Wednesday

Wednesday we walked again and came home for breakfast. We had cold cereal. Unfortunately, we have an ant problem. They are small and run all over the kitchen. We have put out several spots of Terro ant killer. It may take several days but we will prevail. The worker ants are supposed to take the poison back to the nest. We talked with the lawn care young man about making a garden and caring for our plants. He is a very personable and helpful person. He gave us some good ideas. I was encouraged to wash the porch and the deck, destroying the spider webs. I decided that if I could do that I could just complete the treating of the floorings with a water seal. I spent most of the day doing that. Evelyn worked on cooking. After supper we went to choir practice. I am really disgusted with the church here because they don’t use me. I will continue attending because Evelyn wants to be involved with the ladies group. I will sing in the choir but will do no other volunteering in any way. We watched some of a video of “Catherine the Great” starring Catherine Zeta Jones. I got tired and went to bed. Tomorrow we will go to the Terrace Hotel to upload some pictures of our South America trip and have them printed at Rite Aid. I didn’t know this could be done until yesterday.

Encouragement from the doctor

Tuesday we walked the lake early because the alarm worked this time. We finished, showered and drove to the endocrinologist in Asheville. We picked up a coupon book on the way thinking we would use it for lunch. The appointment was at 11:45 but we didn’t see the doctor until after 12:30. He was encouraging in that he said the hyperthyroidism might heal itself within a year. He took blood to see if she needs to take half a pill of Tapazol. We left and went to the Moose Cafe and shared a smoked pork chop lunch. We left there and tried to find a store that sells a brule torch. We spent more than an hour driving around looking for it. We finally did and decided the torch was not worth the money. We did buy a butter dish. We drove back to Canton, shopped for groceries, exchanged razor blades, exchanged some make up and came home for supper. After that we made pica de gallo. We watched the Cubs play while making several phone calls after 9. We made reservations for a Relay for Life dinner, made arrangements to go to a marriage encounter spiral, and talked about the women’s Bible study at church. We went to bed, set the sleep timer and watched some more of the game but fell asleep.

Argentinean Music

The grandfather of one of Peter's friends who lives across the cul-de-sac played a bandonion like we had seen many times in Argentina. It is the instrument of choice among tango musicians and dancers.

Chef Olivia preparing bow-tie pasta Alfredo

Better golf score: 49

We had planned to rise early but for dome reason the alarm radio didn’t work. We will try again tomorrow. Evelyn dropped me at the Lake Junaluska golf course and I played 9 holes. Bad news, Shirley: The price for 9 holes and a cart is $20, $28 for 18 for Geezers. The good news is that the price is for Monday through Thursday. Evelyn went to run errands and get some ointment to treat her lip “virus”. We then picked up our geraniums from the friend who had kept them for the winter. We came home for lunch at 1:30. We then trimmed our monkey grass plants and some other plants. I also changed the oil and filter in the car while barbecuing some hamburgers for supper. We would have had roast chicken but had not plugged the slow cooker into an active outlet. The one we chose was on a timer that doesn’t come on until the evening. I thought we would walk around the lake but Evelyn was too tired. So was I. She wrote some cards while I watched some TV and dealt with the mail that had come today. Evelyn had also made an appointment with the endocrinologist in Asheville for tomorrow around noon. We will go there and probably eat lunch at some place where we have a coupon.

Unloaded but not completely finished

Evelyn had not gone to sleep until about 5, so I didn’t wake her until 10:30. In the meantime I continued unloading the trailer trying to keep true to our pledge to put things away as we brought them in to the house. I wanted to get the garden hose out so we could water some of the plants and found it in the crawl space under the house. I took it out, hooked it up and pulled it into position. I noticed how cool it was under the house and decided to put the excess wine and beer under there to avoid filling the small shed space. I put some extra plastic down as a moisture barrier and put them there. It was very hard to do because I have hurt my back and am not improving as I wanted to. I thought that getting out of the car would help. Perhaps it has but not enough. We didn’t eat breakfast but waited until noon for lunch. Evelyn made ham sandwiches, and we ate on the deck even though it was quite warm. We worked together on getting the 16 pairs of shoes out because they had shifted around a great deal in transit. We then took out the remaining 7 bags of hanging clothes and put them into closets. We will not take the trailer full of clothes back with us. I also removed the landscape timbers and put them in back of the carport. We tried to hook up the satellite receiver but couldn’t even with the help of the technician on the phone. I did get the local channel selection changed from Texas. I call our friend Phil who said he would come this evening and look at it. Frieda came by and picked up her Kahlua and onions. We then went to the grocery for staples and found some bargains. Unfortunately we were unable to take time to exercise or walk. We will begin a regimen no later than Monday. We ate the leftover Almond chicken for supper and then Evelyn went to iron while Phil worked on the set. He finally got the picture to work but after we figured out that our receiver is not the one we had last summer. We had to hook it in an entirely different way. Afterward Phil and I enjoyed popcorn and beer. I gave him one of the Negra Modelos I had brought from Mexico. He really likes the beer. I stayed up to write this but quit at 11. I have done a lot of work today. Oh yes, the neighbor allowed us to park the trailer on his property again. Praise God for friendly neighbors.

Back home again in--North Carolina

We were wakened at 8:30 instead of the 7:30 we had requested. I would have been furious had the time been critical. Instead we had time. We were dressing for breakfast when the front desk called asking if we would like breakfast in bed! We were surprised to learn it was our creative jokester daughter calling from the lobby. She had taken Peter to school and stopped to say goodbye. We enjoy her sense of humor. I think I know where she gets it. We drove to her house and went in to get our frozen food from the freezer in her garage. One car was parked very close to the freezer door, but we managed to remove the items. We went to Trader Joe’s to get some wine for the summer season. I bought 1/3of a case of sauvignon blanc, 1/3 chardonnay, 1/3 white zinfandel. Also a case of ½ merlot and ½ shiraz. We drove to Franklin, trying to contact friends Barry and Jackie Conover but couldn’t. We would have bought them lunch at the Chinese restaurant but had to eat alone. We like Almond chicken but were disappointed in our meal there today. We drove on home but stopped at a drug store for some items. We were home around 4:30 and prayed a prayer of thanks for God’s blessing us with a good safe trip. We began unloading and finished half of the job. The neighbor across the street brought us a whopper to share even though I had asked her not to. We stopped work around 9, and Evelyn played the piano for therapy. She has a sore on her ankle that is inflamed.
We will try to go to an urgent care center tomorrow to see if we can get some treatment.

Wednesday and Thursday

We were on the road by 8 with only 220 miles to Roswell. We filled with fuel and drove into GA where we stopped for a Subway sandwich for lunch. We had driven right past the GA welcome center, forgetting to stop for a map. We had set the GPS for the La Quinta address and went right to it. We unloaded and went to the Georges’ home. We were there around 4 and ate a wonderful Mexican supper Stacy had made around 6. When we finished, Stacy took Peter to guitar lessons and returned. Tom and I went to Aqua finally got to us. Blue to listen to his neighbor, Alan Neiter, and his band play for a private party. They were excellent and we stayed until they finished at 9. Meanwhile Evelyn had stayed home to work with Olivia on a project involving clay. Stacy had returned to get Peter, but he was not at the pick up point. She went off to read, allowing him to contemplate the benefits of being on time and where he was supposed to be. We returned to our motel and went to bed early.
We had planned to be back at Stacy’s by 10 but slept until 9:30. I guess all that hard driving finally caught up with us. We missed breakfast but did manage to get some orange juice. We returned to the Georges’ house for Evelyn to join in the Wii exercise. I took the opportunity to spend the day catching up on my Bible reading. We gave Stacy the onions we had brought but she didn’t want as many as we thought she would. We also gave her the rope of garlic she had asked us to bring. We had delivered the blankets she ordered yesterday. I had also shared the Malbec wine I had brought from Argentina for her to taste. Evelyn offered her a blouse we had brought from Chile too, but it was a bit too wild for her. We were delighted to eat a delicious bowtie Alfredo supper prepared by Olivia. She is very energetic and creative. We showed the first half of our South America pictures before supper and then were blessed to hear a man from across the cul de sac. He is from Argentina and played the “button box” or accordion used in Argentina. We saw several played at the tango shows we saw there. We left shortly after 9 because Tom has to go to bed early because he has to get up very early to catch the MARTA for his ride downtown. We left a wakeup call so we don’t sleep too late tomorrow morning.

Pictures outside the restaurant.

New Cajun restaurant

We found this Riverside Inn, an old restaurant in Lafayette, LA. We got to talk with the owner who promised to send us the recipe for her crawfish ettouffee.

Old Cajun friend

Roland "Swampy" Simon, a pure D coonass Cajun.

God's workers and our friends.

These were taken after our Easter worship service. The couples on the outside are the major workers and supporters in our services.

Moving on

We got up deciding to skip the sorry breakfast offered at the Econolodge. We pulled the car up to our room door and put our luggage in. I had to have Evelyn help carry the refrigerator out. We then got a lot of ice and filled one cooler. I went to the freezer where I had put the frozen food and loaded the other cooler. We drove away and went clear to Slidell before stopping at a Waffle House to share an omelet. We drove on to Alabama and ate while driving to make more time. We had one set of half sandwiches that we had brought with us. We went on to our motel in Tuscaloosa where I booked a room last night. The room was gorgeous, especially compared with the past 2 nights. We went out to O’Charley’s for supper and returned to watch the Cubs play the Reds. We will make it to Roswell tomorrow because I have a room booked at the local La Quinta Inn. So far the frozen things are still fairly solid, but we must add more ice tomorrow and use Stacy’s freezer when we get there.

Meeting with our Cajun friend

We were not up early today. We went to the sorry breakfast offered here and vowed to never come back. Actually this was not the motel I thought I was reserving anyway. We dressed and went to set the plants outside to get some sun. While Evelyn was repacking the trailer correctly, I went to talk with the manager of the nearby Howard Johnson motel. I reminded him that he had told me we could get a good rate with him even though I didn’t use the on line service. I told him we would contact him in November as we travel back to Texas. I returned to join Evelyn in her walk around the neighborhood. We need to walk more because driving is sitting and sitting is damaging to back pain. I am suffering same now. We left the plants on the parking lot and drove downtown to meet Simon for lunch at Dwyer’s. We were surprised at the number of bars and dance halls downtown. We enjoyed our lunch and visit with Roland. We left him and drove north to get boudin and crawfish tails. We were surprised that the tails were so expensive despite its being crawfish season. We tried Don’s Specialty Meats but went to our old standbys, The Best Stop and Early’s Cajun Market. Things are definitely more expensive here than in the Valley. (We learned last night that none of the rain we drove through yesterday reached our house in Weslaco. They are in tragic drought conditions.) We went off and found a restaurant we had never heard of before--Poor Boy Riverside. The setting was beautiful. It has been in business for 75 years. We had crab fingers for an appetizer and half fried, half ettouffee for our entree. The waiter kept asking if there was anything he could get for us and then never brought it back. We went back to Randol’s restaurant to dance until 9. My back is a bit tender and dancing was not too much fun.

Going to Lafayette

We wakened early and ate breakfast. It had stopped raining during the night and was a nice cool morning. We had a waffle, packed our car, filled the coffee mug and left for Orange. We thought we could find the church we had attended when we stopped in 2005 to help clean up after hurricane Rita. No one really remembered us and the pastor was gone to another church. We were blessed by Holy Communion, but the hymns were terribly to sing. There was only 1 singable despite the lyrics being glorifying to God. We did get to sing “It is Well with My Soul” and loved to give the testimony expressed. We left there and turned down an invitation to lunch with one of the parishioners: Watters. We should have accepted but didn’t. Instead we drove on to Louisiana and stopped at a truck stop to eat sandwiches we had brought from home. We called Emily who was gone and talked with some of the grandchildren. We arrived at our motel around 2:45 and were fortunate to get into a room. This was not the motel I wanted to have but had booked it on line. We just laid around until time to go for supper. We drove to Fezzos, a restaurant we liked but found it closed. We drove quite a distance through Lafayette, finally eating at a Popeye’s chicken. Afterward we went to Randol’s to dance. At first we were the only ones dancing to the Zydeco music but were soon joined by many younger people. They were delightful to watch and dance along side of. We left around 8 and returned to the motel for the night.

More pictures of visitors.

Doris and Frieda at our kitchen band party and at Tuesday Morning on South Padre Island. It was too windy to walk the beach so they shopped.

A wild drive

We couldn’t sleep very late. I was up at 5:30 but let Evelyn sleep another hour. I took the refrigerator and other items into the hatch. I had hooked up the trailer last night and took it over to get the frozen and refrigerated items from the community refrigerator. It seems packing is forever. We were finally on the road by 7:30. We didn’t stop for breakfast until reaching Kingsville. I knew we were driving into a violent rainstorm area but didn’t hit it until we reached Rosenberg where we stopped for lunch. When we came out, the torrential rains had begun. We drove for 3 ½ hours barely seeing the taillights of the cars less than 100 yards in front of us. All were driving around 45 with emergency lights flashing. I have never driven so long in such a driving rain. We had booked a room in Beaumont and had to make it there today. When we arrived, it was raining too hard to take luggage into the motel. We just checked in and went on to Red Lobster for our dinner. We were back by 6:30, took 2 suitcases in and peeled off our wet clothes. We were in bed by 9. I took some time to blog and publish some pictures that I can’t publish without the high speed Internet available in the motel room. The big disappointment is that we don’t know where the church clothes are packed in the trailer.

Big party

Our friends, Bob and Theresa Schwinghammer, enjoying customer appreciation day at the Horseman honkey tonk where we sometimes go Wednesday afternoons to drink and dance.

Visitors from NC

Doris and Frieda, neighbors from our development in North Carolina, came to visit us in mid March.

Final final packing

I was up early and back in Mercedes to have the tires balanced. The tire balancer was faulty and the man who changed the tires never balanced them at all. The owner was there and did the job. I tested them on the freeway and they were fine. I came home and continued the seemingly never ending job of packing. We cleaned ourselves up just as the insect exterminator arrived to spray our house. We were impressed with the job he did. We picked up Tom and Sharon and drove to have our seafood buffet. It was delicious as we expected. We got along well with them although she doesn’t like me and he is ambivalent. I don’t particularly like them either although they are strong members of our park. We returned home to continue packing. We had a great deal to pack into the car but couldn’t do anything until our lunch was over. We napped because it was too hot. We continued after waking and went to Dairy Queen to have a 2 for 1 Blizzard. We returned home and finished all but the last minute items. I packed the Direct TV receiver, called to suspend service for a week and packed the computer. We went to bed a bit early.

More heat and goodbyes

I did some cleaning before going off to play golf. I didn’t play well again today but my score was better. It was interesting to play with Tom Newcomer. He knows much about the things in this park, including how to manage the park. There is a great deal of concern about what happens to the money earned by the events held each season. He thinks the park manager, Melissa, is an idiot incompetent of managing the park. We enjoyed beer and conversation before Evelyn and I had lunch. It was cool in the morning and sprinkled some but got hot during the day. I had promised to mow the grass for the neighbors on both sides as well as our own. I did that and sweat a lot. When I came in, Evelyn was relaxing in bed. I took a shower and tried to color my hair. It didn’t work very well, perhaps because it was old. I was pretty tired and joined Evelyn for a nap. We slept for about an hour, being tired from our work. Evelyn had spent about 4 hours cleaning the refrigerator. We had unplugged it and taken the contents to one of the refrigerators in the recreation hall. I had walked the golf course and cut the grass in the heat. We left to meet Don and Janice at 5:30. As we drove I noticed a severe shimmying of the car. I don’t think the tires were balanced when the new ones were mounted. I will take the car back to the tire shop tomorrow morning.

Another traveloge

I was off to play the worst round of golf in years. I had 12 on 1 hole and lost 4 balls at the same time. The weather was fantastic but I wasn’t. Evelyn worked on cleaning the unit for our departure after exercising. We had lunch at noon, and then I went to Mercedes to have 4 new tires put on the car. I came home and found Evelyn sleeping. She slept through the night but needed a nap. She is behind for the week. I put some more items into containers and put them into the trailer. The Newcomers wanted to come to see our pictures from South America on Friday but that is not a good time for us. We can’t load the car until after taking them to the Remington for lunch. I told Sharon, thinking she might volunteer to drive. That way we could get more loaded into the car. I left the decision of whether they would volunteer to drive in the Lord’s hands. We continued packing and ate supper. We are so far along that we went to ask if Newcomers could come tonight. They had been swimming but agreed to come at 8. We took a nice bike ride before they came. It is very pleasant and there is enough of a breeze to make us cool. They were able to tolerate the entire group of pictures and left around 11. Tom agreed to play golf tomorrow morning. I have two jobs left to do before we leave: touch up painting and cutting the grass. I can do them tomorrow afternoon before the predicted rain.

Farewell to Mexico

Monday I joined Evelyn for exercise. I am sure I will be a bit sore tomorrow because of the stretching. We came home and left for our final trip to Mexico for the season. I took the black suitcase with wheels because I knew what we would bring back would be heavy and it was. We went to get some minor medicine and then to look for blankets for Stacy. We walked a long way and finally found some. We came back and both got pedicures. From there on our way back to the bridge we found some dresses for the summer visiting grandchildren, a ceramic parrot for Doris in NC, and 2 bottles of Bailey’s Irish Creme to take back. The only item we didn’t get was Maximo soap. Everyone we talked to said it was no longer being manufactured. It was very good for taking stains from white clothing. We were not home until 1 when we had lunch of yesterday’s chicken and rice. This was a recipe Stacy gave us years ago. We are desperately working at eating down the larder. We were tired so we took showers, and then I watched the Cubs home opener played in a heavy cold mist. I napped through much of the game. We then continued loading the trailer before supper of no nothing soup and pico de gallo. We took 2 bike rides, one during the heat of the afternoon and one in the cool of the evening. We had one disappointment: our friends I play golf with were to leave Saturday morning but have decided to leave tomorrow at 5 AM. We saw them at the dinner yesterday but did not learn of their change of plans. He had promised to share some “bisingerkraut” she had made with us but gave it to someone else. They could have brought it over or let us know they were leaving so we could have picked up. Cest le gere. We thought of leaving early but decided to stick with our plan for Saturday. I will try to find someone else to play golf with on Wednesday but will play alone if necessary.

Holy weekend

Easter weekend was busy for us. I went to Winstons to get the trailer but needed to go get some grease buddies for the trailer. Joe and I did and then I came home for lunch. I also had to unload the trailer so I could go to Erchingers to get some landscape timbers. I put them on the bottom of the trailer and then stacked heavy items on top of them. We take a lot of time because we have to pack the containers before loading them. Evelyn worked hard on choosing clothes to take. I continued loading before working on the service for tomorrow. We went to bed earlier than usual. During the night I realized that I didn’t need to take the towbar in the trailer. We wakened a bit early and went to our Resurrection service. We were blessed in that 25 attended. We celebrated this glorious day with Holy Communion. It is always a blessing to commune with those who are so faithful to worship with us each Sunday throughout the season. We went off to Immanuel to sing in the choir during their Communion service. We returned home to heat our hot dish for the Easter dinner at the hall. We changed clothes, and I unloaded the trailer again so I could get the tow bar out and then reloaded it. We went off to the dinner featuring ham and potluck side dishes. They were delicious as usual. We returned home and packed clothes to hang in the trailer. We must have nearly 8 clothes bags to take. That is ridiculous and will not happen again. We had our neighbors come over for boudin, chips and pica de gallo, and popcorn. The stayed nearly 2 ½ hours. We watched the Cubs play the Brewers. After then left I separated some of the onions so we could put some in the front of the trailer, leaving some in the back so we could give them to Stacy. We will go to exercise tomorrow morning and then on to Mexico.

Excellent Friday

We worked at the hospital this morning instead of the afternoon. It was our final day of volunteering at Knapp for this season. We rode our bicycles even though it was hot. I called to order some tires to be installed before we drive back to NC and tried to get our electric bill corrected. Evelyn was able to schedule her mammogram on the same day as our sonogram. We rode home and had hotdogs and ham sandwiches for lunch. I made Evelyn go to bed since she had been unable to sleep until around 4 last night. She slept while I worked some and watched the Cubs play on TV. I also applied primer to the new table top Bob had installed last week. We then went to Good Friday service and were blessed again to be reminded what our Savior went through to gain salvation for us. We didn’t eat supper until we came home, finishing more leftovers. We have decided to wait until next week to go to Mexico. Evelyn has a sore on her foot and is afraid of having an infection. We will, however, go get our trailer tomorrow and begin loading it.

wonderful worship

I was off to the recycle center before picking up Evelyn to go to McAllen for her appointment with the endocrinologist. Dr. Put her back on 10 mg of Tapazol. We agreed there was no need for us to see the doctor for this move. We left there and looked for a brown blouse but found none. I discussed some options for my computer with a young man at CompUSA. I wanted to see whether I would be wiser to buy a new computer or just buy a microphone and an external hard drive. I am still looking around. We went to the House of China for lunch because Evelyn was hungry for Chinese. From there we went to buy a graduation gift for Bonny and Joe’s granddaughter. She will be attending A&M in the fall and we tried to get her something for her room. We stopped on the way home to buy a case of Rotel and some onions to take to NC. We were tired when we returned home and took naps before going to the Maundy Thursday worship service. It is such a great blessing to attend worship, especially during Holy Week. It is good to remember what Jesus on this night long ago. He instated Holy Communion, making it possible to commune with the Son of God. We had an especially moving service and praise God for it. We came home, ate no nothing soup and popcorn before taking a walk around the park. The night was very mild and the breeze refreshing.

Making up for lost entries

I have been dilatory since Sunday. Monday was a windy day but Schwinghammers and I went to play golf in Mercedes. I didn’t score particularly well but was delighted that I hit almost every shot solidly. I came home for lunch. I worked on the message after we took a walk. Our dear friends from Canada invited us to their home for supper. They served seafood crepes that were delicious. They are great chefs and hosts. We are happy that they are one of about 3 couples that have ever reciprocated when we invited them for dinner to try to establish a rapport. They have been very friendly. We finished visiting and watching the Cubs season opening game.
Tuesday morning Evelyn went to a breakfast program at the Methodist church with Bonny. The food was very poor but the program was good. She returned home, and we went to consult another hearing specialist. He refused to begin working with me because we wouldn’t be here long enough to get the hearing aid adjusted. He gave us some hints as to what to look for when we get to NC. I was impressed with his honesty. He could have misled us but didn’t. We did some light shopping and returned home for our happy hour party. While Evelyn was preparing, Bob Schwinghammer came and attached the table top that he had made for me. I attached the vice and we enjoyed a couple of beers. The party had evolved. Actually the original plan was to have 2 couples for snacks and beer. As things grew, it developed into a dinner and slide show or our trip. We began around 4 but didn’t finish until nearly 9. The meal did help us use up some of the things in the freezer and refrigerator. We were with the Thorpes and Baumans, couples who had rented properties across the street several years ago.
Wednesday was cool in the morning. Bob and I went to the local par 3 Executive golf course. I played poorly for most of the morning. We were home by 11 but didn’t eat because Bob and Theresa (she had played golf with another lady) came for a light lunch. Again we disposed of more food from the refrigerator. We enjoy their company although Bob and I can’t hear well. They left and we worked. I started to paint the table top but found the paint wasn’t homogenized. We went to choir practice, and I took the paint to another choir member who owns a hardware store. He said he would shake the paint for me but thinks it has frozen in the past and will not be of much use. We returned home and worked. I was watching Jay Leno as I sometimes do when up late but turned him off. He just can’t get past making derogatory remarks about former President Bush. It has been almost 4 months since the inauguration of President Obama, making it pretty disrespectful of a now American citizen who did what he thought was right in office. I think I will part ways with Jay Leno. I quit David Letterman years ago when he was very blasphemous after the Lord had blessed him with heart surgery.

A daylight savings surprise.

We got up when the alarm went off (Evelyn got up a bit earlier), showered and dressed for church. During this process, I noticed that the clocks in the house didn’t agree with the alarm clock. We were an hour early. I guess the atomic clock has been programmed to establish DST on the first Sunday in April. Of course the time had been changed at least a year ago. I had plenty of time to review the message. We had 32 attend our worship. This was a big surprise since so many have gone back north. We went on to Immanuel to sing in the choir at 10:30. We couldn’t stay to the end because we had made plans to take Schwinghammers to the Remington Steak House in McAllen for the Sunday brunch. We had 2 for 1 coupons. I had so many that I gave 2 to 2 couples from our worship. We had a great brunch. We came home and went to bed for a nap. We were both so tired that we slept nearly 2 hours. Later we talked with Emily and will try to get tickets for their visit. We took a walk around the park and gave some people tomatoes from our garden. We have a plethora of Romas. We also made plans to go to a seafood buffet with the Newcomers on April 17. I got more 2 for 1 coupons while eating this noon. We had no nothing soup and popcorn for our supper. We had eaten plenty at noon.

OnionFest

Saturday we walked around the park again. I am looking in the dumpsters to see if anyone has discarded a garden hose I can modify to help with our soaker hose problem. There was none to be found. I did get a business card concerning the painting of our driveway with a strong epoxy paint. We ate both breakfast and lunch here. Between meals, I began to review the worship service. We then went to the Onionfest where we worked for Knapp Medical Center. I had a device that was supposed to measure body fat and body mass index. I was high but not like some other people I tested. We finished our 3 hour shift and went to watch performing horses in dressage. They were Andalusias and . Both horse and rider were quite skilled. We stayed as long as we could in the 94 degree heat. We came home about 5 and I continued working while Evelyn did laundry. We finished off the crawfish etouffee and had some more of the delicious dessert from last night. We took another walk and returned home to work and watch basketball. We thought we would buy our 100 pounds of onions but the people were sold out. We will go south to buy some next week.

new restaurant with friends

Friday found us sleeping an extra half hour. We walked together around the park looking for some friends. We wanted to solidify our party next Tuesday and did. We also went to talk about our plan to go our for the Sunday brunch with other friends. I also hooked up our soaker hose using the cap I found at Joe and Bonny’s. I had ridden my bicycle to their house to get the half sandwich Evelyn had left there last night. Their hired man, Jesus, had found the hose plug I used when I returned. It worked fine but now I need a 5 foot length of hose to go from the spigot to the soaker hose because too much water is wasted by running down the driveway. I had to come in and get ready for work at the hospital. We both went and offered to come in the morning next Friday because Denise needs to cover some of the gaps left by winter Texans going north. We rode our bikes home and rested for a short while. Joe, Bonny, Roger, and Elaine picked us up and we went off to a restaurant in McAllen called “The Woodlands”. It featured many stuffed wild animals and a good menu, some of which featured some wild game. We didn’t care for our stuffed pork chop but are glad we went. We returned here for dessert that was delicious. We had decided ahead of time to pay for Roger and Elaine’s meal. They bring many steaks down each year from Nebraska. We have been blessed to receive invitations for the past 5 years. It was late so I neglected posting this blog entry.

disappointing beer bash

I was up at 6 and off to the AARP class by 7. I set up the room and read the Bible for about half an hour until people began arriving. This was the first time I had led a 4 hour class. It seemed to go well. Meanwhile Evelyn was picking up some saga palm trimmings to put out for pick up tomorrow. I got home just as she was leaving for lunch with Bonny. I ate leftovers from yesterday. I spent some of the afternoon drinking beer with Paul, Lionel (men I volunteer with at Knapp) and “Rod” (one of the security guards we work with.) I only stayed an hour because I was uncomfortable with the amount of swearing that was used by them. I was also a bit tired so I came home and worked on the message a bit. Evelyn didn’t get home until after 5. She had a great time with Bonny and her granddaughter, Christian. We had crawfish etouffee for supper and then walked around a while. I got an estimate for painting our driveway with some concrete stain. I am not sure I will use the man I talked with or someone else. I may even do it myself next year. I finished up the message in the evening. I have to file our tax return this weekend. Time is running out. I am still trying to make flight reservations for July too. I have too much computer work to do.

rust attack

Most of the day was spent using the neighbor’s power washer to remove the rust from the driveway. The golf carts had rusted and stained the concrete. I went to Mercedes to get some CLR, thinking it might help remove some of the rust. I used the gift certificate I won last night. I don’t think it worked any better than the straight stream from the power washer. We also went to McAllen to have a hearing test. The come on was to qualify for a study. Actually, it was just a 30 day trial period for the aid. The special price to me was $3995. We will pray about whether we should do that. We had lunch at Taco Cabana, eating a huge, delicious chicken meal. We brought a great deal home. We went to the Lenten worship and choir practice. After that we finalized plans for dinner with Joe and Bonny for Friday. We decided to take the Gonnermans out with us. They provide steaks each year for a big steak fry and we want to repay them.