We're still here - Mar 7, 2009 - Orlando, Florida, United States

O.K., I have been toughly chastised for ignoring my journal. And you are all correct. I am so sorry that we got so involved with the things going on at our park and have not taken the time to tell you about them. We also have not done the things that we love so much to do. Much of this is because this winter has been very unusual for Florida and was unseasonably cold. Gee how fast we learn to complain about weather that is only in the 50’s. Are we spoiled or what? And to think that we never had to lift a shovel.

Well the weather has turned around and it is beautiful. Bright sunny skies and temps in the high 70’s to low 80’s. We have been taking advantage of it the past few days but first I will fill you in on some of the other things we have been up to…………….

Outside of all the things that have been going on at our park, we have gone to a couple more concerts at Silver Springs. One was with Mark Chestnut and he was excellent. Last week we saw George Jones again. He is getting up in years and has some trouble hitting all the notes and remembering some of the words but he still puts on a great show.

I took another trip on the chartered bus to the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa and again got lucky. Not a lot but enough to buy a few new things for our new house. And speaking of our new house……… It should be in Florida this next week. Yippeeeee.

The dealer in Cocoa Beach needs a couple of days to go over everything (I sent them a 14 page pre-delivery inspection list). They will look at everything and add the special things we requested that are not put on at the factory. We will have a new washer and dryer(stackable) installed in the front closet, a second fantastic fan installed by the shower, new J.T. stabilizers since we will not be without them and are leaving them on our trade-in, vent covers over all the vents and whatever else we asked for in our sale. We plan on hitching up and taking our beloved home for the past four years over to Cocoa and parking side by side with our new house while we transfer everything. OMG. How did we ever get so much in here in only four years? We plan to spend the first night in their lot while we do our PDI (pre-delivery inspection) and then moving to a campground close by so that we can try everything out for the first three days. That means we will try our best to use everything in the RV including heat, air conditioning, stove, oven, microwave, convection oven, washer, dryer, sewer, black tank flush, water filtration system, fireplace, TV’s., DVD’s, CD’s, computer system, slide outs, electric awnings, reclining swivel rocker’s, inflatable sofa bed and the list goes on and on……… That is just my list…. Bill has his own for the outside specs…… As you can see, we are not armatures at this and we know what to look for. Does that mean that things will be perfect? No way……….. We take these rolling homes on the road and they go through so much more than the home you may be sitting in right now. All we are hoping for is to get a unit as good as the one we have lived in for the last four years. We have heard horror stories from so many that were not as lucky as we were with the wonderful Montana that we live in…… We have been so blessed. Of course my biggest blessing is having a husband like Bill that will take care of anything that needs fixing….. He will tackle anything and if he can’t fix it, he will find the best place to have it done.

The excitement has been building and as with anyone when they are getting a new house, we have been shopping for new things to go in it….. Well I’ll clarify that a bit and say that I have been shopping and Bill has been there to tell me if I’m on track or not….. So far things have been going just fine and we have done our part in giving the economy a boost. In fact, we have done enough for several people! We had both forgotten that when we went to the RV Show last January, Bill took pictures of the outside of our Big Sky with the full body paint…… We will of course post the inside when we get it but for now at least you will get an idea of the outside that we fell in love with .

You have all seen two of our best friends Dean and Arlene before and last week we had a visit from them…. It was such an exciting day. They had been staying at their former residence in Naples for the last two months and we never got there to visit but we had a few hours together on their way back to Minnesota last Sunday. You might know that that day was so cold that we froze just riding in the golf cart around the park….. Bummer……. Well it was a good day for chile and they enjoyed it…. Better yet, we were able to dine in our home and not have any outside distractions. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see them. You will see them again this summer when we return to Duluth.

Did I tell you how wonderful the strawberries are right now? Well everywhere we go we can buy the awesome berries from Plant City. In previous years we have always gone to the Strawberry Festival in that city which is about half way between Orlando and Tampa…. This year it just wasn’t in the cards so we buy our berries at the Farmers Market…… They are soooo good.

Yesterday we had a fantastic day in Palatika…… I had planned on telling you all about it but it is a long long story with lots of pictures so I think we will have to come back to it in a couple of days… Don’t miss it. We were there last year in January when my sister Jan was here and we promised to return when the Azalea’s were in bloom…… Well we did and they are so be sure to return………… Later