Finally! We moved out of the “pet friendly” hotel Thursday morning. Headed over to RV America to see how things were progressing on our fifth wheel. The carpet was done and boy, does it look great. I’ll post some photos soon. Unfortunately, it was not time to go home.....yet. DH had some items on his “to do” list that they still needed to work on. So, the furballs and I had to entertain ourselves.......and let me tell you there is not a whole lot to do when you are on foot and “furry”. LOL! Around 2pm the “to do” list was complete with the exception of the microwave repair. While waiting for a decision on that, we headed over to Cequent to have our Fifth Airborne Hitch looked over. We have been having some minor adjustment issues with the hitch. DH called Cequent and they told us just to hitch up the fiver and bring it over and they would take a look at it. Cequent is located in Goshen.....only about 30 minutes away. We did......they looked......they adjusted the hitch......and we were on our way back to the repair shop.

Arrived around 5pm, and man we couldn’t believe all the new arrivals at the repair shop. It seems everyone decided to show up at the same time. There were fifth wheels everywhere. We had just about decided just to go over to Wally World and spend the night.....BUT, Ron (owner of the repair shop) wanted us to stay on site cause the microwave was going to be picked up at 8:30am for repairs. Good news, they wanted us close and we got a prime spot on the concrete. That was a good thing cause the grassy areas were pretty soft from all the rain they had been receiving. Now, there is much more to this story, but you will have to stay tuned..........for the next ever entertaining chapter of, “ The Goode, The Bad, And The Ugly of RV Repairs”.......

Ok, so where was I.....ah yes, the lovely pet friendly hotel. So, come Monday morning we officially turn our fiver over to the guys for the carpet install. We and the furballs head to the Econo lodge for our pet friendly room. We checked in at the front desk and head down to room 102. I slide the little card key, ping goes the green light, a downward thrust to the door handle, and I'm in........wow, I am immediately overtaken by the wondrous order of many, many, many cats. Yes, I'm sure the folks that were in here before us must of had at least a 100 of them. Now, the room is fairly clean. I checked the bathroom first thing and found it to be spotless. The bed linens are clean and fresh smelling......it is the carpet that is in bad shape. It is actually pulling away from the wall on one side of the room. I don't know if that is from numerous cleanings or numerous kitty and doggie "oops" left behind.

Well, pet owners can't be choosy... I guess. We are at the mercy of the hotel industry. There just were not that many places to choose from, so we decide to stay and try to make the best of it. I sent DH back to the fiver to retrieve our box fan and a large bottle of fabreez. Lucky for us the room has a large window which I could open and let in some much needed fresh air. At least there is free wifi and a king size bed.....which the furballs immediately took over for there own. It seems they aren't to fond of the stinky carpet either. LOL!

We shall survive......takes more than an old stinky carpet to get us down. I guess we will appreciate our new carpet in the fiver even more after this little "pet friendly" adventure......

Spent a large portion of Sunday emptying out the fiver of furniture. We removed our table and chairs, recliners, and even our air bed. It is finally time for us to head to Elkhart to have our new carpet installed. I also had to empty out our large desk because they will pull it up in order to put the carpet underneath it. They will also remove our bed slide so they can carpet there as well. I know, whole lot of work, but I know it will be worth it in the long run.

We decided to head up on Sunday rather than have to pull out in the wee hours of the morning on Monday. We headed to Elkhart around 4pm and arrive there a little after 7pm. We had no sooner unhooked in the repair shops driveway, when a truck came racing up honking their horn. It was Ron, the owner of the shop. He was telling us we could not park the fiver there. We had positioned ourselves right in front of the overhead door to the shop, thinking we would be first inside at 8am. Well, apparently a unit had to come out before we could go in. So, we hitched her up and moved over about 10 feet. At least he threw us out an electrical hook up before he left. Unfortunately, it was only a 20amp and I promptly blew the fuse by trying to cook a couple of hot dogs in the convection oven. What was I think-in!! Fortunately, we had enough battery power to run the tv and a few lights for the evening.....oh and blow up our little air mattress to sleep on. What a night.....we went from a king size air bed to a double size air mattress....with a king size furball between us.

Come morning the fiver was backed into the repair shop and we headed to our dog friendly hotel----now that is another story for another day......to be continued

Wow, where did that hot weather go? Woke up to a wonderfully cool morning. I do enjoy fall and today is a nice preview of what is to come. I know there is more hot weather around the corner, but for now we are enjoying this brief cool down.

Finally painted my last kitchen cabinet door. Yippeeee!! NO, still more painting to be accomplished, but hopefully things will start to move a little faster now.

I was enjoying the campfire with my family and friends yesterday, when MS Bee decided to sting me! OUCH! It has been years since I was stung by a bee and I have to tell you it hurts like the dickens! Still today, my arm is swollen and red. I’m taking an antihistamine for my hay fever so that is helping with the itching at least.

Today we are going to have a shrimp boil---we are all looking forward to that. We throw shrimp, new potatoes (vs old potatoes :)), fresh Indiana sweet corn, and seasonings in a big pot and yeah, we boil it! When it is all done...we pour it out over newspapers and everybody grabs a fork and chows down......mmmmmmm.......good!

Tomorrow we start unloading the fiver to prepare for our trip to Elkhart to have our carpet installed. We are taking out as much of the furniture we can to aid in the installation process. While the boys are installing the carpet.....DH, myself, and the two furballs are checking into a doggie friendly hotel for a couple of days. Now, that should really give me something to blog about........till then

Up with the Chickens? Well, not exactly. We had a rather leisurely morning of coffee around a nonexistent campfire. Yeah, that is what I said....a nonexistent campfire. It is a little too warm for a campfire these days, but we all still seem to gather around the fire pit to make plans for the day.

My brother, Chris, loves to take canoe trips down the river. The plan was set and around 2pm the guys carried the canoes down to the river and myself, Chris, Dad, and Shirley set out on our little water adventure. No, DH is not big on canoeing or the river so he choose to stay behind and look after the furballs. I suspect napping was high on his list of things to do while we were gone. It will take about 3 hours to complete our journey down the river. Dad and Shirley were in one canoe and Chris and I in the other. We women sat in the front of the canoes and let the guys do most of the work at the back end. The river is really low.....in several places you can actually walk across. Fortunately, Chris does this all the time and knows the river well. Except for the occasional scraping of a rock, we all did just fine. Chris also shared his “secret spot” with us. There is a small outcropping of a little grassy knoll and a small spring trickles down from the forest above. We parked the canoes on the knoll and walked up the spring into the woods. The water was clear and cold....the woods cool and inviting.....a great place for us all to relax and munch on our sandwiches and drinks. After our lunch, it was back to the canoes. It took us about another 30 minutes to reach the bridge where we had left the truck and the canoe trailer. We loaded everything up and drove back to our river lot. I hadn’t floated down that river in about 20 years......it was a beautiful relaxing day and the fact that I got to do it with my brother, Shirley, and Dad just made it all the more special.

Once again we found ourselves around our imaginary campfire, but finally we decided to move and relocated under Dad’s motorhome’s awning. He had the tv on and the guys started watching some sporting events. We had some unexpected visitors around 8:30. Some old friends dropped by for a chat on their way home from dinner. After visiting and then seeing them on their way, it was time for our dinner. Yep, a late dinner. I think it was close to 10pm by the time we finished eating and cleaning up. It was not long after dinner that all of us were heading to the showers and then to bed. I could not believe how tired I was, but it was a good kinda tired......guess that’s what good old fashioned fun and fresh air will do for ya!

They're here!

Yeah! Dad and Shirley have finally arrived here at the river. They got in yesterday afternoon and my brother even showed up with his camper. I am sooooo ready for a break from painting cabinets and YES, I am still painting cabinets!! LOL!

DH and I are both going to take the weekend and just PARTY! Relax, kick back, and what ever happens......happens. You know what they say, “What happens at the river......stays at the river!” Unless, of course, I decide to share it with you all......and I will cause I know you are all soooo discreet! YEs? :-)

Even the furballs seem to be excited. Every time I let them out they run and jump and chase each other around......you can just tell they are happy little things. I guess the ‘happiness bug’ is just going around nibbling on everyone......and that is a very GOODE thing! Let the games begin!

Life is Good! Dad and Shirley are coming to Indiana. You may recall they tried this earlier in the summer and didn’t quite make it here. The had problems with their motorhome and ended up heading back to Florida. They are currently in Tennessee and they have apparently found a casino. Dad said they would probably be along in a couple of days.......unless of course they are winning!! Well.....I hope they win, but knowing the casino something tells me they will be along sooner rather than later....LOL!

I’m really looking forward to seeing them. Somehow my life is just a little bit better and a little bit happier when my Daddy and Shirley are around! This has been a stressful summer and I’m soooo ready to be done with that. The house will be done enough to be put on the market soon and that will help alot.

The second happy thing in my life......we made our reservation for the month of December in Florida near Tampa. We will be staying at a place called Rice Creek in Riverview, Florida. It is our first time at this park, so I’ll let you all know what we think.

And finally, we contacted Culligan about getting a short term water softener for here at the river. Unfortunatly, I guess the Culligan dealer here isn’t as rv friendly as in South Dakota cause they couldn’t do anything for us. I guess we will just have to put up with our 'rusty water'....

Back to work on the stick house. I have been working on the doors and drawers to complete the cabinets. It is all starting to come together and I think we made a huge improvement to the house. Hopefully prospective buyers will think so too. Being back at the house is kinda nice.....all the room, the big screen tv, high speed internet, my own washer and dryer.....you get the drift. BUT! I have to say I am at my most content when at the end of the day we head back to our fiver. I’m just so much more relaxed and at peace. DH and I kick back in our easy chairs and just can’t get the smile off our faces. Even the furballs seem more relaxed. We know it won’t be long before we will be rolling again down the road. Although it is always hard to leave our friends and family, the call of the open road and that ‘hitch itch’ is just to much to bare.......we gotta go....the adventure awaits......

As you can see we did manage to get the counter top and new sink in place. Thanks to DH we now have running water in the kitchen......YEAH!

We had an absolutely wonderful weekend with Triston and Angela. The photo above shows Triston wrangling the great catapillar with his Great Grandma standing by

This last photo is of Grandpa, Triston, and Angela.....kicking back and relaxing at the river. We miss you guys!

I just have to say once again how wonderful it is to have Triston and Angela in our lives. Triston is a very active and imaginative child and Angela has done and is doing a wonderful job of raising him. She is truly a very special young woman, so loving and giving. She is deserving of all the love and respect we can give her.