLS group picture!

Of course there was dessert and we called it a night!

This morning we met for breakfast at the Almond Tree before everyone headed out for home.  After breakfast we said our goodbyes!

Ted and I decided to stay in Atwater until tomorrow when we will go up to Sacramento for a few days before heading to Fresno.  We had a restful afternoon!

The 2011 RLS Christmas party was a great success..."Ain't Life Grand!"

We are in Atwater, CA

We arrived in Atwater on Thursday afternoon.  I called my nephew when we were passing by Fresno.  He asked how we were doing with the wind?  What wind?  He said it was extremely windy by his law office.  A couple of minutes after we hung up we got to the wind!  It was blowing pretty hard and we saw several Eucalyptus trees down along I-99.  We had to slow way down but fortunately were able to safely keep going.  After Fresno, wind died down and then started again close to Atwater.  The wind stopped that night but it has really gotten cold!  It was 32 this morning...yikes!

To top it off, our furnace stopped working!  Our little fireplace can't keep up so the plan was to buy a small heater to help us keep warm until we could get to a larger city.  And then....this morning the refrigerator stopped working?????  What is going on.  We played around with it and it wouldn't work on electric or gas.  So we called a repair service (hard to find on Saturday) and then Ted switched the propane tanks to see if that would fix the furnace (even though we had plenty of gas to light to stove) and then the refrigerator started working again on electricity!  We are still going to have them come out and still awaiting their arrival.

When we went to Murray Farms in Bakersfield, we found an interesting item.  It is a Buddha's Hand!  In Western cooking, it is used for zesting.  It is less tart and pithy than regular lemons but has the skin (look) of the lemon (with fingers)!  We bought one and brought it to our "gathering" in Atwater at Billy and Vicky Whited's house (Ted went to high school with Vicky, class of 64 and her husband Billy graduated in 1963).  There are about 20 of us here for the weekend.  We decided to see if anyone had ever seen a Buddha's Hand and give 5 scratch off tickets as a prize to anyone who knew what it was.  Cathy, the date of one of Ted's classmates, figured out it was some sort of lemon so she won the prize!

They are pretty funny looking!

We had a fabulous spaghetti dinner last night made by Della Crownover with her husband Jim reheating the meatballs and cooking the spaghetti.  Pat Gordon made her fabulous cheesy garlic bread and we brought a green salad.  For dessert Sharon Gillam brought a great cheese cake sampler!  There was plenty of good food to go around!

I took a few pictures of the group!  I only got a few and then got too busy partying!

Vicky and Billy's dog, Thor, always enjoys dressing up for Christmas!

Sometimes we bring small gifts for each other.  We usually pass them out after our gag/good gift exchange which will be on Saturday night after dinner.  Since we have such a large group Ted and I passed ours out last night.  I found santa and snowmen candy dishes for everyone and bags and bags of all type of candy.  We had chocolate, non chocolate and sugar free Christmas candies that we pass around and they fill their candy dishes!  It doesn't sound like it but it is a lot of fun!  After that Jim and Della brought in their decorated jars of cookie mix for everyone.  We got a jar of Chocolate Chip (Ted's favorite) and Gourmet Cookies (Della said they are yummy)!  I'll have to see if I can bake them!

Today Vicky and Billy's son and some of his musician friends will bring over drums, guitars and amps and do some old time rock and roll for us.  There are two or three different bands that actually come and play together.  It is a lot of fun and I hope the service guy comes soon so we can get over there for it!

When things are going wrong with our RV, at least we have our friends and health..."Ain't Life Grand!"