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Closing out of 2017!

We were so happy to have Tommy & Sheila (and of course Gracie and Newt) visit us at Bay Bayou in Florida for the Christmas Holiday.  We enjoyed our time together and look forward to seeing them again in Las Vegas in April!

I’ll overlap a little bit for 2018 in that we decided to visit with the “girls” in NH in January while we were still in Florida and could take advantage of Joshua watching the cats.  Unfortunately it wasn’t very cold so no skiing and no tubing but boy did we have fun with them.  Little ones grow so quickly that you must take advantage of any visits you can in order that you don’t miss too much.

Anyway this is our last post for 2017 (and don’t you think it’s about time since I am writing this in March of 2018, hehehe)

Year End, again!

We had planned on spending a week in Atlanta having our annual service performed but as they say, the best laid plans...we were there three weeks having some warranty items repaired and regular service.  Although waylaid I did drive to Tress' house in SC for the weekend and had a super fun visit.  Les stayed with the RV and the cats.  We then headed over for a short visit with Keegan and Owain.  Keegan is 8 already and growing by inches a week it seems.

Off to Florida until the end of the year.  We will stay at Bay Bayou as we have in the past.   They recently put in a big rig section with paved sites.  Here we will visit with old friends in the area and of course Joshua.  We also await the arrival Christmas Eve day of Tommy & Sheila our friends from Tennessee!

Ah, Summer and Fall in New England...

This time of the year finds us in southern New Hampshire visiting our two favorite little girls, my nieces daughters. We had the usual amount of fun and interesting places to take the children such as the butterfly farm and the New England Aquarium but we also enjoyed just spending time with the kids and building memories.

I do need to note that we attended David and Janets annual Labor Day cookout. Although it did rain most of the day David had crafted awninggs made out of tarp and everything was nice and dry. I would be remiss if I didn’t post a picture of Janet’s creation. You just can’t believe how talented she is. At first glance you would think this was what we were dining on but closer inspection will tell you this is one of her signature cakes!   I can barely sew a button and look what she is doing.

And to wind up our Fall our niece Liz and her friend Hannah ran a Half Marathon (they ran the full in May).  We were busting at the seams with pride for their accomplishment.  It has motivated me to think about training for a 5K next year, baby steps, lol.  Here is a photo of Liz immediately aftercrossing the finish line, hummmm barely broke a sweat!  We end with a family photo.

New Hampshire, Maine (Acadia NP), Campobello Island

So after the race we came down to Hampton Beach NH and stayed at the State Park which is directly on the beach.  We were so lucky that we were able to get in before the crowd.  This is a wonderful place and we had a chance to walk the beach almost every day, had Lyla over for an overnight and just generally enjoyed the beach area.  The weather was chilly and certainly not lay out on the beach weather but it's still very nice.  Here is the view from our bedroom window!

After a week we moved to Schoodic Campground which is located in Winter Harbor, Maine.  It is a National Park Campground although it is about a 45 minute drive over to the main entrance to the National Park in Acadia.  This park was fantastic!  The sites were about 100 foot pull through, all gravel with 20/30/50 AMP and water.  We had a great site and had excellent reception on the satellite system.  The rangers were very friendly and the camp hosts were also great.  We landed there on opening day.  Although it was still chilly we did have sunshine most days.  If you have a chance visit this one, it's a gem.  We toured the peninsula several times but one of the times stopped to take a photo of this couple lobster-fishing.  She stopped her day to wave and say hi! That's just what Maine folks do. 

Here is a side chuckle....we had been to Acadia before on the Cadillac Mountain side.  I had asked Les if we could go to the other section of the park in Winter Park.  We were both quite excited to check this out and up for a new adventure.  Well, after we arrived he recognized the peninsula and we decided that we had, in fact, been here before.  Apparently we will need to write down where we go now!  We still enjoyed it very much.

Decided to go to Campobello Island and see the family and childhood "cottage" of FDR.  It is located in New Brunswick, Canada and is the only National Park that is run jointly between the United States and Canada.  It was about a 2 hour drive from Acadia so we decided to make a day of it.  It was very interesting and a lovely Island.  Breezed through Customs in Canada, after all it's an Island and we were only going to be on it for a couple of hours.  I put "cottage" in quotes because it is a 34 room house overlooking the Bay of Fundy.  It was really neat to see it and we were glad we did.

The "Cottage"

Main dining room, note Megaphone on left.  This was how the children were called to dinner.

FDR's kitchen, note the name of the stove is President and was purchased by FDR's mother.

FDR's bedroom

Lubec, Maine view from Bridge

Lighthouse located in Canada on waterway with USA

Maine Marathon for Mothers Day

My niece Liz (mother to Lyla and Makynlee) and her friend Hannah have been training for months to run the Maine Marathon.  We agreed that we would drive up to the Red Apple Campground in Arundel, Maine and be their support team for the race.  By the way that camp is very nice, owners are super.  We drove from Florida to arrive in time to prepare for the race.  The girls came up on Saturday and spent the afternoon relaxing and having some homemade pizza for dinner before retiring for the night.  We were all up by 5:00 am and let me tell you it was an old fashion Nor'Easter in Maine with driving rain, 40 mph winds and temperatures that barely reached 45!  We felt so bad for them to have these conditions to run in (it was Liz's 2nd and Hannah's 1st marathon).  They both had run the 1/2 at Disney in February and conditions were beautiful.

Anyway, Les helped them with their "raincoats" which were black trash bags (always the fashion for this type of weather for runners).  Off we went to the start line and off they went!  We saw them at the 8.7 mile marker in Kennebunk and they were looking strong, wet but strong.

We next saw them at the 18 mile mark and the winds were very strong as they were running the coastal portion of the Marathon.  They looked like they were ready to drop but we cheered them on and told them they were in the homestretch!  They both perked up knowing that it was close.  And before you knew it here they came through the Finish Line!  We take our hats off to both of them for their fortitude and strength in teamwork.  Bravo!

Oklahoma Rally to Florida Wedding!

We met our friends Tommy & Sheila and headed to Oklahoma caravan style.  We arrived safely at the Windstar Casino RV Park for a rally with 150 other friends, lol.  The weather was okay, not perfect as it was a little cold and rainy at times but we all had a great time together, as always.  Plenty of laughs and food, oh the food!  They were going to head to Branson, MO and we were heading to Clearwater FL for a wedding so we parted company early Sunday morning.  Les and I drove for a couple of hours and came upon a terrible scene.  It took us a few minutes literally to realize we had driven through the area of Canton Texas which only hours before had been struck with a deadly tornado.  We saw cars in trees and roofs and houses gone with debris everything.  It was horrible to see and we could only imagine how devastating it was for those involved.

We made it to Florida fairly quickly, through rain, tornadoes (Mississippi) and smoke from Florida wildfires. The wedding was the first Saturday of May and the weather that day was perfect, cool, sunny, comfortable. We enjoyed ourselves and were happy that we made the jaunt.  Of course had the chance to see some friends, Joshua, and get some dental work done.