HOLIDAY TIME

Monday, December 21 – Beautiful day. Just hung-out around campground. We did go on a tour of Escapees CARE Center….Continuing Assistance for Retired Escapees. CARE is a Texas-licensed, adult day-care center here at Rainbow's End. Its mission is to provide a safe haven with professional assistance at affordable prices for members whose travels are permanently ended because of age or temporarily interrupted because of health problems. The facility provides older RVers who need medical attention after surgery, a heart attack, stroke, or those who are suffering from other medical issues. You receive three meals per day, a place to park your RV, help with laundry, cleaning, rides to doctor visits, and any support you need. You still live in your RV at night but spend days in the care center, as needed. All of this at about a third of the cost to comparative adult care facilities. They have a neat train set up for the holidays. Check out the additional pictures to see the train.

TV Room


Gift Shop


Dining area


Meeting area


Garden Sitting Area



Garden Walk


See additional pictures

Wednesday, December 23 – Texans are proud to say that everything in Texas is BIG! Well, let me tell you about one thing.....when it rains in Texas it R – A – I – N – S !!!!!! It comes down in buckets! Guess it's better than S#&*W! Turned out to be a pretty nice day....but humid.

Have to take care of final preps for departure to Tyler tomorrow morning. Need to go up to the office and pay my electric bill. Moving the bikes over to our neighbors/friends site so I don't have to load them until we return here on the 26th. Putting things in place so they don't roll all over the place and making sure Santa will know where to find us!

Marsha baked some more cookies today to take to Kelly's house. Did some house cleaning and took Bella, our cat, for her daily walk. People around here get a hoot out of seeing her walk on a leash....just like a little dog!

Off to “social” at the activity center to say “good-bye” to everyone, and then we'll play Mexican Train this evening . We'll miss our new friends!

Thursday, December 24 – CHRISTMAS EVE! WOW! We experienced our first Texas thunderstorm over night. Quite a bit of thunder and heavy lightning and of course the accompanying wind. A tornado “watch” was issued for our area....wonderful! No problems but the noise...all was well!

We had to switch to “Plan B” due to severe weather. We were suppose to have storms and WIND warnings so we decided to leave the MH here in Livingston and drive the car to Kelly's. We'll all crowd in with her for the weekend! The important thing is to be together for Christmas!!!!

Kelly and Scott adopted not one but TWO kittens.They are so little compared to Bella. Bella was traumatized by Kelly's two new kittens. Bella spent most of the time in the bedroom trying to maintain her space. A lot of hissing and pounding of her chest!!!!!! We now know where the term “scaredy cat” originated.

Kelly’s kitten, Chloe



Scott’s kitten, Abby


Christmas Eve church service was AMAZING! We again worshipped at Scott’s church, Colonial Hills Baptist Church. The music, singing, entire service was beautiful. The choir director sang the Lord’s Prayer. Not a big surprise here…Marsha had tears in her eyes. What a push over! After we got back Carrie and Marsha went to work putting out about ten different hour 'droves for us to eat. I ate too much!

Friday, December 25 – MERRY CHRISTMAS! Had a wonderful holiday at Kelly's.......Santa was very good to us!  Scott is a great cook. He started our day out with a super breakfast of French toast, bacon and toast. We had a delicious dinner. He made a Carolina Barbecued Pork….WOW! This was dynamite. He then made a new recipe…Crock Pot Stuffing. I forgot to get the recipe for this one. Marsha is waiting for Kelly to email it to her. If anyone is interested in either of these recipes, send Marsha an email, pmbweaver@gmail.com. She would be happy to send it to you. Carrie and Marsha also contributed to the dinner with salad, rigatoni, and a fresh green bean, mushroom and onion dish.

Marsha, Kelly, Paul, Carrie


The girls get a Peppermint tree.



Chloe gets into the act.


Abby follows Chloe's lead.


The girls always get lottery tickets in their stocking. This year Santa brought Marsha some Bingo lottery tickets. She and the girls took about an hour uncovering the numbers. Marsha was the big winner….winning $18.00. She even took a picture of the winning card. She thinks we should visit Las Vegas real soon. She feels lucky….Geesh!



Eastern Texas has a tradition of shooting fireworks off on Christmas Eve through New Year’s day. It was way too cold for us to do it Christmas Eve night, but Christmas day was beautiful. We got out the sparklers and celebrated like a real Texan does.

The girls had a big time.


Marsha was having a great time.



Not sure what Paul was having.















See more pictures of Christmas day.

Saturday, December 26 - Returned to Livingston this morning and Carrie went on to Houston. We had a great Christmas at Kelly's........except Bella. Bella spent most of Saturday sleeping. She was so happy to get back to her own stomping ground.

We “chilled-out” the rest of the day in the MH. Watched some football and rested for our travel day on Sunday.

Thanks for visiting. Y’all come back now!

WRAPPING IT UP IN LIVINGSTON

Saturday, December 19 – Beautiful day today! Very sunny with high in the 70's....Yes! Planned on watching the Division III Football Championship between my ole' Alma Mater, Mount Union College, and Wisconsin Whitewater. They are playing in Roanoke, VA. There is a huge winter storm dumping 1-2 feet of snow, so the game has been delayed till late this afternoon. We would have been able to watch it on ESPN2 but now that is postponed, it is on ESPNClassics….can’t get that:(   UNC plays Texas in basketball. Kelly, our oldest daughter, is a big UNC fan and will be in Dallas at the Cowboys HUGE stadium to see the game. Now, who do I root for???

Well, Mt. Union lost and UNC lost. BUMMER.

Sunday, December 20 – What's with the dang weather.....32* this morning when I got up. Had both furnaces running! Good news is the high today will be in the 60s!!!

Received an email from Bill Smyth this morning. It was in response to a posting I made on a blog. In my signature block, I write: “formally Canton, OH.” Well, he precedes to tell me that he and his wife are full-timers since 2005, after selling their house in Lake Cable – the same neighborhood Marsha and I lived in for 27 years! I returned and email. See if I can find out more about them. It's a small world!

Marsha and I attended the First United Methodist Church this morning. Very nice Advent Sunday service. Sang many of our favorite Christmas carols. Their Chancel choir was absolutely excellent. They had a harmonica player who was so good, he sounded like he was playing a flute. Rev. Mike Mayhugh had a very moving sermon on “Prophecy Fulfilled.” (Micah 5:2-5) We enjoyed the service. Everyone was very friendly.

Man, was it a nice day today. Sunny and in the low 70's. It is so refreshing to have sunny days. So we decided to take a ride to…….the Allan B. Polunsky Unit. Individuals convicted of a capital offense and sentenced to death are transported from the county of conviction to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Correctional Institutions Division in Livingston, TX….just lovely! Male Death Row offenders are currently confined at the Polunsky Unit. We didn’t stick around once we saw that they search your entire vehicle before you can even park. We had no business being there so away we went. Scary place!


We also visited the Trade Days of Livingston. It is held in Pedigo Park. This is a huge park with all types of sports fields, picnic areas, etc. They have a big light show there also. Shoppers can enjoy two covered pavilions and open-air lots that are host to a wide variety of food, arts and crafts, collectible and antique vendors. There weren’t many shoppers when we were there, but it was early.









Can’t find any food vendors in Ohio like these.  Baked potato? Turkey Legs? What is a Po-Boy Pie?





How about some of these light fixtures? Pretty nifty. I can see them in some of your homes. The first one is only $499.00. What a steal! If we only had more room in the MH.



We went up to the ice cream social tonight at the activity center. A very large group there tonight. We really enjoyed talking to the other RVers. Stayed and played Mexican Train. Again, we had a gang. Our new friends, Joyce and Don, stayed and played for the first time. It was a great time!

Another great day! Thanks for visiting. Hurry on back….ya hear!

#2 INJECTION

Wednesday, December 16 - Still wake up early. It’s rare that I sleep past 5 a.m. I try like crazy to stay up later in the evening but it's tough. The sidewalks roll up early here, nothing on TV, so I sit down to read and the next thing I know I'm asleep at 9:30. Holy Cow! Need to find an evening activity that keeps me awake. Guess I'll have to become a computer Geek!

Decided to go ahead and get a second spinal block injection before leaving the Houston area. Appointment is scheduled for Friday at 11:30!

Nice day today......finally. Washed the motor home and did several outside jobs.....Wonderful!

Marsha and I went up and played Mexican Train tonight. That's always fun.

Thursday, December 17 - ITS OUR 2-MONTH ANNIVERSARY! Yep, we've been on the road since Oct. 17, 2009. One thing we've done, that many beginners fail to do is to take it slow and not act like you're on a vacation. I'm sure that's because of family time in Texas for the holidays and getting this “roughed-up” body of mine in shape.

Went up to the activity center for dinner tonight – pork chops. We enjoyed talking with new friends, Don and Joyce, and out doing each other with travel stories. FUN!

Friday, December 18 – Off to Houston, again. We've made a several trips to the Houston area. Mostly for Paul's doctor appointments. I'm getting a second spinal block injection today. All went well. Home by 4 p.m. and chilled the rest of the evening. Marsha caught up on some of her reading and playing with Bella.