A little ketchup, err, catsup, umm catch-up!

Stu headed out on his motorcycle trip on September 22nd. All goes well, he'll be back home later today. I doubt he took photos, but I know he enjoyed his time with family and firefighter friends. But more than three weeks is long enough to be gone. [smiling]

Yesterday the #2doods went to doggy day care and got groomed as well. Cooper is a bit short, but it will last longer that way. Murphy is still a fuzzy mess but only had his head, feet & hiney done. He'll get a real trim next time around, after all, he's only 3.5 months old. He has his next vet visit on Friday and he has met his 15 day waiting period for Healthy Paws insurance. I don't foresee anything being wrong, but glad to have it. Cooper already met his deductible and we've gotten our first refund check. We highly recommend it [click here for the family & friends discount]!

While they were occupied, I ran all the usual errands: Tractor Supply (dog food), breakfast at McDonald's, Petco (of course), TJ Maxx (for me & the dogs), Sam's Club and Walmart for groceries. By the time I picked them up, I was exhausted.

Ahhh - McDonald’s, always entertaining. It's where you come to charge your phone, make calls about jobs and low-income housing, discuss the movies you want to see, talk about the hot girls on Craigslist, oh, and maybe eat something. LOL. Such interesting conversations flowing around me.

Then Walmart - I didn't take a photo of the 180#, 5' 8" 20-something girl slipping into one of these. This photo was disturbing enough...Facebook friends keep reassuring me they are Halloween costumes. Um, they were on display in sleepwear. LOL!

I may have mentioned that Murphy is a chowhound - no more freefeeding for Cooper. Little Murphy scarfed his food down so quickly and one of the first recommendations from the Doodle groups was to feed him on a baking sheet, even adding ice cubes to keep things sliding around was mentioned. Well, that worked but he isn't slowing down much and after over two weeks of eating this way, he was still getting done way before Cooper.

So I bit the bullet and ordered a slow feeder bowl and used it for the first time at lunch today. WOW! Cooper was actually done first, by a couple of minutes. This thing works wonderfully! I read a lot of the reviews, there are multiple bowls in many different patterns. The flower pattern seemed to do the most to slow the dogs down, so that's what I ordered and it works!

I love my Kindle e-reader...but it seems as though I've neglected it for the past few years. This morning when I went to charge it and see how my uploads were doing, this message greeted me. INSUFFICENT SPACE Oops! See...I've been saying I need to take time to read more.

Last but not least, here is a cute video of the pups playing Chase Me with each other.



Ciao for now!

Getting ready to hit the road....

It seems like we have gone non-stop lately, and actually, we have been. We made a quick trip to NJ to visit a childhood friend of Stu's, Tonia. Their parents were friends and the four kids stayed friends for years. But as it does, life intervened and they hadn't seen each other in well over 20 years. Since she was a four hour drive away, we popped up there and spent two fun days. I know this won't be the last time we will get together - life is too short!

Here is a quick photo I snapped on the drive back...

We did manage to see a couple more movies since our last post. First was Deep Water Horizon - excellent movie based on real facts. We really enjoyed the 'edge of your seat' action! Next was The Accountant - oh my!! The trailers were good but the movie was amazing (at least to us). We loved that they left it open for a sequel. The last was the new Jack Reacher movie. While we aren't huge Tom Cruise fans, we had heard the movie was pretty good. Well, it was. While Cruise is aging, so is his character; getting a bit fleshy and a little slower made for more realism. But the best part was the co-star, one kick butt female character who added a lot to the movie.

We also had one last night with Stu's daughters and family. Melissa had won a basket of crabs (already cooked). Toss in some burgers and hot dogs for those of us who don't eat them, some chips (Old Bay chips for the Maryland-ites) and potato salad/macaroni salad, and no one went hungry! Here are a few pics....

Last time I mentioned our current health status:

• Three vision done, one to go
• Two dental done
• Two GP done
• One hearing done
• One mammogram done
• One aorta ultrasound done
• One colonoscopy scheduled
• Two skin screening by dermatologist

The skin screenings were done, Stu ended up with three biopsies (still waiting on results) and I had several spot frozen. Had a nice scab on the end of my nose, it gets frozen every year thanks to many years of Florida living.

Stu got new hearing aids (thanks to Workmen's Comp) and he loves them. Much better than the old pair (which were failing frequently), and he can tune them with his iPhone. He also got his new driving glasses and sunglasses. He was amazed at how much more he was seeing. Mammogram, aorta screening and colonoscopy were all fine. Phew!

The only new thing is I will be getting cataract surgery next spring when we return to the area in May. We are opting for spring visits now for several reasons. More motorcycle riding weather here and enjoying the fall in Tennessee more. I will be getting both eyes done and can't wait. It's gotten really hard for me to drive and even the computer and reading is difficult. Sucks to grow old but it's still better than the alternative.

On our many trips across the Bay Bridge into the Annapolis area, we saw watched as several ships crossed under the bridge. Such a fun view, going over the bridge and seeing them cross under us.

Now we are packing up and heading south in the morning. If all goes well, we will spend two overnights before arriving on our lot at Bee's RV Resort in Clermont. We then have less than two weeks before we fly to California for our cruises. We get to spend a couple of days with our friends (and Stu's former partner), Dottie and Bill, before cruise number one - 7 day Mexican Riviera. When we return, we stay on the ship (in the same cabin) and head out for our 15 day Hawaiian cruise. So excited! Stu will be diving, I will be sightseeing and we both will be taking a helicopter tour over one island.

So we will try to post at least once before we leave but after that, it may be a while before you hear from us. Don't worry...we'll be having fun!

Ciao for now!

Life is grand!

Besides medical appointments (still on-going), we have squeezed out a little family time with grandkids. Here are some photos to prove it!

The Twinkies - Celebrating their 22nd birthday

Our youngest grandbaby, just turned 2. Enjoying her time at Cracker Barrel. 

Who doesn't love ice cream?
Ages 10 & almost 8.

Not all our grandkids are in Maryland area - here are 3 of mine, enjoying their vacation in Lake Tahoe.
Ages 10, almost 14 & almost 15. We don't get to see them often enough, hope to this year.

My grandson Ryan with his girlfriend, Nicole. He is still recovering from his accident but doing well.

Another passel of grandkids, these are in NY state.
We hope to see at least some of them this summer. Been way too long!

Of course, believe it or not, these aren't ALL our grandkids - we just don't have good new photos of the rest. LOL! If they don't get posted on Facebook....you know how that goes.

We also have a small passel of great-grandkids, most of whom we haven't met. That's for another day.

Ciao for now!

A little of this a little of that...

First things first - my grandson is doing very well. Thank you to everyone for all their thoughts, prayers, good wishes, support and encouragement. It's been slower than we might have wished for but better than we anticipated. He still has a long way to go but he keeps smiling, albeit a bit crooked.

He has no insurance and faces months of therapy as his various broken bones heal and he works to regain function lost from the brain injury (and skull fractures). Family is helping as much as possible and his friends are chipping in, too, with the creation of a GoFundMe page.

Smiling through it all (hoping the right side joins in the smile soon).

He was discharged yesterday, spent a night at his dad and step-mom's and friends are driving him from Kansas to Colorado Springs where he will continue his recuperation with his mother (my daughter) and step-dad.

Stu has been enjoying his visit with family in Maryland and Delaware. He spent several days with his brother and nieces (and all their offspring).

Brother, Scott, and Stu 

Nieces, grand-nieces and grand-nephew

Then he moved to his youngest daughter's house and enjoyed our youngest grandbaby, Waverly. Many meals were consumed, many steps were taken in the mall, many smiles were given (and taken).

Step-daughter, Bev, and granddaughter, Waverly

At the mall to see the Easter Bunny - no go. Didn't like it any better than Santa. LOL!

Now he is in Delaware with Olivia, Jesse and of course, Sadie (who still loves sleeping in the sun).

Today he is getting the bike serviced and if all continues as planned, he will head homeward tomorrow. He plans to take the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel, which adds a few miles but makes it a more interesting ride. He should arrive home on Saturday (just in time for a week of rain here).

Ciao for now!

Where the heck are we?

Ahhh, busy, busy, busy bees! We had a great month in the northeast, visiting family and friends. We almost had to move to Pennsylvania for a bit but Hurricane Joaquin changed direction. Phew!

All medical stuff is done - no major issues, even with a few extra tests. My internist told me my liver was unremarkable and my dermatologist said my skin was boring (both are good things). Stu may be getting his cataracts done this June, so we will be back in Maryland then to see how that goes. Mine are at least another year away.

The cold moved into the NE quickly and we made our escape on Sunday after a night of near freezing temps in Delaware. Our first night was spent in a nice campground,  RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads. They offer 13 nice, long, level pull-throughs set up for one night stayovers for a $30 rate. It was perfect since the temps were back down into the 30's. Brrrrr.....

The next two nights were spent Wally-docking and the same at Flying-J. Today we arrived in Wildwood, FL where Alliance Coach will be installing our new washer and dryer tomorrow. We've been here before and love the service. We are parked in their campground and they have extended their wifi out there! So we have 50 amp electric which means we can run both A/C units, water and wifi. We dumped as we came in and they are going to do the install without us moving. Ahhh.....

Now on to our connectivity. When we made the move to Ecuador, we knew we'd be gone long enough that it made no sense to keep our Verizon aircard, even though it was unlimited data. Reluctantly, we let it go and cancelled our plan. Now that we are back, things have changed a LOT. No more 90 go plans at AT&T for my cell phone, no more standalone data plans for aircards, etc, etc, etc. So we asked around and finally settled on getting Stu a new iPhone and my taking over his, buying a monthly data plan giving us 12GB. This is addition to our Karma broadband device for which we pay $14/GB.

We had no idea how much that would provide us so we've been monitoring our usage. We had 15 days left in our billing cycle and we started using my iPhone 4S as a broadband hotspot. It works quite well and has the added advantage of being a 3G device which uses less data than Stu's iPhone 6 which is 4G/LTE.

Now that we are paying per GB, we are more careful about watching videos and updating apps. We try to do that at free wifi spots (like now). This also means in the future, there may be less blogs and less photos uploaded. Time will tell..

That said, I have photos from our last couple of weeks, but haven't uploaded them from our phones and iPads. We have been SO busy, barely a spare moment to deal with the little things. And once we leave here on Friday to move to our winter spot at Bee's RV Resort, there won't be much spare time. We have a couple of days to pack for our 2 week cruise as well as our trip back to Ecuador.

We will have good Internet access while in Ecuador but will also be busy liquidating all our household goods before our return here the end of December. Oh, and seeing all our friends before we go...LOL!

Ciao!

   

Bike Ride to Ocean City, MD

The weather was perfect, no jacket needed, sunny but not too hot. We piled onto the Tri-Glide and headed to Ocean City, MD for the day. Stu grew up in this area and has been many times since he was a boy. Me? I'd never been, even though we come to MD every year. I'd heard so much about it and Thrasher's Fries, I knew it was time to finally visit.

The ride there goes from farm land to small town to small cities, back to farm land and small towns. Very enjoyable riding!

[remember to click thumbnails to see larger images]

We parked the bike and spent the day walking along the boardwalk. As anticipated, our first stop was Thrasher's for some fries. They were as good as I'd been told (already craving more). We had a young pigeon settle in by our feet but he wasn't all that interested in the fries, not like the sea gulls were.

Here are some shots from the day - you can see them all in my SmugMug album. I took a LOT of photos...LOL!

We ended the day with a beer and dinner at the Frog Bar & Grill where saw the start of a pretty sunset.

The ride home gave us the prettiest sunset yet! Enjoy....I did!

It was just about the perfect day!