Kathleen & Paul Smith's RV Travelblog

09/26/09 - Busy Exiles (Addition to previous post)
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At summer's beginning we knew we had a few "irons in the fire" ... but thought that we'd be able to keep fairly close to our plans. (The best laid plans of mice and men...)

We did manage to get up to Oregon, first to attend to Debbie and Steve's wonderful wedding, back to El Centro, only back Oregon a month later to have new batteries installed in the LazyDaze. We were grateful for the opportunity to visit high school chums, Donna and Skip, in Eugene.

We then drove to the Bay Area to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary on August 23 (the 29th was the actual anniversary, but school schedules for the grandkids saw us celebrate a tad early). We had a delightful day - lovely guests, good food and a little ceremony - even a little "pool party" after the Anniversary Gala! That evening we all adjourned to Chevy's Restaurant for a nice dinner.

The final "must do" activity before summer was over was a trip up to our usual camp-out site. We drove up to Sonora on Thursday to avoid some Labor Day traffic. We stayed at our favorite camping area; the Sonora Fairgrounds. The following day, Paul Jr and family came up and, keeping the LazyDaze at the fairgrounds, drove the Element down to camp to spend time with them. (We had determined to stay camped in Sonora but spend the weekend days at camp.)

Paul David invited Kathleen to a game of what he called "Polish Horseshoes" and what fun we had! Kathleen even managed to get a few of the things we throw to go around the bars!

Besides visiting with all our friends, enjoying the "non camp fire" and singing the campfire songs, we witnessed the "flight" of a rocket. Casey brought a compressed air/water powered rocket. The rocket was set in place

Lift off~

Off it goes!

Another annual event is the Niles City-Wide Flea Market - what an assortment of things to be sold!

Jess and Pike sold water to make a few pennies...

On September 1st we celebrated the 10th birthday of granddaughter Caroline. She did a perfect job of blowing out all the candles on her cake!

One of the things she wanted was a pinata. In the afternoon Kathleen and the birthday girl went off to purchase a pinata and the candy to fill it. After the birthday dinner, this was the next order for the evening!

Successs at last in breaking the pinata!

After all the candy had been scooped up by the children, we retired to the house for the opening of the presents.

Caroline has not been in the United States for the celebration of her birthday, so this was a special year and time for her and she seemed to have had a perfect day!

Happy Birthday, dear Caroline!

The following weekend we all (Kitty and family and ourselves), determined to help out Christina and Chet - we agreed to take the girls to school in the morning, giving Chris time to work on their new foundation. Kitty would pick up the girls from school at 3:15, and she'd have dinner fixed in the evenings. As it has turned out, Kitty prepares lunch for the foundation workers, helps with the laundry, and has a marvelous meal on the table each evening and watches the children. In between times she tries to get a little time catching up on her studies.

A week and a half ago son Paul Jr joined Chet and Chris on their house foundation tasks. Paul hoped to spend two weeks (Monday-Friday) helping them get their foundation completed.

He has also been spending his weekends working on our apartment

Paul Jr's daughter, Juliana and his wife, Miriam helped him on the weekends, too. The women cleaned and painted bedrooms. The one bedroom was so gross that it was hard to believe anyone would leave a place in the mess this one was in. Suffice it to say that the occupant of that bedroom used body parts to "decorate" the walls - a most unpleasant job of clean up for Juliana and Miriam!

We began work on this particular apartment with one idea - install French Doors. Cleaning and painting it seemed a quick and easy job (something Kathleen has done by herself many times).

While cleaning and painting the bathroom, the floor by the bathtub and the wall next to it did not look good. Once the flooring was lifted a bit, we ended up removing toilet and sink, removing all the flooring and sub-flooring and are in the process of putting in new flooring, toilet and sink.

The medicine cabinet and other wall cabinet was not repairable, so we've replaced those two items, as well.

Moving on.... During the kitchen clean-up, we discovered the range was another disaster, so that will be replaced as soon as we can get around to it - hopefully this week end. The kitchen floor shows several breaks so we will either put in tile or ?. The counter top and sink must be replaced, and Christina came out one weekend to help (taking time off her own rebuilding job). Here she is cutting back the present counter top.

(Chet spent the previous day helping out, too - another big help, especially when they had plenty of work to do on their foundation.

Son-in-law Jamie has been a valuable help. He goes up to Oakland with us nearly every week day and replaced all the electrical outlets with new ones.

He installed a few new ceiling lights, replaced a kitchen window that was a real challenge, as the windows are the old fashioned metal ones, and the window was reachable only by climbing up a ladder. He's replaced the front doorbell, installed new knobs on all the kitchen cupboards - and this is only to name a few of the jobs he's successfully tackled.

So what have Paul and Kathleen been doing all the while? Paul has set himself to replacing the floors in the living room and two bedrooms. It is a big job, up and down a lot, much measuring and cutting, and he doggedly goes about the process without a complaint.

Kathleen took over painting the remaining rooms, kitchen cupboards, washing all the windows inside and out, fitting screens on the windows and improving the room that can be used as a laundry room or an office. The windows had been painted closed for years, but are now open and clean!

On the 24th we left work and scooted down to Fremont to eat and then head off for Berkeley where granddaughter Juliana was in a water polo match. Her high school team had a great game with Encinal.

(Jules is #19) Jules and O'Dowd team lost by one point but it was fun-to-watch. Jules delighted us by scoring. Kitty, Jamie, Sissy and Ellen joined us.

Kitty is a former water polo-er. Watching her niece play brought back many memories. She was also explained why certain calls were made, and explained parts of the play.

On the 25th we took most of the day off from "apartment work" and prepared a pasta dinner for Kitty's birthday. Since they live in Mexico, we don't often have the opportunity to get the family together to celebrate birthdays, and their being here gave us the opportunity to have a little family dinner/birthday dinner. Chris and Chet's living room had all the furniture moved to one side so that the foundation work under it could be accomplished. That being done Jess and Pike replaced the various pieces of furniture and made using the living room possible again! Inasmuch as so much construction continues, space in the Melnarik house is limited. Even so, we were able (thanks to Jamie and Jess) to comfortable seat all 15 of us.

Kitty is allergic to dairy so we were especially happy to find a vegan cake for her to enjoy. (There are so many it's hard to count the candles... :o)

She blew out ALL the candles!

Ellen and Caroline decorated the dining room for their mom and everyone got into the act. Catie and Becky added their artwork and all in all, it was a happy affair. Here she opens up the surprise package of the event; a new camera from Chris and Chet!

Once dinner was over, Miriam, Jess and Pike gave TaTa a huge hand in getting the dishes washed and put away. Following that job, Miriam joined Kitty, Christina and Juliana at a good game of Gin Rummy.

PaPa did his “usual” after dinner scene

What a nice break for all of us from our busy days!

One sour note on the horizon; son Paul somehow managed to get a metal splinter in his knee and while he extracted some of it, another part seems to have remained in the knee, creating an infection. He went to the doctor after many dour threats from all of us, and the doctor drained some of the infection, gave him antibiotics and ordered him to keep the leg elevated.

He works a full 8 hours a day at his job (home construction) and this puts a real crimp into his day job, his help to Chris and Chet and his work on our place. In a way, it can be seen as a blessing, as Paul Jr works far, far too hard and too long. He has to take it easy for a few days; the rest of us can accomplish some of the smaller tasks at our respective work sites, and gives us another opportunity to celebrate our wonderful relationships with one another.

October 1 will see Kitty, Jamie, Jess, Pike, Sissy and Ellen take off for Wisconsin to see Jamie's grandma, Maca who is 96 years old. Jamie has other matters to take care of back in Wisconsin and Chicago, so they need to be on the road, hopefully before the winter weather begins.

Paul has a cancer treatment on October 15th, so we'll be leaving here early October, too.

So we've had an interesting journey in northern California this year, and we'll be back to complete work on the apartment as soon as is feasible.

In the meantime, we've lost a very dear member of our Sunbeam Family (John Burns) and very soon we'll devote much more time and space to that.

Love and Peace, Kathleen and Paul, 50 and counting...

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Life on the Road with Paul & Kathleen: "Not bad for two dumb kids from Ohio" - Proving once again that it's never too late to have a happy childhood

Our Lazy Daze at Kirk Creek Camp on CA Hwy 1 40 mi N of Hearst's Castle 11/24/03: Shortly after full-timing began.	Foretravel & Toad at Rio Grand Village Full Hookup Camp, Big Bend NP 5/24/06 - Note the Turkey Buzzard at left with wings outstretched