Oops-Forgot the Pictures!

I guess I'm a little out of practice with this. And of COURSE everyone wants to see the pictures!!!! So here they are...

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, as usual, our plans turned out just slightly different than anticipated. We had originally planned to take a run down to Columbus, spend a couple peaceful days with Brenda and her family, and then take off on I-75 for places south after eating a big Thanksgiving dinner cooked by my daughter. Well.... a few days before Thanksgiving Arnie (my son-in-law) was FINALLY diagnosed with an infected gall bladder, after suffering for almost four years with stomach pains. He ended up being scheduled for surgery on Tuesday to have his gall bladder removed. If everything had gone perfectly, the surgery would have been done on an outpatient basis. However, since he was literally FULL of gallstones, and his gall bladder was quite horribly infected, they ended up doing a big incision and keeping him in the hospital until Thursday. Plus, Brenda is really busy with her new bakery right now, so things got just a little hectic (but everything turned out fine in the end).
We had a relatively uneventful drive down to Columbus, other than the fact that it rained the great majority of the trip, which is always a little stressful when you're driving an RV and pulling a car behind. But we made it down to Buck Creek State Park in Springfield, Ohio, in about 6-1/2 hours, which was pretty good. We got set up and Brenda and Tessa and the oh-so-adorable little Emma stopped in about 9:00 that night to show off the baby! Brenda had spent the majority of the day at the hospital with Arnie and Tessa ran the bakery for her. Arnie wasn't feeling too good Tuesday night so Brenda stayed at the hospital overnight and got up at 5:00 AM to head back to the bakerty to stock it for the day and get some cake orders done for customers. Dave and I headed out to the bakery in the morning and got there around 11:00, got underfoot for a while, and then took Emma with us so the two girls could work in peace. Dave went back to the campground and got in a little fishing (it was gorgeous sunshine all afternoon) and I took Emma home, made a couple pumpkin pies and played with the baby. I had kind of forgotten how a little three-month old baby can totally consume your time! But what a little sweetie she is!
On Thanksgiving, we took Brandi with us and let her play in Brenda's fenced-in yard with her two dogs and we all pitched in and got dinner started. At about 11:00 Arnie called and said he'd been released so Brenda went and got him, while Dave and I finished the majority of the dinner (although Brenda ordered me to wait on the gravy until she got there!). But after all was said and done, we had a great dinner, Chelsey and Ashley were there, Arnie did remarkably well and the day was really wonderful. It was great to see Chelsey and talk to her about school (she'll be a "buckeye" in January, as a junior in the pre-vet program) and her work at the Humane Society - she looks and sounds wonderful! And of course it was wonderful to spend time with the whole family - it makes me sad to think I won't see any of them until next spring, so my "thanks" for "thanksgiving" are that my family is happy and well and everything is going well, after some tough struggles earlier in the year. (My only regret is that I can only be in one place at a time, so wasn't able to spend any time with Alan and his family, or with my mom and the rest of the family at the big family Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house.)
And, now! Off to Florida! We'll pull up tomorrow morning and head down I-75, probably stay Friday night south of Knoxville, Saturday night somewhere in southern Georgia, and be at our first state park in the Fort Meyers area on Tuesday. Wish us luck! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and hopefully my next update will be from Koreshan State Park.

Getting Ready to Leave

Today is Sunday, November 20, and we're just about packed and ready to leave. We plan on leaving Tuesday morning for Columbus, so tomorrow should just involve doing the final steps like filling the water tank, loading up the kayaks and bikes, and transferring the food to the refrigerator and freezer. Although we're pretty good at this by now, each year we do a couple things differently - for one thing, this year we're going to take Dickens' "kitty tower" along. I'm sacrificing my little rolling file cabinet and giving those few precious feet of floorspace to Dickens - what a nice mom, huh? And this year the major food-related emphasis is going to be carbs and sugar! I came in with a slightly higher sugar level at my physical this year, so right now I am all about getting that down a little lower. It'll be fun to see how healthy we can eat on this trip - I even found room for my food processer, and, of course, I can't leave home this year without my Keurig! Last year, I worked about 20 hours a week for Kerkstra, but this year I only plan on helping out "as needed" - we'll have to see what that ends up being! But it does mean that I don't have to pack the VERY large amount of files and binders that I did last year.
Dave had his knee left knee replaced about 10 weeks ago and is doing very well with his recovery, so we're optimistic that he'll be able to start biking and walking as soon as we get to Florida. He's already done some biking up here, so he's feeling really good about the prospects when we get down there. Other than his surgery (which actually went very well), we had a really good summer - I did a lot of work for Kerkstra again this year, which was great. This was my fourth summer working for them, and it's just been a great experience for me. I love the people I work with there (and, yes, I know some of you are reading my blog, so you'll think I'm just pandering to you, but it really is true). But it's starting to get PRETTY chilly these days and it is TIME for us to hit the road.
The first step, just like last year, is to spend Thanksgiving with Brenda and her family in Columbus - and this year I hope to spend the majority of those few days holding my brand-new little great-grandbaby Emma! Plus, Brenda's opened her new bakery since the last time I was down there, so I'm VERY excited to check that out. We should be down in Columbus by early afternoon on Tuesday, we'll spend Wednesday and Thursday with the family, and then Friday morning we jump on I-75 and stay pretty much on it until we get to Fort Meyers.
So that's our plan! Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'll post again once we get on the road - expect Emma pictures on the next post!