Saturday, December 29, 2012

For those looking to live off the grid

One of the things at some point that we would like to be able to do, in short bursts at least is to live off the grid. We aren't the types of folks to do it for long periods of time, but we do like the idea of being able to do it on occasion. For instance we plan on going to Quartzsite this January for 4 or 5 days. Well, one of the problems with being off the grid like that for a few days is no power. Now, we do have a generator, but runnig the generator is a little noisy.

One of the things we would like to do is maybe get solar for the Motorhome at some point. Solar panels are a little spendy, but we found a website about a guy living off the grid. On his website he talks about making his own solar panels. If this sounds like something you might like to do and potentially save your self a lot of money, check out his website!

How To Make A Solar Panel

Happy camping! Eric and Carol

Friday, December 28, 2012

Christmas 2012

Our 2012 Christmas was another wonderful one. As was indicated in the previous post, we started our Christmas weekend with a gathering at Calvin and Joyce's for Joyce's 65th birthday on Saturday the 22nd of December. Sunday was fairly uneventful, which was nice since we had to go to work for at least part of the day on Monday, Christmas eve.

On Christmas eve, we traveled up to Pioneer in Amador county to Sandy and Bill Ealy's home. Some number of years ago, we decided that we would limit our family Christmas gifts to basically a 'White elephant' sort of affair. We were also lucky in that we got to have a special addition to our family gathering. Whitney Connor is in town for a while visiting us. She is thinking of relocating from southern California  In the picture below, she is the young lady on the right hand side of the picture.



Here is Whitney with her Grand parents, Sandy and Bill! Such a wonderful family!



Everyone had a great time at Sandy and Bills. Even though the gift exchange was for white elephant gifts, there were some great gifts. One of the funnier gifts in this was that someone in the family who had bought the game shown in the picture below with Brandon, was originally bought from Billy, Loretta and Brandon at their family yard sale!



We are always so happy when we get the young adults of the family to join the older family members for these gatherings. As you know, we are always glad to have our dogs to join us for everything we do. So, in the picture below, we have Russ, Katie, Brandon and Whitney as well as Russ and Katie's dog Mac and our dog Charlie! We love the holidays!



After we got done opening the white elephant gifts at Sandy and Bills, we headed home to Rancho Cordova, 'cause Christmas morning, was just around the corner. After a little migration of gifts from the bedroom to the front of the motorhome, we were ready for Christmas morning and opening gifts with Katie and Russ. As you can see, we had a lot of gifts to be opened. We also did pretty well on the Christmas cards that we exchanged with friends and family this year.



We had a great get together with the kids and they loved all of the gifts we got them. Though we don't have a picture of it, the best gift of all was a coffee mug that Katie and Russ made for Carol.



The dogs as I indicated are always part of our family events. Sometimes, we subject them however to things that maybe they don't appreciate so much!

.

Happy camping! Eric and Carol

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Joyce Waite's birthday

This is where we start to hit a fevered pitch during the holiday season. First we have Joyce Waite's birthday followed by Christmas Eve and then Christmas day.

In order to celebrate Joyce's Birthday, we all congregated at Calvin and Joyce's home in Sutter creek, about an hour and a half from Sacramento, in the Amador county foot hills. This year there was a wonderful turn out for Joyce's birthday. Joyce's daughter La Tisha, as well as La Tisha's two daughters Haily and Tori came up for the celebration from their home in Manteca.



Sandy Ealy and her husband Bill came down from high up in Amador county to visit with the family. They also brought along their Grand daughter Whitney, who is in the Sacramento area for a while for a visit. Bill, Loretta and Brandon came down from their home in Pioneer too also join in on the celebration.



Last, but not least, Calvin's son Kevin and Kevin's wife Raina, and their two sons Devon and Shane also made the trek up from the bay area for the visit which un-doubtedly will include the opening of some Christmas presents.



Joyce loves to cook and bake, and as a twist, Joyce prepared the vast majority of the food which was all wonderful. We love this time of year 'cause there is so much good food. The only problem is, all those calories go to our waist lines. Oh well, as you know, that's what New Years is for, all of those 'I'll eat better' starting with new years resolutions.



Stay tuned, 'cause tomorrow is Christmas eve, where we will travel up to Bill and Sandy's for Christmas eve and then Christmas day, we will head to Bill and Loretta's.

Happy Camping! - Eric and Carol -

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Getting ready for Christmas

Hi there everyone,

Well, as usual, we are keeping very busy with various stuff around Rancho Cordova these days. The last couple of weekends, I've been struggling to replace the brakes on the front of the Accord, but without much luck. The big problem has been breaking loose the nuts on the the brake shoes. If I had a proper service bay so I could get the right angle on things, I could torque on the wrench and break them free. But, no such luck here in a Mobile home park. So, Carol spotted a Living social deal for front brakes of $49. That is a whole lot better than the $168, I was quoted by another shop in the area. Even if they completely foul it up, at least they will be loosening the nuts on the breaks so that I can change them out again in the future! Stay tuned, we will see what happens!

On December 8th, we celebrated Katie's birthday with her and Russell at our local Olive Garden restaurant. As always, the food was yummy and the service was great! We are so very proud of both Katie and Russ, we just wish we had the money to do everything for the kids that we want too. But, then they wouldn't be learning to take care of them selves as well as they are! After dinner together, Katie and Russ went to Black Hawk casino to play some of Katie's free birthday play. They were 'WINNERS'! They won over $1,000 on one machine. This winning allowed them to do some much needed shopping for clothes and camping equipment! Yea kids!

We've decorated our little site at the RV park and we're not the only ones! A number of our neighbors have decorated in preparation for the holiday. With the exception of our Christmas cards, which we place high in the living room, the rest of our Christmas decorations, mostly the tree, reside in the bedroom so that the dogs can't 'remodel' it while we are off to work each day. :-)



Speaking of remodeling, check out the video we have of Charlie remodeling the motorhome while we were gone to work one day. Obviously, he still has a little separation anxiety when we go off to work.



One time when Katie was by one afternoon, she helped us out by taking our 'Family photo' that we used on this years Christmas card!


On Friday the 14th, we went out with some friends to check out some nicely decorated homes in the Rocklin area, which is north east of Sacramento. There are probably 20 homes in that neighborhood that were decorated so nicely. About the only homes that were not decorated, were the ones that are for sale and empty.




Our Christmas Holiday is shaping up to be a busy one, so we're not sure when we'll get the blog updated again. But we hope that your holiday season is a wonderful one!

Happy Holidays! Eric and Carol

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thanksgiving Red Bluff 2012

Well, our thanksgiving weekend was one to be truly thankful for! It all started with Wednesday morning where Eric was able to get a early start off to work. This, combined with 4 hours of CTO that Eric had earned by going off to work on an early Saturday morning, allowed Eric to return home on Wednesday by around 1:15 in the afternoon. When Eric did get home, Carol had the motorhome all buttoned up and ready to head to Red Bluff. As Carol and Eric headed up to Red Bluff, they stopped at Granzellas in the town of Willams to pick up some sour dough bread. It should be pointed out that this is Charlies first time venturing out in the motorhome. We wonder what he thinks of the idea that the house he now lives in travels to new and interesting places. Charlie was probably a little nervous about this experience, so he sought comfort from Lily by sleeping by her side as we set out on our trip.



Once Eric and Carol arrived in Red Bluff, Eric’s sister Karen had a delicious dinner of Pasta, Chicken vegetables ready to eat. All that was needed was the Sour dough bread! After a delicious dinner at Karen and Mikes rig, we sat and did some catching up, including reviewing Mike and Karens latest coffee table book which was a result of their trip to Austrailia. You too can check out their Austrailian adventure by going to www.return2oz2012.blogspot.com.

On Thursday, we continued to do some catching up on stuff and enjoying the wonderfully warm weather that this Thanksgiving holiday was offering this weekend. Though it only got up into the high sixties temperature wise, there wasn’t much wind and the heat from the sun on ones self, felt wonderful.

Happy hour on Thanksgiving day consisted of the family favorite of Clam dip which Karen prepared. Yummy! For dinner on Thanksgiving day, everyone reposed to Carol and Eric’s motorhome for what turned out to be a wonderful Ham dinner, complete with Augrautin potatos as well as a green bean casrole which Eric and Karen’s mom frequently made on the holiday season. Dinner was toped of with a selection of a couple of peach pies as well as a seasonal favorite of Pumpkin Pie.



It is also seeming to be a tradition where a trip to Red Bluff wouldn’t be complete without some sort of ‘Field Repair’ of our RV. This time, it was a repair of the dash which has started to break down due to Rosie and now Charlie jumping up on the dash to keep an eye on things outside the front wind shield. Eric doesn’t set out to make trips to Red Bluff to be ones where ‘Field repairs’ take place, but sometimes it just turns out that way. The last time we all got together, Eric solicited Mikes help in repairing vinyl that Rosie had chewed up when they first got her. This time, though there wasn’t room for two to work on this project, Eric and Carol found the Crack on the dash forming. And, with Carol returning to work next week, Eric felt like he needed to get started on doing this repair sooner rather than later. So, on ‘Black Friday’ our group made a trip to Camping World to partake in our version of ‘Black Friday’ shoping! Carol and Eric picked up a couple of ‘Christmas’ items. A ‘Camp fire in a can’ and a tow hitch cover are both items that Carol has wanted for some time. So, since we had a 10 percent off coupon for Camping World and the ‘Camp fire in a can’ was at the lowest price that we had seen in a while, we decided to pick one up as well as a hitch cover!



After we were done at Camping world, we made a stop by Home Depot to pick up a few supplies so that Eric could repair the dash of the motorhome. After picking up some L braces, Silicone and Foam tape, we then went and got some lunch at a local diner where Eric and Carol shared a Veggie Mushroom burger and chocolate milk shake! They haven’t shared one of these in a very long time!



Once we all returned to camp, Eric started working on the dash repairs while Mike washed their motorhome and Karen and Carol solved all of the problems of the world! Eric’s dash repair consisted mainly of using some existing 2X4’s and duct tape that Eric had with the addition of the L braces to hold things in place and foam padding to fill the gaps of the brace. The clear silicone was used to fill the crack of the dash. For dinner, on ‘Black Friday’ we ate left overs from Thanksgiving dinner. The food was just as good the second night, if not better than the first night!

After dinner on Friday night, we went outside to try sitting by a ‘Camp fire in a can’ and see how it worked. It ended up working great! We are so glad that we have added ‘Camp fire in a can’ to our RV’ing equipment. Now, we can lighten our load a little bit by taking the firewood and the larger fire pit out of the motorhome.



This is probably the last road trip until we head off to Quartzsite in Arizona in January. But, never fear, we will continue to update the Blog on a regular basis as we proceed through the Holiday season.

Happy Camping! – Eric and Carol -

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Double Trouble

This last weekend, Katie and Russ brought Mac, our grand dog by to meet Charlie. Ever since we met Charlie, we commented how much Charlie and Mac are alike. Asside from Charlie maybe being a little older.... Well, you'll have to judge for your self!



Happy Camping! Eric and Carol Anderson

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Veterans day

Carol and I once more made the short journey to the Mather Field VA hospital which is just across US50 from our home. At this VA hospital they conducted the 7th annual Veterans day celebration. We were both so thankful to be able to attend this wonderful event. Last year when we went to this event, there was a storm that came through. None the less with tents with covers on three sides of each tent, the event went on. This year, the weather was beautiful. Frankly, it was a glorious day. There were veterans there that served as far back as World War II. Every branch of the military was represented at this event. The sad part of the event that there wasn't a better turn out of 'non-veterans'. Carol and I found this sad. None the less, we were so proud that we were able to attend this event

There was a fly over of C-130 at the beginning of the event. All through the event, the 59th Army band performed a wonderful number of arrangements.



There was a beautiful rendition of the National Anthem was sung by a trio of young ladies from the Cordova High School Choir.



There was a  speech given by Daryl Steinberg the President protem of the California State Senate.


Also, the mayor of Rancho Cordova gave a wonderful speech.



The keynote speech was given by a Jonathan Cullifer, a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and a recipient of the Purple heart. Jonathan talked about his service in both the Marine corps and the US Army. He also spoke of his battles with PTSD and how the fine staff at the VA hospital  helped to talk him back from 'The edge' of taking his own life. We are so glad we had the opportunity to hear him speak about the challenges he has faced and it was clear about the bravery he has faced his challenges with.


Carol and I celebrate our veterans and current service personel everyday of our lives, but it is events like this where we really realize just how lucky we are to live in this great nation, and just how thankful we are to have the brave men and women that serve in our US Armed forces.

As you can see, our dogs are proud and thankful too!





Happy Camping! Eric and Carol Anderson

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Charlies first full day with us...

Charlie continues to do very well in his new home, he is getting along great with the other dogs!

Here is a little bit of Charlie's history:
Charlie's early life is very much unknown. However on June 5th, 2012, he was picked up as a stray and taken to the shelter from the Civic Center Park area of Berkeley. According to Local law enforcement, it’s an area known for drug dealing. While in the care of Berkley Animal Care services, he was fully vaccinated and micro-chipped. He had some bumps on his belly, and the veterinary staff put him on meds for 21 days. The Vet checked him out again on 7/27 where he was given a good prognosis. They thought it was some kind of allergy or contact dermatitis. Charlie waited to be adopted by someone at the Berkley city shelter for 3 months. He was scheduled to be euthanized on September 4. Volunteers there loved him so much and recognized what a wonderful dog he was, and immediately started networking to find him a home or foster. Karen Teague, foster coordinator for Chako, picked up the message and re-posted on Facebook.

Shortly after returning from their honeymoon, Dan and Audrey Kelm volunteered to provide a Foster home for Charlie if he could just pass his behavior evaluation. One of their dogs was finally recovered from having both ACL’s being repaired. Dan and Audrey had previously fostered Tyson for Chako until he found a new forever home. They had really bonded with Tyson, and felt the process was so rewarding, that they wanted to do it again. So when Karen re-posted on Facebook that Charlie was scheduled to be put down, they immediately stepped up to help this special guy.

Once Karen had foster parents, she sprung into action and coordinated everything. Nick, a volunteer in Berkeley, graciously offered to drive Charlie up to Sacramento. His status as a "Chako dog" entirely depended on him passing a Behavior Evaluation upon arrival in Sacramento. Should he fail, he would have returned to Berkeley and be euthanized that night. Nick made the journey on September 4, E-day for Charlie, in the evening. Dan and Audrey anxiously waited at their home to hear how the evaluation went. Charlie passed all of tests with flying colors but for one--the "bum" test. Charlie did not want anything to do with Dawn Capp, the founder of Chako, who dresses herself in a trench coat and holding a broom as part of this ‘Bum Test’. He shied away and sought comfort from another nearby volunteer. Audrey says, “To be fair, I would do the same thing!” Because he didn't react aggressively, Dawn made the decision to pass him because he was so good with the other tests. So, on September 4 at around 9:00 p.m., Charlie was delivered to Dan and Audrey’s home.

For two months, Charlie lived with Dan and Audrey who have 2 male dogs of their own. One blue-nose pit (Remington), and the other is...well...a mutt (Bosworth), possibly a beagle/dalmation mix. Charlie's introduction couldn't have gone smoother! Remi and Charlie were immediate bff's and Boz tolerated him just fine. As the weeks went by, all the boys grew closer and Charlie easily fell into their routine. He even started to learn some of their tricks for cookies! Charlie even eventually won Boz over as a playmate. Audrey says “He is just so charming! Dan and I love Charlie so much and vowed to be very selective with his forever home. He is such a happy boy with so much love to give! We are so thrilled that he is finding his happily ever after in your home and know he will get all the love, playtime and family that he deserves!”

Dan and Audrey also wrote that: “Charlie adores playing tug of war, especially with ropes.” Our dog Rosie does love to play tug, but Charlie, these first couple of days seems a little timid about it because Rosie is so vocal. The Kelm’s also reported that “… pretty much anything that squeaks will warrant a play session for him!”

One interesting story that Audrey shared with us was that she was talking to a friend who knows Charlie's story and Audrey and the friend found it so interesting how he chose our home too. The first couple that came to meet and greet him, he was just not feeling it. He wouldn't leave the Kelm’s front door until they took their other dogs out to play. And then he still had no interest in this couple. They put the other dogs back in the house after wearing them all out enough and then Charlie mostly just stayed by Audrey, really didn't want to be pet by them, almost as if he was saying, "Are they going to leave soon so we can get back to our evening?!" Audrey said after our initial meet and greet, “Seeing him climb up in your laps and give you guys kisses was a complete 180 difference!!!”

We met Charlie on November 4th at the Pell street overpass. Rosie met five candidates, Aengus; Bolt, Charlie, Auzzie, Blue. Clearly, the dog that Rosie got along with the best was Charlie. They both greeted each other. Carol and I agreed, as well as Dawn and Shannon, that Charlie was the best fit. The rest as you can see from later in this post as well as many posts from this point afterwards, are history!  
Well, we have a wonderful story to share with you all!

So Charlies foster parents told us that when they leave the house with the dogs un-attended, they put Charlie in a wire crate. Well, when we first got Rosie, that's what we did as well. She didn't like it at all and escaped just about everytime we put her in there. She must have some trauma associated with it. Here is a picture of the one time she didn't escape and we came home to find the fall-out.



At any rate, I went to go get lunch. I was only going to be gone for an hour, just to get him use to us not being there and the routine behind it. Well, once I put him in the crate, Rosie laid down on the couch right next to him. Wasn't quite sure what it meant, but I had a guess. Well, I went to lunch and make a couple of other quick stops and returned home about an hour and half later. Well, normally, Rosie would be on the dash waiting for us when we got home, but I thought it interesting that she wasn't. I came into the Motorhome to find Rosie laying in the exact same place as she was in when I left an hour and half earlier! So very cool.

At any rate, here is a video of Charlies first full day living with us!



Enjoy!

Happy Camping!  Eric and Carol

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Here's Charlie

Hi there everyone,

Here is a video of our new dog Charlie.


Check out our blog later this weekend for the full story on Charlies life, as far as we know it.

Happy camping! - Eric and Carol -

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Hoping Charlie can come to our home

Today we took Rosie to meet 5 Pit bull males in hoping to find a new addition to our home. We pretty quickly narrowed down the search to Charlie, a 18 month old who is being fostered through Chako. Here is a quick video featuring Charlie.


We are doing a Home check on this coming Friday. So, keep your fingers crossed that it all goes well for us and Charlie!

Happy Camping! Eric and Carol Anderson

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween 2012

Happy Halloween everyone,

Well, just last week, we ended up having to put Roxy down due to an injury to her spine. These sort of losses are always hard to move forward from. But, thankfully, we have events like Halloween to serve as distractions from these sort of sad events in our lives. Being that the holiday was almost upon us, we put out some of our halloween decorations. We didn't really get any trick or treaters last year, but we thought we would try again this year since we now have some new residents with kids. Also, Eric's bureau chief Sheryl Jakabowski is retiring this month so in her honor, Eric carved a pumpkin that looked like an M&M (Sheryls favorite thing) to enter into the office pumpkin carving contest.




It turned out their two little boys were the only trick or treaters that we got again this year. So, next year, our plan is to set out to one of our favorite camp grounds this time next year. That would be our old Stomping grounds of 49er trailer village in Plymouth. We returned there this year, only by car for a visit so that we could introduce our friends Robert, Danielle and Tiffany as well as Robert and Danielles kids Zack and Audry.



We love coming to the 49er trailer village cause so many of the RV'ers like to decorate their RV sites for the kids of all of the rigs as well as the kids that live in the Plymouth area. So many rigs are so wonderful. People put a lot of work into setting something up that only gets to be up for a day or two while they stay at the park.





There were even a couple of pairs of sites that went so far as to set up a couple of Haunted houses. It's amazing what someone can do with four easy-ups stratigically placed!



Halloween and especially the little kids does a lot to help us forget about the hard times in our lives some times!

It sounds like we might be hitting the road for Thanksgiving. We will be hooking up with Karen and Mike for Thanksgiving, we just don't know yet if we'll be taking the rig to Redbluff or driving a car to Ashland. Either way, be sure to tune in for an update later in November, but we're sure there will be others before that!

Happy camping! Eric and Carol

Friday, October 26, 2012

Rest in Peace Roxy, Rest in Peace

It is with great sadness that we had to make one of the hardest decisions as a pet owner to put our beloved Roxy down yesterday. If you have been following this blog from the beginning, you would know that Roxy has had a tough, physically challenging life. Four years ago, about the time we started this blog, Roxy was found to have an abdominal problem. Because of trouble with her heart and lungs, she wasn't a surgical candidate to resolve the abdominal problem. So, for the last four years, we have been blending her food down to a gruel and for the most part has seemed to have a decent quality of life.


Prior to us starting the Blog, in fact just a year into her life, Roxy needed to have one of her knees repaired. So, as you can see, she's had quite the challenging life. However, regardless of her physical challenges, she has always been our companion and guardian in virtually all of our adventures. In fact, with the exception of our trip to New York for Marq's college graduation, and a four day Cruise, she has always been by our sides. Roxy was always our guardian. In fact for about 95% of the time that Roxy was with us, she'd always come in our bedroom as we got ready for bed each night, almost as if she wanted to make sure everything was OK before we retired for the night.

Even in Roxy's early days, she was always looking out for the family members. She served as a surrogate mom to Lilly after we first brought her home. And, there was one time, shortly after we brought Lilly home that Lilly ran up the hill at the Pioneer home. Lilly was pretty quick, but Roxy was right on her heals and herded Lilly back to the house.



Because our dogs are such an important part of our family, naturally, they are part of our holiday celebrations. Roxy was always a willing participant in our holiday celebrations.

 


A month or so ago, we took Roxy in to the vet to have her get a physical. The vet thought she might have a collapsed disk in her spine, but thought she still seemed to be getting around OK. So, we kept her on a pain regiment to try to make her comfortable. Carol came home Wednesday of this week to take Lilly to a vet appointment to have an eye looked at that we thought might have another ulcer on it. Carol found Roxy on the floor and un-able to get up. With the help of our neighbor Keith, who hooked us up with the gravel, Carol was able to get Roxy loaded in the car and off to the vet. The vet checked her out and did X-ray's and didn't really see anything obvious. Roxy was able to get up on three legs, and though un-comfortable, was able to make her way out to the waiting room so we could return home.

However, when she got home, it became obvious quickly that Roxy wasn't comfortable, looked like she felt she was lacking dignity and generally not happy. She was reduced to laying on a blanket inside the motor home and us lifting her on the blanket in and out of the motor home so she could go potty. The last trip out, she didn't even get off the blanket before relieving herself. It was very sad. So, with no real options before us, we made the painful decision that it was time to remove Roxy from her pain.



Roxy only had one irritating trait. That was her barking at virtually any neighbor we have. We so wished she would stop doing it, but we didn't want that behavior to stop this way. We so wish we could have her back, happy and healthy. We will miss Roxy immensely, she has been an integral part of our lives as a family for so much of our time together. As long as we remember Roxy, she will always be with us, but her, like Tyson, Hannah and Burney before her, she will be missed so very, very much!



Take care! Eric and Carol

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Another busy week!

With foul weather coming our way, Eric decided it was a good idea to check out the rig to make sure she was water proof. On Saturday, Eric spent a couple hours blowing the leaves off of the top of the motor home, followed by giving the roof a scrub down and then a blow dry! :-) On Sunday, Eric climbed up onto the roof again, this time with a caulking gun in hand. He inspected every joint looking for cracks where water might gain entry into the rig. Also, I worked on spraying Silicone lubricant on the TV antenna rotator to keep the o-rings lubricated so they don't leak. So, after about 5 hours of cleaning, inspecting and repairing, our Full time home is ready for winter.


Also on Saturday of this weekend, we attended a Happy Howloween event at the Sacramento County Animal shelter. This is the first time that we have attended this event at the County Animal shelter. We love every opportunity we have to visit this fine facility. There were a great number of vendors here, probably in excess of 20 of them. There was a dogie costume contest for those in the community. There was also a fashion show featuring the current dogs in the shelter. We were also glad to see Katie, Russ and Mack our families favorite 'Super dog'!



On Sunday of this weekend, we returned once again to the Sacramento county animal Shelter, this time to attend a seminar presented by representatives of the Bay Area Pit Bull Advocacy group Bad Rap. We got a lot of great information out of the session and found it very motivational in trying to get the public perception of Pit Bulls turned around.



After the Bad Rap presentation was over, we went into the shelter to find out how our current Chako sponsored dogs were doing. We were thrilled to find that Mojo Magoo and Serena had both been adopted at the shelter in the last week.

Well, that is about all for this weekend, busy as it may have been.

Happy camping! Eric and Carol

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Carols 51st Birthday

This weekend Carol celebrated her 51st birthday. The celebration started on Saturday with a visit to Bill, Loretta and Brandon's in Pioneer. At their home, we were also joined by Carol's sister Sandy and her husband Bill as well as Carol's brother Calvin and his wife Joyce. Billy, Loretta and Brandon have now been living at their home in Pioneer for a couple full months now, with Billy retired and Loretta working at a title company office in Jackson. With the move to the foothills, Loretta's drive from Pioneer to Jackson actually results in a shorter commute!

 
Carol and I got the chance to enjoy some time with our family members. We are always glad to see everyone, but especially, we are so glad every time we are able to spend time with Brandon. Billy, Calvin and Bill brought some Pizza from Pine Grove Pizza, which is one of Carol's favorites. Their Pizza is one which in our estimation is the best in the Sacramento region.
 
Sandy and Bill brought Carol a wonderful birthday cake with which we were all able to enjoy while helping Carol celebrate her birthday.

On Tuesday, the day of Carol's actual Birthday, I gave Carol a shirt from a non profit organization called TADSAW, which adopts shelter dogs and turns them into therapy dogs for retired members of our armed forces which have PTSD. Carol's co-workers also got together and bought Carol a new wallet which was made in the USA! Carol wanted to go to Logans Road house in Citrus Heights for her birthday dinner. Something a little different to enjoy. Though the reports on Yelp weren't all that favorable, we found the service and food both very good!

We were also so thankful that Katie and Russ were able to join us for Carols birthday dinner. Every time we are able to get together with Katie and Russ, we find ourselves having such an enjoyable evening.
 
Every day we are together we so enjoy life together. But celebrating an event like Carol's birthday always make days like those, just that much more special.
 
Tune in soon for an update as we enter into the Halloween season!
 
Happy camping! Eric and Carol