September Birthdays

Zoe A.K.A. Nikki has a birthday on September 25. I can't believe she is that old
already. I hope she has a wonderful birthday and a wonderful year. I hope she soon starts back to her name of ZOE, I think it's a cuter and more unique name. But whatever her name is for now, it is great to have her as my granddaughter.

The only other September birthdays were my dad, Sept 2nd and my mother, Sept 19th. My dad would be 89 and my mom would be 86. I miss them and wish they could have hung on a little longer to celebrate more birthdays with us.

Our Newest News

This is a 30 Ft 2009 Starcraft Trailer that we are getting from Motor Sportsland. These trailers are made in Twin Falls ID. Here are some photos of the floor plan and the inside. The photos really don't do it justice. I have yet to get a photo of the outside trailer but I will soon.

Well, we did it, but we can still change our minds. We just had to go to the RV show yesterday and told ourselves we would not buy, just look. We thought maybe in a year or two we would buy. They had some very good deals on 2009 closeouts. We found a trailer with just the right floor plan that we wanted. We wanted a queen sized bed that you can walk around and a comfortable place to sit when watching TV or reading. Our old trailer is not comfortable at all. And this trailer has a slide out for more room. It also has two very nice reclining chairs as well as a sofa. It has a full sized shower. It has two places to hook up TV's, in the living room and bedroom. A lot of the trailers had bunk beds, which we didn't not want or need. We would rather have more space. This one does not have bunk beds, you can make the sofa into a bed and there is another bed you make from the table. The queen sized bed is in a room of it's own, and that is really nice. The trailer is really easy to set up. You only have to press a switch for the awnings and the slidouts.

I and Randy both have been a little keyed up over the decision to get another trailer. I know some of our kids think we are nuts. But I think we deserve some happiness in our old age. I always wanted to travel and camp when I retired. The old trailer is still good but we want something more comfortable and we camp a lot so it's not like we only use our trailer once or twice a year. We could get another used bigger trailer, but we found out after buying the one we have that some things are not disclosed to you when you buy it. Like the old trailer looked like it had good tires, but they had dry rot and after driving, some of the rubber came off and we had to replace the tires. Also, the toilet leaked and we had to pay to get it fixed.

We had been thinking of a motorhome but we still have a lot of things for the trailer and we have a powerful Suburban to pull it; and this new trailer is so easy to set up. And with a motorhome, we couldn't leave it parked when we wanted to leave the campground, we would have to take it. With the trailer we can unhitch and leave the campsite. And the motorhome we could afford doesn't have any more room than our old trailer.

So we have signed the papers and we pick up the trailer next week. I guess we can still back out. They did give us what I asked for the old trailer but we still didn't get what we paid out it for considering we had to pay for new tires and fix the toilet. We could not gotten anymore selling it with classified ads either I do not believe because it is 24 years old. So if you think we are crazy, remember you only live once and it's only money. I know money can go fast. Randy gives me his whole pension check every month so do not think that I am the one paying everything. He does as well.

We have a lot of things that we can use with the trailer that we could not have used if we had gotten a motorhome. We have a big generator and inverter. When Alex and I were raising our family, we could not afford a lot of things. We did get used RV's but we really had to work hard to pay for them. Kids can't expect to have everything all at once. Someday you may be able to get the things you want. I think we deserve to reap the rewards of raising our families and working hard all our lives.

Days of Summer Coming to an End

Summer camping has come to a close. For Labor Day, we drove to the High Uintah's and all the way up to Mirror Lake. Unfortunately, a lot of the campgrounds were closed in the Uintah's and so we just had to drive around the Day Use areas. Mirror Lake was so crowded that we could not even find a place to park. We did, however, get to look down on the lake from a viewpoint and take a few photos.

Then later in the week, we camped for three days at Deer Creek. They had full hookups there so we got a few more comforts of home. We mainly went there because we had promised John and Kathy we would let them camp one more time for caring for our cats. We had to camp close to home so we could go back to care fr the cats. Usually John and Kathy do that for us but they were with us so we lost our pet sitters.

We went to Heber and ate at Don Pedro's Mexican restaurant. Boy, they give you so much food. Be aware that if you order more than one item, you may find it hard to eat all your meal. The food was good though. Better than Mi Ranchito. So we are done camping for this year. We have a family BBQ planned for the 20th and no other plans for the rest of the year. We thought of going to Zion's Park to camp next month but decided we were just too tired to make another camping trip. We may have to plan something else. We do have a free 2 night hotel stay at several hotel choices throughout the country. We got this from RC Willey when we bought our appliances. As far as Thanksgiving and Christmas, we have no plans as yet. Maybe somebody will invite us. We are going tomorrow to the RV show in Sandy. Randy really wants a new RV but that will have to wait if it even happens at all. We have just put new tires, and bought a new generator for the one we have now. The only problem with the one we have now it that the bed is too small and it is so hard to get in and out of. It's OK for one person, but when we camp, we have no cats and so we like to sleep together.

Other news is that we got a new microwave (our old one quit.) and washer and dryer. They all work so much better than the old ones. We might have to get a new furnace. So there is always so much money that we have to spend. I wish we could stop spending for a while. I have also had some problems with somebody using my MasterCard number and so I had to deal with that. Other than that, we are just enjoying the cooler days of Fall. We wish all our family a wonderful Fall season.

The Bed

Yesterday we spent part of the day putting in a new bed frame for the queen sized bed. This bed has a Tempurpedic mattress on it with a memory foam topper which makes it even more comfortable. The old wooden frame made a lot of creaking sounds and was almost ready to break.

I just love my bed. When I stay at hotels, none of those beds can compare. Even the beds in the 4 star hotels. And some of the beds in the hotels are so bad that my back acts up for a week after sleeping in them.

I know many people do not like memory foam, but for me it is just wonderful. I never have a backache in the morning like I used to before I got my memory foam mattress. And I use Egyptian cotton sheets and it is pure heaven. I feel like I am sleeping on a cloud. When I first got the mattress, it was not what I expected. It was hard and didn't conform to my body. Then I found out that it had been put on upside down. The people who delivered it put it on that way, but it was really fault of the factory because they had marked the wrong side for being the side that was supposed to be down. After putting it on right, the bed now does everything it is supposed to do.

Randy does not like the bed because he says it's too hot and he sticks to the sheets. However, he sweats in any bed he sleeps in. The main problem he has with the bed is that when all the cats get in bed with him and me, it is so crowded because of the cats that he can't even turn around. So he sleeps in the double bed next to my bed. He refuses to not let the cats sleep outside of the bedroom and it's true, he has spoiled them so much that if he tried to get them to sleep elsewhere, they would really yowl all night and keep us both awake.

The cats have always been his family and there is no changing that now. The only cat that ever sleeps on my bed is Gimli and once in a while Sonny does. But his cats always have to sleep wherever he does. They have separation anxiey LOL. I wonder what it would be like if we had kids that wanted to sleep all night with him, he would probably let them LOL. He has a really soft heart but he is not teaching the cats any manners. It's very hard to teach old cats new tricks and old men as well. LOL

Santa Rosa CA, Napa Valley

Randy and Me at the Beach

Me at the Beach

Judy and Bob at the Beach

The Schoolhouse in Bodega Bay


The Catholic Church in Bodega Bay

After leaving Reno NV, we traveled on to Santa Rosa CA. Santa Rosa is located in the beautiful Napa Valley just north east of San Francisco. We visited with Judy Vance who is a friend of Randy. Judy used to live in Scottsdale AZ. While in Santa Rosa, we visited the Charles Schultz museum. We learned more about Charles and his cartoons as well as other cartoonists. The first night we were in Santa Rosa, we attended the play of Oliver. The cast did a very good job, especially the actor who played Fagan.

The next day Judy and her boyfriend Bob took us all around the Napa Valley. I have never seen so many beautiful vineyards. They were everywhere. There was not a weed in any of them. There were wineries and wine tasting in almost every vineyard. Words alone cannot describe the beauty of the Napa Valley. We also stopped by a lake and enjoyed a picnic.

The following day, we went to Bodega Bay in Sonoma county where Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS was filmed. We saw the old schoolhouse there and the Catholic Church. We traveled on down to the ocean on highway one. It was such a beautiful day with a pretty blue sky. We walked the beach and enjoyed watching the surf pound against the rocks and sand. We gathered sea shells. We continued driving along the coast and ate at a beautiful resort restaurant right on the ocean. It was pricey but the beautiful view was worth it. Then we traveled down the Russian River and enjoyed frozen yogurt in a little store along the route. We went back to Judy's and enjoyed a porterhouse steak dinner she prepared.

On the way home, we traveled through Yosemite National Park. We had to to take a different route and could not see the entire park because there was a huge fire in that part of the park. What we did see was just breathtaking. We saw huge rocks, trees and lakes. We spent that night in Tonapah NV and enjoyed an old mining town atmosphere.

The next day, we headed home through Ely NV. We had a wonderful time.

Me by the Vineyards in Napa Valley



The wineries at Napa Valley

Judy, Randy and me at Napa Valley

At the Charles Schultz Museum

Visit to Reno

On the way to Reno, we stayed the first night in Winnemucca NV and we ate at Sid's Family restaurant.We then went to Reno NV and stayed at the Siena Spa for two nights. Tina was so generous in giving us this package for our wedding. We enjoyed the pool and hot tub and a luxurious bath in a hydro therapy pool. You could choose the fragrance of bath salts they put in the pool. It was very relaxing. They even provided complimentary wine and champagne for those who wanted it. We ate at a very upscale restaurant there called Lexie's. We had a food credit but still paid a lot for the meal. We also visited the Reno Automobile Museum and just loved it. Randy especially loved it. It was huge with a very large collection of autos from over many years time. I wish Matt and Marty could have been there. They would have just been blown away.

Visit in Tremonton

We had a wonderful visit with Monica and Jay yesterday. They have a new puppie named Seymor. He is a basset hound. Bella has a playmate now and they are so cute together. They were fighting over a bone. I am sure Seymor will grow really large and then he might be too much for Bella. But I am sure she will really love the companionship with him.

Monica and Jay fixed us a nice dutch oven meal. I got to talk on the phone to JJ who lives in Indianna. Randy said next year we may got visit his sister in North Carolina. Then we also visit JJ. Thank you Monica and Jay for a great meal and vitis.

My Life for Better and Worse

I didn't write this for anyone to feel sorry for me. I just wanted to write this because it happened in my life and that I got through it all. I am remembering the past in my life.

My life has always been kind of a mess. I seemed to always be struggling with my relationships with everybody and I still am to this day. When we were first married, we were very poor. We lived in a small one bedroom home that we rented for $20 a month and we could not even afford to pay that. We had a fridge my grandma gave us, an old rickety table, an old stove, a bed with squeaky springs, a lumpy mattress and manual washer. I had to hang clothes out on the line and they would freeze in the winter and be stiff.We could not even afford to heat the house. I had to turn on the oven and keep the door open and sit in front of it. We ended having to move out of the house into my parents home and if it would not have been for them, we would never have made it. Alex eventually got work and a home at a dairy farm which was hard work with little pay, but at least we were on our own for once. And he finally got good job and we moved to a better place.

The rest of my life was spent raising kids and working hard for our family. I loved being a mom and canning and cooking and our garden. Alex and I enjoyed square dancing. But with that came other things, Alex drinking and my trying to keep things together while this was going on. My health was bad a great deal of the time. I suffered from ulcerative colitis and it nearly killed me the first time I got it. I had bouts over and over again through the years.

Alex did stop drinking eventually and things got better. He has always been good to me and his drinking was demon he had to deal with. Also, my baby Matt was born with a heart defect.Fast forward to 2002. I suffered very bad herniated disks in my back which kept me in extreme and constant pain. I spent most of my time lying on the bed with an ice pack on my back curled in a fetal position. The pain was so bad that I spent a great deal of time just crying. I still managed to go to work and I don't know how I did that but it was through sheer determination. Then my knee went out and the bone was rubbing. So in that time in late 2002 and early 2003, I had another episode of colitis and two back surgeries and a complete knee replacement.At that same time, my mother, who spent most of her life being sick, was put in the hospital with bowel obstruction and she got pneumonia and died in 6 days of being hospitalized. I was still recovering from the knee surgery. I then had episodes of extreme depression and crying spells. The Dr. had to get me on something which didn't work and so he tried something else, and it was better. Then in late summer of 2003, I had a hard time walking and was dizzy all the time and extremely tired. I had an MRI and was told I had MS. I had to go a neurologist. I had to take shots for it. Then in Sept, my dad died suddenly. Another death to deal with. But I still had my Alex to help me through this, but it was very hard all the same. And also, my cousin who just turned 60 died of cancer in 2003.

Alex had suffered bad sleep apnea for years. We did not at the time know how bad it can be on your health. He also had bad arthritis problems and had to have both knees replaced. And if that wasn't enough, he had to have it done again due to the fact the knee parts were bad. The 2nd time he nearly died and I was at work knowing that he might die any minute from a bad infection he got at the hospital.Well, he eventually got better and he retired and Iworked. We were hoping to travel when I finally got to quit working. I had asked him many times to do something about his sleep apnea but he just never would. All of his physical exams came back with flying colors. He had lower cholesterol than I did.One the morning of April 9, 2009, I found him on the floor dead. It was so sudden and was just numb for a while. We had a trip planned with Marty and Cherise. The autopsy showed he must have had untreated high blood pressure for many years which had damage his heart and probably cause it to go into a dangerous arrhythmia. When that happens, the heart shakes and doesn't beat and the body is starved of oxygen. The Dr. never told him he had high blood pressure so maybe it only happened at night when he was sleeping. I know his sleep apnea contributed to this because every night he would gasp for air.After burying him and going back to work, I had to deal with people who just did not understand death and all the things I was going through and they said they were tired of looking me being so sad and I should just get over it. This was really hard. And then the stupid irrigation water came down and flooded my basement and I had to pay a lot to get it drained. I did have Marty and my kids to help me through this. And in August of that same year, my Sparky got killed in the road.During the months before and after Alex death, I had to deal with all of my mom and dad's issues. I had to take care of their insurance, the finances, calling agencies to report their death, having to do this at work because the businesses were not open when I was off work and I did it during my lunch and I still got in trouble because I had to use the phone at my desk and manager didn't know I was on my break.

I had to deal with a crazy sister and try to keep the family together and from fighting and keep up getting money from the shop my dad sold and then try to get the owners to pay it off so I didn't have to deal with it. I had to do my parents income tax and work with Realtors and listen to family back fight and be rude to each other. I had to have the plumbing fixed in my dad's house when the pipes broke. Some of this I dealt with while Alex was alive, but I was dealing with a lot things after his death. I had to do this while I was still in mourning and having family and co-workers and everybody on my case. I had to take care of getting items that belonged to my parents split among my siblings and having them complain that they didn't get what they wanted etc. Somehow I got through and I am sure the Lord and Alex himself (yes I felt his spirit) was with me or would not have made it. Somehow it all got worked out.Then the loneliness really came. I was busy before that I didn't time for myself or even to think. My MS seemed to have gone in remission which was good, but I had shoulder problems and many headaches to deal with and more surgeries.My kids went with me on vacations that helped me with some of the loneliness I felt.

I joined SR Citizens and went places and that helped a little but most of those people were much older than I was. I went places with aunt Beverly. I got high speed Internet to help me with my loneliness and to pass the time. I met Randy and things are much better now. I still have to deal with family things and I guess I always will but Randy and my kids have helped a lot and I only hope they know that when things get bad but I can usually work through them and I hope our family can try to get along better. So my life has never been peaceful or without conflict you see. I guess that's what life is meant to be.

Jennifer and Family Visit

Jennifer and her family arrived from Seattle yesterday. We enjoyed a wonderful family get-together with her and all the family except Marty and Tina and family as they were in ST. George. Jennifer will stop in ST
George today to visit on her way to Las Vegas, then San Diego and a ride up the north California coast and then home to Seattle. Even Marissa and Brian came. We had a very enjoyable time and Randy just loves that he now has little granddaughters who just adore him. I wish they could have stayed longer, but they have so many things planned that they could only stay one day.