What Else is Happening?

I'm disappointed that Amy has stopped blogging.  She is a much better writer than I, but it does take a lot of time so I understand.  I will try to do my little bit to record some of what is going on with the rest of my family. 

Amelia started first grade at her new school.  She is doing great.  She started first grade reading and has already advanced to reading "chapter books".  This is a picture of her on the first day of school.

Her teacher asked if they wanted her to have more challenging spelling words so she went from a test containing words like "pat" and "the" to a test containing words like "science", "alphabet", "environment" and "attract".  She is doing great.

She and her mom dressed alike for their first spirit day at school.

And they have already been to two musicals, "The Little Mermaid" and "Mary Poppins".  Amelia said her favorite song is "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".

And she enjoys attending the high school football games with her mom.  She told me that she got "Wolfie's" autograph.

She came down with her dad this weekend and spent the night with us Friday night.  She brought Bubba his birthday presents and some Publix cupcakes to help him celebrate.  While she was here for this short visit, we got out the play-doh and made cupcakes and monsters that needed haircuts.

She spent Saturday with Darryl's family and came by this morning to tell us good bye.  When she hugged Bubba she said, "I'm so glad you turned 71 last week!"

Amy and Darryl are in the midst of a house hunt.  They are ready to get out of the apartment, but Amy says house hunting is not as much fun as it looks like on tv.  Their goal is to move over the week she has off for Thanksgiving.  Let's hope they find something soon.

Things Just Work Out Sometimes

It was perfect.  We arrived at St. Andrews State Park on Sunday afternoon, September 7.  I had reserved site #101 in November after determining it was the most beautiful site in the whole campground.  We backed the trailer in and this was our view.

It was definitely worth waiting nine months.  Later that afternoon Joe and Judy arrived and parked at a site on the water close to us.  It just kept getting better and better.  Joe and Judy remembered that Bubba's birthday was fast approaching and brought a delicious coconut cake to start the celebration early.

We had not seen Joe since his trip to Alaska and we were excited to hear about his adventure.  He brought salmon with him and we planned to have that for lunch on Wednesday which promised to be the best day weather wise for cooking fish outside.

Joe brought his boat so he and Bubba went fishing Monday and then floundering on Monday night.  Judy and I stayed at her trailer and played Scrabble.

Joe gigged one flounder and they were back at the trailer by 10:30. In the olden days they would have stayed out until dawn.

Judy and I went shopping at Pier Park on Tuesday and it was not crowded or too hot.  We had lunch at the Pita Pit which was similar to a Subway, but the meat was heated and served in/on pita bread.  It was very good and pretty healthy.

We also found our friends, Sid and Charlotte, setting up camp Monday afternoon.  That was a nice surprise. 

We grilled pork chops Tuesday evening and then Joe decided that he wanted to try floundering again to see if he could get one more to go with the one he already had.  Bubba and I went to bed early.  It had been a long day.  This is the view we had at night from our campsite.

Around 4:00 AM, we were awakened by the sound of silence.  The fan on our air conditioner had stopped running.  Apparently the current had gone off, but just before Bubba could get up to investigate it started running again and we assumed all was well and went back to sleep.

The next morning Bubba got up to make coffee and I reached for the remote to turn on the tv.  It would not come on and the coffeemaker worked for a few minutes and then it stopped.  Bubba checked all the fuses in the camper and flipped the breaker outside -- still no electricity.  He went over to get Joe to help him figure out what was wrong and discovered that they had the same problem.  Theirs was even worse....smoke was coming out of their fuse box.

To make a long story short, there was a malfunction in the transformer at another site that had caused high voltage on some trailers and low voltage on others.  The park manager assured us that if we would file a claim with the state that they would cover our expenses.  So there was nothing else to do but go home.  They refunded our money for the whole stay, but it was still a disappointment to have to leave early.

We took our trailer to the dealer to get estimates on the damage.  Then we played a waiting game until we got word from the repairman and from the state risk management office.  The expense of repairing our trailer was approximately $1,000. So far Joe and Judy have not received the estimate on their trailer, but it seemed to be okay when they plugged it in at home.  But that is not the end of the story.

We had been thinking about upgrading to a new trailer.  After three years with this one we felt like we knew more about what we wanted/needed.  The trailer we have now has a small tub/shower with a curtain.  It is  hard to get in and out plus if you don't have the shower curtain positioned just right you get water on the floor.  The area around our bed is too small. It would be nice to make up the bed by walking around it instead of lying on top of it to tuck in the sheets. So when we took our trailer in for repairs we looked at trailers and found just what we wanted/needed.  We bought a 2015 Jayco White Hawk 24 RKS.  It has a floor plan that we like and I think it will meet our needs for the next however many years we are able to enjoy camping.  We pick it up Wednesday and will soon make our first trip in it. 

We will be returning to St. Andrews State Park but unfortunately my perfect site was not available.  Don't worry.  I've already reserved it for August 2015.

Well I guess everything turned out well in the end.  We were thinking about trading but who knows how long it would have been before we actually started looking.  This gave us the perfect opportunity to make a change that we will enjoy for a long time.