No Boxes Day, Quick Trip to Fry’s, More New Friends, Special Dinner at the Yates

On Tuesday, Dec. 26^th, Boxing Day, I was again awake early but didn’t get up until 7ish. Actually, the whole family got up together today! I was in bed last night around 10 feeling zonked, not sure why. Must have been my late afternoon swim.

the sky looked promising today

We had our brew while reading blogs and comments before using our new electric toothbrushes. They were the exciting part about getting cleaned up today. We haven’t used the Waterpik yet but today we’ll get it going. We both feel good about these new brushes, whether it is all in our heads or not, our teeth feel great.

The traffic was pretty much non-existent on our drive to Yuma

Bill drove us into Yuma to the Fry’s closest to us and I picked up a few groceries, very few. Spending $20 was enough to top up our points so we can get the .10 diesel fuel savings again. With a full tank right now, that will be a few days away since we’re not driving too far for the rest of the year. Hehe, sounds funny but 2018 is only a handful of days away.

We have noticed that the days are getting longer now that we are truly into winter. The down slide from short days has begun. I totally missed acknowledging the shortest day, Dec. 21^st, first day of winter, for the first time in forever. That makes sense to me even if I’ve lost you back in Yuma at Fry’s.

I nipped into the Family Dollar and picked up a couple of correction tapes so we can keep our little address book neat. I hate all the scratching out when addresses get changed. Oh, I also picked up a pack of post-it notes. I'm always wanting to jot things down so I remember to look them up online and these 2" x 2" pads are perfect.

Breakfast wrap

We left at 8:15 and were back by 9:30 so I set about making an omelette for breakfast. George has invited us to a 2^nd turkey dinner today so we will help out by providing the veggie and dressing. I’m also planning to make apple crisp for dessert with my homemade Christmas cake. We picked up a bottle of wine as well.

And there is the 40 year old recipe

After dishes, I started this post and then began baking before the day warmed up too much. I hate missing the sunshine and the sky seems to be clearing out now. When I make apple Crisp, I always use the same recipe.

This one was given to me many years ago, between 1977 and 1980 from a girlfriend. A girlfriend from the time when my husband and her boyfriend were in a band together. We lost touch when she and the boyfriend split up.

Get ready, Get Set, Go!

I’ve always had the best success with the recipe and love its sweetness. It is very well used as you can tell from the picture. So, first I prepared the apples, washing, coring, slicing but not peeling. I like the goodness and taste of the apple peel. I sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon before spreading them in the pan.

Then the mixture of brown sugar, butter, flour and oatmeal. Yum. I covered the pan with tin foil until later today when I will bake it in my convection oven. That way it will be warm for an after dinner serving. Bill and Clemson were snoozing soundly, well, Clemson was quiet, so I took my book outside to read. The sun was nice and warm and I was hopeful for a total clearing.

Ready to bake and dishes get cleaned up throughout the process

Unfortunately, that wasn’t about to happen too soon, if at all today. I went through various stages of undress and redress today. First a tee shirt was too warm and then my camisole top was too cool. Thirdly, the flies were driving me batty so at 1 o’clock I came indoors. Feeling a bit of a nosh for something, I made Bill and I an ice cream cone. This Tillamook Raspberry Vanilla is delicious! Of course, that also means Clemson gets a treat too. Such a pest!

At 2:30 I took a walk up to the clubhouse with the book Bill just finished by Lee Child. I’d read it before so it was time to exchange. Once in the puzzle/book room, I noticed a new puzzle had been started. Oh great! With the border the only thing done, I sat down and got quite a few pieces in in the short time I was there. This is a beautiful puzzle titled Founding Fathers.

I texted Bill just before 3 to tell him where I was and to start Happy Hour without me. When I returned around 3:30 I first peeled and cut my carrots and set them in the pot and got things ready for the dressing. I walked over to George and Suzie’s with my chair and joined them and another new blogging couple. This is awesome! Dave and Cheryl from Our View from Here are staying at a park in Yuma and took a chance that George and Suzie were around and wouldn’t mind visitors.

George, Suzie, Dave, Cheryl, Bill, Empty chair

We are always happy to meet new people, new rv’ers and new bloggers. What a wonderful couple, just getting started on this whole rv’ing thing. Dave has just retired this past summer and they have a 5^th wheel Cedar Creek so has a lot of questions. We love that, all of us like to give advice and helpful tips whether it is what you use or not. They are just suggestions. I love that Dave has a notebook and writes things down to refer to later.

and the turkey looks, smells and tasted delicious!

I’m not even sure what time it was when I realized that George’s turkey was done and he’d taken it in from the Weber. I think it was just before 5 so I said goodbye and came back to turn the burner on for the carrots and celery to boil. I also put the apple crisp in the convection oven for 45 minutes. By 5:30 we were eating our terrific supper.

We had turkey, cooked by the Weber Q master, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy. Dressing, carrots w/celery, Christmas cake and apple crisp with whipped cream for dessert. Oh my! 

 Bill and I finished off our bottle of wine from last night and walked away with contented tummies. We sat around and chatted until 7:30 or so until it was time to say goodnight.

Clemson can smell the turkey on the counter

We’d left Clemson at home during our main course but I brought him back with me when I carried the dessert over. He is such a character, not liking their new ‘carpet-less’ floors he remained on the couch the whole time. He knew there was some great smelling meat somewhere and kept pawing at the coffee table for me to either feed him some or sit with him.

apple crisp, Christmas cake and whipped cream

Back home, Bill wanted to leave the few dishes I’d dirtied until morning but that didn’t appeal to me so I cleaned them up right away. Then it was time to sit and finish this post. I downloaded pictures from all 3 sources and set to work. Bill turned the tv on and tuned in to the 40^th Annual Kennedy Center Honours. It was nice, some people I knew, some I didn’t but entertaining anyway.

The 3 step process of ice cream cones at our place
Clemson watches Bill eat down to the last inch

Finally, he gets his piece

Pure enjoyment
And then he moves on to watching me finish mine

This has been a wonderful day even though we didn’t have any boxes to deal with today. Just the way we like it! Thanks to George and Suzie for the invitation to dinner tonight. We are so blessed to have great friends and to have the opportunity to meet new ones every day! So nice to meet Len, Brenda, Jean, Skip, Sue, Roger, Dave and Cheryl this Christmas!

Thank you for reading today. Feel free to leave a comment if you wish to. 

A New Glorious Day, Sorting Yesterday’s ‘Joys’, Visit with Fellow RV’ers

On Sunday, Sept. 17^th we got up around 7 to another beautiful morning. Bill opened the blinds and the sun beamed through them soon after. He made our hot drinks and we settled at our laptops for our morning reading. I had a post to finish from yesterday so set about doing that. It was being temperamental for some reason but by 9:30 I was done.

Beauty of a morning

 I took a walk down to our turbine lane, the turnaround point for me. There was more of a breeze today and that is a good thing as it was already 17C. When I returned, I brought my bag of goodies into the Suite so I could sort them and see if anything else needed to be removed from the closet. Took out 10 pair of foot coverings and brought only 1 pair back. That, my friends, is progress!

Our neighbours front field is drying up

Bill went out early to work on his shelving and after a second tea, I went to the bedroom to see what I ended up with. 

My friends were no help, I might add, in helping me to bring just a few things home. Everything I tried on, they encouraged me with compliments. Thanks gals! Ha ha! Pat, in particular, kept finding just the perfect “me” item and usually she was bang on!

Our neighbour two doors down has a mower behind the rider

That done, I found another big shopping bag full of things to go out. I forgot to look at my jackets. My niece, Joanne, is hosting her own Clothing Exchange this Saturday so I will drop this bag at Donna’s this afternoon to take. We will have another one in the spring, up here in our neck of the woods and I’m sure there will be more purging we can all do at that time.

My goodies

A bag full to go out already

 For some reason, I guess the time of year, house flies are loving this hot and cool weather. The door opens and no matter how cautious we are, there must be a handful slip in. I don’t know how much time in total I have spent killing them, picking them up and then washing the inside windows. Too much! Bill kills but doesn’t necessarily wipe the windows afterwards. I don’t mind, just get the pests!

Books I picked up yesterday

I made up an egg, bacon, celery and onion breakfast at noon and served it in a plain wrap. Bill liked it and said he wouldn’t mind it again. The green onions are still plentiful from my garden and there is no better feeling than walking out and picking my own. I can’t wait to plan my veggies for next year. There will be some changes and some similarities.

A nice Happy Hour visit 

With dishes done, Bill finished up outside before coming in for a shower. There may be time for him to have a snooze while I clean up and before we head out. I have some tomatoes to make something with so either more soup to freeze or spaghetti sauce Hmm. Thinking cap time!

John is popular with the pooches today

Today we are experiencing the strongest the winds that we have had in several days and it feels quite nice. It is forecast to reach 81F/27C so the breeze will be welcome. We’ve had our awnings open daytime/evening and overnight for a week now but will put them in today before we go out. Even still, the winds are only 8km with gusts to 12km/hr.

Another nice spread - good eats!

We left the Suite, all three of us, and dropped the bag off at the Acreage on our way to Chatsworth. Gayle wasn’t expecting us until 2:30 so we’ll take our time. We’d invited Pat and Rob to join us but they have tickets to Casino Rama. I don’t want to spoil it, Pat will fill you in on Facebook. They would also have enjoyed seeing Mike and Dee today but we are all so busy in this life of retirement!

The gazebo on Gayle and John's side deck

Gayle shows her guests around

Her garden entrance

Thought I'd show you one of the outfits I got yesterday

 Dee and Mike were already at my sister’s place and Gayle and John gave us a glass of wine or beer of our choice and we went downstairs to their gazebo in the shade. It was a little warm but no one complained as we chatted and feasted and drank during our Happy Hour. Catching up is fun and so is learning of each other’s adventures for the winter. Before long, we realized that it was after 5 and so we said our goodbyes and headed home.

When we left, these were the only clouds visible to the west

Tonight, we are going to make the bacon-wrapped potatoes I mentioned in my post yesterday. With some added instructions from Laurie by text, I cut the little potatoes and wrapped them before placing them on a wire rack over a baking sheet. We had a few delicious nibbles at Gayle’s so could easily wait the hour while these baked. The butt chop is big enough that we can share tonight.

Love this country road

Once things were on the grill, I took my book outside and read a few more chapters. By 7 we were eating delicious potatoes (thanks L.A.) corn on the cob and chops. Well, the chops were okay, Bill really enjoyed them. 

We cleaned up the dishes and settled inside for the night. It does get dark early now and at 7:30 you can’t read out there. I like to move indoors anyway.

Where is the steep hill sign?

I hope you have had a great day. We had another fun one for sure. Thank you for stopping in and checking us out today. I love getting your comments.