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

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

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

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

The 2012 Waite family reunion

This last weekend was Carols family reunion. Every year, since 2008 we've had a family reunion at The Lodi Tower Park KOA. Every year the vast majority of the Waite clan have attended what has become an annual event.

The gathering is usually held on the first weekend of October. We chose this KOA in Lodi for several reasons. For one thing, the KOA is centrally located to majority of the family. It's within 2 hours of virtually all of the family who live in Northern California. Another reason is because this campground is big and has a number of Cabins and camp sites all grouped together. The KOA is also set up very nicely with a great little store, a dog park, a water park for the kids and an adult swimming pool area.

This year, as always, the majority of the family showed up on Friday night. Sandy and Bill were the consoument hosts by having a hamburger and hot dog feed. Bill and Doug did a great job at preparing the burgers and dogs. All in all, the food and the company was great on Friday night.

 

Saturday morning we started a series of games which included a water balloon toss, egg race, three legged race. After the warm up games are complete, we have the annual tug of war. The previous two years, the team headed up by Sandy, the eldest Waite, has been victorious. Check out the video about the family reunion below to see if Sandy's team made it a Three-pete! :-)



After the team games are wrapped up and all of the winners determined, we had the annual Horse shoe competition. This time, it was a test to see if Bill and Kevin could Three-pete on their winning of the horse shoe competition.

Unfortunately, Bill and Kevin we de-throned as the champions of the Horse Shoe competition. Once all of the games were done, we all gathered for the group feed bag in the amphitheater.

One of the best parts of the Family reunion for Carol and I was the fact that Katie and Russ spent Saturday night and really got a chance to enjoy the more of the Family reunion experience. They brought their dog Mack along, who you see posing with Carol and lily in our Motorhome!

This was the first year that Carol and I took Monday off so that we could enjoy the peacefulness of Sunday with just Sandy, Bill and a few others after the rest of the family left. Once again, we had another wonderful family reunion. And, the beauty is, we got to enjoy it with still enjoying the comfort of our own bed, every night, 'cause we are full timing in our Alegro Bus Motorhome!

Happy camping! - Eric and Carol -

More 'Home' improvement

With winter approaching, we know that the dogs will start to track mud in once the rain starts to fall. Our little site, in the area where we park the motor home, is basically just dirt. We've been trying to get grass to grow on the far side of the site and as such, we've been trying to keep the dogs off the lawn area and the section where we park the Moho. Since the dogs aren't allowed on the grass area, the only place they could go is the RV parking area. We arranged through a neighbor, to get a load of gravel delivered so that we could spread it around where the Motor home is parked. Initially, we were hoping that he could plop the load right in front of the motor home, but because the tight confines back in our area of the park, he felt the only place he could dump the load, was in the culdisac which is about 200 yards from our site.

Well, the load would have to be pretty good size to cover the entire area where the Moho is parked so this would mean there would be a lot of trips with a wheel barrow. So, Russ was good enough to loan me his pick up truck so that I could move the Gravel from the culdisac to the site. Well, as is usual for old Eric, this turned out to be a more involved project than I had initially thought. It took 7 loads with the pick up truck to move all of the gravel from the culdisac to the RV spot.

Also, it's a good thing that the load wasn't dumped in front of the motor home after all. Because if it had been dumped in front of the Moho, we wouldn't have been able to get it out so that gravel could have been placed underneath it. So, we moved in three loads with the motor home where it sits, and then we pulled the rig out so that the last three loads could be brought in and placed where the Moho is normally parked.

This project was a true team effort. Though I may have done a majority of the 'heavy lifting' of getting the gravel into the truck, Carol helped unloading a number of loads as well as helping to clean the site of leaves and other junk between loads.

We are truly happy with the way the gravel worked out. Though there wasn't quite enough to cover the entire site, there was more than enough to coat the site all the way back to past the rear axle of the rig.

Things at our old homestead are really shaping up and we are very happy with the way things are looking!

Happy camping! Eric and Carol Anderson