Friends and Fun!

We are catching a lot of flak for not posting a blog entry since February 3 because we have been keeping busy. Since we are now in the middle of a driving rainstorm that puts Oregon rainstorms to shame, we now have time to get you caught up on what has been happening here. Up until now we have had excellent weather. You may have heard that southern California has been in the throes of a powerful winter storm. Enormous amounts of snow have been piling up in the mountains. The Grapevine section of I-5 south of Bakersfield was closed last night and is still closed to the best of our knowledge. Here in Hemet we have been affected by wind and heavy rain, but no snow.

Our very good friends from Gresham, Greg & Rita Painter, passed through Hemet on their way home after spending 10 days in Mexico. We had a good time catching up with them and hearing about their travels. We got in a quick round of golf that ended with the beginning of a rain storm just as we all teed off on the 9th hole. We gave them a tour of the Golden Village Palms facility, and are trying to talk them into coming to Hemet for a week or so next year They left on Friday to head up to Berkeley, CA to spend the weekend with their son, Geoff and his wife, Julia.

Tim took a day to drive to Escondido, CA to again meet up with his Navy buddy, Don Spees. Don lives in Santee (close to San Diego) and Escondido seemed like a good halfway spot to meet. Tim brought down his box of Vietnam memorabilia to show Don, and Don brought many photos of his own. Don was Tim's boss when they served together at Nha Be in South Vietnam. Don let Tim borrow a book called "Diary of a Navy Seal" that was written by a Seal that was stationed at Nha Be. The book detailed a lot of the things around the base and town that really brought back a lot of memories. Mostly the good ones, but there were some stories about the shipmates that didn't make it back to their families. Don and Tim commented several times about how fortunate they were to come back home safely.

Diane played in the Golden Village Palms Sand Volleyball tournament and did quite well. Her team won several games. Diane is pleased with the improvement she has made since we first arrived. As you can see from the attached photo, she and her teammate, Anita, seem to be doing all the work while the guys on the team are just standing and watching. Notice the guy standing with his hands on his hips. We assume he was just thinking about the next play and whether the girls would give him a good set. Volleyball starts to wrap up here within the next couple of weeks but Diane is getting in as many games as she can until then.

Since the Canadians in the park are very selfish about allowing the Americans to attend their Canada Day celebration - they even check ID to be certain you have a Canadian driver's license, the Americans celebrated USA Day on Lincoln's birthday. We had a great pot luck dinner followed by an entertainer from inside the park.

Red, white and blue were definitely the prevalent colors for the evening festivities.

We spent Valentine's Day at the Hemet Elks Lodge with a whole group of folks from GVP. The dinner was Cornish Game Hen that was well prepared. We had a great time dancing and visiting with friends from around the park.

Well, that's it for now. We are hoping that the rains will cease fairly soon and we can resume all of our activities in the sun. Take care and let us hear from you.

More Trip Highlights!

Did you catch the pun in the title? Here Diane and Joyce are celebrating the successful highlighting of Joyce's hair. Although there was quite a temptation on Diane's part to get even with Joyce for all those younger years when Joyce resentfully had to help Diane with her hair before going to school, she resisted the devil sitting on her shoulder. Maybe it is because she remembered that Joyce would be helping her with her hair sometime in the near future. Tim and Jim got out of Dodge City and headed for the nearest golf course while the girls got to spend some sisterly bonding time.

Another highlight of this trip though, was when Tim and Diane got to go to a Las Vegas style show starring Terry Fator. For those of you who aren't fans of reality shows, Terry Fator was the 2007 winner of the "America's Got Talent" tv show. He is a singing ventriloquist that does amazing impersonations of many singers using his puppets, of which there are many. How he can achieve the song volumes that he does without opening his mouth is beyond us.

He was turned down three times by Las Vegas show clubs that told him his act wasn't good enough. Now he recently signed a 5 year, $100 million contract and has his own showroom at The Mirage. We had planned to go to Las Vegas to see him, but were pleasantly surprised to find out he was doing a show at a local casino before heading to his new gig in LV. The show was phenomenal and we spent the whole 90 minutes laughing uproariously. If you ever get the chance to go and see him, it would be well worth the price of admission.

Tim's brother, John, and his wife, Bear, came for a visit on Super Bowl Sunday. Regrettably, we forgot to get a picture of them on John's Honda Gold Wing motorcycle. It had almost more gadgets than our home on wheels. For comfort it looks like it isn't missing much. I think if you push the right button, it will probably make a sandwich for you.

We enjoyed watching the Super Bowl game with Joyce and Jim and were rooting for the underdog Arizona Cardinals all the way to the bitter end.

The morning after the Super Bowl, we were awakened at 5:00 a.m. by a kind person that was out walking their dog. Once we roused from our sleepiness, Tim answered the door to be told that water was pouring out from under our coach. Dutifully he got clothes on and went out and turned off the water. The morning light finally showed that the plastic plug at the bottom of our water heater had partially disintegrated and let loose. Of course all the water in the heater had run out and the fresh water was simply running through and out on the ground. We have no idea how long it had been running, but there was a lot of water around the coach.

Fortunately, good neighbor Mike came to the rescue once again, and he had the remains of the old plug dug out in minutes. A quick trip to the Home Depot next door to the park for a replacement plug resulted in the entire repair being completed in less than an hour. Tim sure wishes there was some way to miniaturize Mike and keep him in his toolbox.