Colorful Christmas Trees

Today we made a trip to pick up a few things at the Walmart in the Garden Ridge, TX area.  Before doing our shopping there, we drove to the nearby Garden Ridge store which has numerous items.  There are items for the kitchen, clothing, furniture, home décor and at this time of year there was a large section devoted to Christmas.  There were several artificial Christmas trees already adorned with lights and ready to go and they were marked at 50% off!  But, even that price seemed a bit much for some of these unusual colored trees.  Some of them looked more like team colors for NFL or other sports teams.

We’re going to wait until they pay us to take one of them.

When we returned to the lot, the wind had calmed down and it was nice enough to do some outside things.  Ken fit and cut the rest of the trim for the storage shed.  We’ll still be waiting for a warm and sunny day to paint them.  Tomorrow night there is a happy hour at Pete and Jo’s house and we heard there will be close to 30 people attending.  We’re looking forward to it, and I’ll try to remember the camera.

Working on the Property

We finally had a day that was a little bit warmer and with no rain during the day.  After a trip to Home Depot to purchase some additional paint, Ken got started placing the trim pieces on the storage shed.  We had already painted the ones that run parallel to the ground near above the door and under the roofline on the sides of the building, so they were the first ones to be cut to size and nailed up.

One trim piece was placed across the building above the door.

This photo shows the trim on one side of the building just below the roofline.

After getting the painted pieces nailed into place, it was time to cut and fit the trim for the front roofline. 

The same thing will have to be done on the back of the shed.  Obviously those pieces still have to be painted and it’s looking like we may have a bit of a wait for more decent weather to accomplish that task.

Happy Hour with Pete & Jo

Okay…to get a little further caught up…Pete and Jo returned to the neighborhood in the last couple of days and we were invited to their place for happy yesterday.  I didn’t get any photos, but we had a great evening with wonderful friends and what more can I say.  It’s great to have them back in the “hood”.

An Afternoon in Gruene, Texas

Our good friends, Don and Donna, arrived here on December 10th for a few days, and it was great visiting with them and catching up with what they’ve been doing the last year or so.  One of the things they wanted to do while here was to take a trip to Gruene, TX and have a meal at The Gristmill Restaurant.  So we decided to have a late lunch/early dinner on Monday while they were visiting and headed east to Gruene.

The lighting was not too good, but our waitress took a photo of the four of us at our table.

As we left the restaurant, I took this photo of their Christmas tree.  Every year The Gristmill has their Christmas tree hanging upside down from the ceiling.  Very unique!

Before heading home, we walked around the Gruene Hall next the The Gristmill.  It’s one of Texas’s oldest dance halls and where George Strait got his start.

 

Looking into the dance hall toward the stage.

In the dance hall looking toward the bar.

Don and Donna headed for Bastrop on December 14th and that left us on our own temporarily.  Safe travels Don and Donna….we look forward to catching up with you in Arizona later this winter!  The weather is still not cooperating with us too well, so we’re either staying at the RV or doing day trips shopping for groceries or whatever else catches our interest at the moment.

Killeen, TX to Spring Branch, TX

We left Killeen mid morning on November 29th and continued south.  We made out usual stop at the Walmart in  Marble Falls to stock up on groceries and take on fuel in the RV.  After that stop, we continued on and made a stop a little south of Johnson City for a lunch break, then finished the drive to our lot in Valero Estates in Spring Branch, TX.

Here’s a photo of the RV sitting in our lot.

Later that afternoon, we met up with neighbors John & Linda and John & Bev for happy hour to get caught up on things in the neighborhood.  The next afternoon we had happy hour at Harrell and Tommie Sue’s.  It’s great to be back with good friends!

We’re kind of into a time of not doing much sightseeing as we’re seeing doctors, trying to find good weather to get things fixed up here and get it sold as we want to head back to Arizona in mid January.  I’ve advertised our lot on Craigslist and also on the Escapees RV Club forum and to get a little more information out there as well as some additonal photos, I quickly put together another blog for the property.  Here’s the link:  http://valeroestates.blogspot.com

Wylie, TX to Killeen, TX

We left Wylie on the Sunday of Thanksgiving Day weekend and drove to Killeen for a visit with our friends Don and CC.  The traffic through Dallas wasn’t all that bad, but once we got to where I-35E and I-35W met, we were really slowed down the rest of the way.  There were numerous accidents that we saw along the way, but they all seemed to be in the northbound traffic.  However, our southbound traffic was slowed down by those that had to slow down and look.  By the time we arrived at our campground in Killeen, it was a long day and we just had a quiet evening in the RV.  On Monday, we spent most of the day at Don and CC’s.  Their son who is stationed at Fort Hood had the house built to allow for them to live there and take care of the kids when is away.  They even had room built for Don’s mother to live with them so they can care for her.  That evening Don fixed tacos for everyone.

And here is nurse CC testing granny’s blood sugar or something else.

We had a very enjoyable visit with all of them and then drove back to the campground where we hooked up in preparation of our drive the next day.

The Mill River Recluse

I’ll be updating our travel blog in the next couple of days, but I came across this interesting article today in USA Today on ebook published books:  http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2011-12-14/self-published-authors-ebooks/51851058/1

The interesting thing about this article is that it’s reviewing the author that I’ve been recommending recently, Michael Prescott.  Another author reviewed in the article wrote the ebook I just finished today:  Darcie Chan wrote The Mill River Recluse which I also highly recommend.  It isn’t the typical mystery thriller I normally read, but it had an intriguing plot which went back and forth over a 60 year span of a woman’s life in a small town.  Please click on my link to buy it…it’s another $.99 book well worth the purchase.