LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!

Friday, Feb 25 – Marsha's basket hobby is taking over Paul's life. He spent most of the day making new basket bottoms for Marsha's future projects......PHEW!!! Not only did he have to cut our various shapes and sizes, but then had to drill a million holes in them and sand them.....he doesn't have time for his own hobby!

Marsha's basket is all done! She put several coats of shellac on it and that is the final step. Now which shape and size will she start next?

Tonight is the 50's Sock Hop at the Activity Center. Of course, Marsha volunteered us to help with the bubble blowing contest and the hula hoop contest, and we are in charge of the popcorn machine.....SHEESH! ......how does she get me involved in these things??? Oh well, being a judge means I don't have to compete!

Mr. Popcorn Man

Getting ready to cruise.

Carol in the mood.

Dig the hair.

Marsha doing the hand jive.

Elvis even made an appearance.

Mike and Lynn were the organizer of event. Thanks you two. Great job!

Saturday, February 26 - Back to Louisa's house for the second coat on the drywall. This project has turned into a two man job......only John and I are working again today.  Hopefully, he can get the drywall done today.

We are expecting some friends this evening.....Barb & Bruce. We met Barb & Bruce in Livingston, TX, at the Escapee Headquarters when we first started full-timing. They are from Two Harbors, MN – where they spend their summers at their cabin on the lake. They do some pretty extensive traveling in the winter and are here in the RGV to see how Winter Texans live. Bruce writes a wonderful blog. Great sense of humor.

B & B arrived safely around 4 o'clock. We met them along the road to guide them effortlessly to their site. After they settled in, we had a quick happy hour to do a little catching up and then gave them the nickel tour of the park. We decided to go out for dinner.....this turned into a questionable decision. Marsha and I are not big “eater outers,” so where do we go? Gave our friend Norm a quick call and he gave us a place. Friends Betty and Jay were also going. So the six of us loaded up and headed to the restaurant.......opps, CLOSED! So leader Paul heads down the road looking for someplace to eat. Next thing we know, we are out in the boonies, it's getting dark, the road ends, the Border Patrol is cruising around, ...WE BETTER GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE! Eventually we found a place to eat. Not the greatest but we enjoyed our friends! Another memorable experience.....ha! Ha!

Lt.-Rt…Barb, Betty, Jay, Paul and Bruce. Marsha took the pictures…waiter didn’t speak English, so who knows what would have shown up in the picture. Possibly something like the next picture?

That is right…GOAT. If you look at the picture above, see the window in the upper right corner, that is where it is hanging.

Jay and Betty actually had goat in their Enchiladas. Marsha tasted them. They were GOOOOOD!

Before we close, we would like to thank all those who have left us comments. Thanks for your support with Louisa’s project. Sometimes, when the comment is sent it has a no-reply address. We don’t have all our followers email addresses, so this is our way of saying “Thanks”.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

HELPING SOMEONE LESS FORTUNATE–PART 2

Wednesday, February 23 – Back to work on our little construction project. John, Dave, and I.

We then tackled the hanging of the drywall.

Jay stopped by for a short time and insulated the hot water tank.

Marsha worked all day in the yard. Marie and Louisa joined her for awhile.

Dry wall finished. Louisa is thrilled. Look at the new air conditioner. It looks so nice.

Louisa is so excited with her closet.

About 4 o'clock we called it a day. We only have a few pieces of corner bead to install on the corners around the windows and well be ready to mud. Paul and John are going to put the first coat of mud on the drywall Thursday morning. The guys will sleep well tonight!

Marsha, with some help from Betty, helped the men by cleaning up the work area of drywall dust and debris – Twice! By cleaning up a couple times, they at least minimized the dirt that gets tracked through the rest of the house. Louisa will have less cleaning to do when we are finished.

Thursday, February 24 – As planned, John and Paul put the first coat of mud on the drywall this morning. Everything went well, and they were done by ten o'clock. We'll need to put at least one more coat on and maybe a third in a couple rough areas......don't know exactly when that will happen????

Marsha went to her basket making class this morning and of course everyone raved over the progress she's made on her first basket. She wants to share some of Karen’s, teacher and friend, work. Her basket are amazing. She draws a design on the bottom of her baskets, her husband burns the image and then Karen paints them. EEEEEEgad…this gave Marsha too many ideas. She wants to go shopping later. There goes the income tax return.

She finished the weaving today, and it is ready for a coat of shellac tomorrow. So we headed to Home Depot to get the shellac and some other materials for making more baskets.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day.

HELPING SOMEONE LESS FORTUNATE

Monday, February 21 – We are involved in a community service project today helping a local Hispanic girl, Louisa, with some needed home improvements. Friends, Betty & Jay, met her several years ago and have been doing some home projects for her the last couple years. They are also teaching her English. This year's project involves adding insulation to part of her home. She lives in a cement block home. The walls are built with cement blocks and are simply painted inside. This is accepted practice this far south. The problem is Louisa doesn't make enough money to heat her home so she gets pretty cold when temperatures fall in the lower 30's and even the upper twenties like they did recently.

Along with three other couples, we will be working several days to give her a warmer place to live when temperatures drop. Our team will be adding 2x4 stud walls along the two exterior walls of her bedroom, replace a deteriorated window, insulate her hot water tank, build a wall to close off the utility room from the bedroom, build a closet, insulate these walls, then hang and finish drywall to finish the project. We will also do a few exterior jobs to repair a collapsing carport.

Before

Open holes to the outside were just stuffed with rags.

We put in a full day of....WORK!! We got all the stud walls built and are ready for the electrical work. Not much electrical to do except run a few new outlets. Then we'll insulate the walls and be ready for drywall.

Paul was the only one with a  construction background. Guess who was reluctant foreman by default. OH YES…one more item to note. No one else had ever used an air nailer either.

First-day’s finished work

While we we building walls, the ladies were outside doing yard clean-up. Things are shaping up pretty well. They will finish up outside on our next work day, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

Louisa brought home pizza for lunch. We are responded .....”Oh you didn't have to do that,” but it didn't take us long to gulp down those pizzas....ha ha!

WEATHER NOTE: Heard on the National Nightly News that McAllen, TX (that's where we are located) had the nation’s high temperature today.....95 degrees. We even turned on the AC for the first time in 2011. The dag gone wind finally quit blowing too!

MARSHA'S BASKET UPDATE: Bella loves helping Marsha with her new basket making hobby. The Sinew string she use is soooooooooo much fun to chase!!!! How cute!!!

Tuesday, February 22- Today is the park wide Garage Sale and Craft Show. Marsha made a cherry cheese cake for the bake sale.

We have pretty much stuff we are going to try to sell at the Garage Sale. Norm & Donna, the owners of the lot we're renting, brought over some things so it should be a very attractive stop for people looking for bargains. Hope we sell EVERYTHING!

Well.....didn't sell everything but did OK! It was very busy for the first half of the morning but by 11:00 business fell off pretty dramatically. We closed soon after. There were only a couple of the larger items we really wanted to sell, so we think we'll try selling them on Craig's List.

Went to social hour at our neighbor’s, Angie and Rick, house. All the volunteers for the sock hop met. We went over our duties, ate, drank and laughed. This is a great group of people to be with. We are very lucky to be part of their group.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you back real soon. Have a great day!