Christmas Eve Day, Visit with Family, Special Buffet over Happy Hour

Pilot Knob RV Resort, Winterhaven, CA

Tuesday, Dec. 24^th found me awake early. Like at 3 am first and then thankfully I dropped off again. At 5:30 I knew I was awake for good. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was curled up in bed at 9 pm last night. No matter what I did, watch tv or read, I couldn’t stay awake. May as well be in bed and I had no problem dropping into slumber immediately for 6 hours. Our busy-ness is catching up with me. It does seem that we are go, go, go.

There is my sister's rig

 So, after waiting until 6, I got up and was happy that Bill rolled over for a few more winks. I sat in my nice comfy chair and read a few chapters of my book. Now that I’m into it more, it will be easy to carry on at night. When I’m tired is not the time to get into a new one. At 7:30 we headed out for our walk. At the back east corner of the park Bill looked over the fence and he said ‘There is Gayle and John right there!’ And so they were; closer than we thought.

The sky to the east showed a sun coming up over the mountain

Of course, we had to head that way, through the gate and go to welcome them right and proper. They must have seen us coming as they both came out in their housecoats to greet us and give us a hug. Nice to see them, here, safe and sound. They had 6 long travel days with just one day of a delay due to a minor mechanical truck issue. Thankfully, they were on their way without a large expense with the problem taken care of easily.

A promising day

We had a nice visit for an hour and a half before walking home. I made sure to invite them to our Happy Hour gathering at 3:30 this afternoon. I hadn’t had my tea yet so was looking forward to that! The rest of the day was a flurry of activity. While Bill worked on a couple more projects, I swept the vinyl floors and wrapped a couple of gifts. I did a quick dusting as well before Bill got the vacuum out.

We have grass growing on our site
'in the desert'

One of his projects he wasn’t able to complete but the second one involved removing our fireplace unit. Eeek! More dust in there so he had to vacuum that up too. Our fireplace has been acting up over the last month by running continuously, even when we shut it off. He would have to unplug the unit and sometimes that would be enough to reset it. Other times, that didn’t work. Good thing we haven’t needed it since we use the heat pump here in the park for a heat source in the evenings and overnight.

Bill has the fireplace out for a good cleanng

With the unit out of the cavity, I tested the remote control for it and things seemed to be working. Bill replaced all the little screws to put things back as he found it and we’ll just hope that the dusting did the trick. We’ll let you know! At 12:30, I walked up to the clubhouse to work on a puzzle. That 2000-pc one that was finished days ago was still taking up prime real estate. It was over a week ago that we arrived and it was on the table so, I took the initiative and packed it up in the box.

The empty cavity got a good cleaning too

Things looked great
Everything seems to be connected just fine

 Now, it gave me room to do whichever puzzle I wanted. Someone had started yet another one off to one end of the table and it was another one that I’ve already done here. I chose a 1000-pc dog puzzle. This would be fun! I managed in the hour to get all the pieces turned over and the border pieces separated. However, I was only able to get partial edge pieces assembled before I realized I needed to get home. It was almost 2 pm. Back home, I washed 6 large russet potatoes and prepared them.

Getting it ready to put it back in place

With a buffet for mid Happy Hour at Kim and Ken’s scheduled for 4 pm, I offered to take spuds of some kind. I found out since that everyone else was taking a cold dish or finger food. My potatoes didn’t quite fit in so I had to get creative to make them more ‘snacky’. Well, that just didn’t happen so I made them into Hassleback potatoes. (google it) Madame IP was my cooking tool and at 3, Bill carried first our chairs and then the appliance back to K & K’s. I would be cooking my dish there.

With a skewer through each potato, I sliced each one

I have many colourful bands for my Alta Fitbit
but they get dirty so today was the day to give them a bath

Soaking in the small sink in bleach and baking soda

Not perfectly clean but much better

There were 10 of us and when my sister, Gayle and her husband, John, arrived, it made a nice group of 12. Not exactly the disciples of the Bible but we were all there to celebrate the friendship and glad tidings of Christmas Eve.

These were just the appetizers

And the table of food
Meatballs, potatoes, salads, veggies, rolls and dips
and then desserts

There was plenty of food for all of us and the conversation ensued, as it always does. Between half of us jumping up and down like yo-yo’s to capture the ever-changing sunset, we had some good laughs and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

This is my plate of food
The potatoes turned out pretty good and I'd do them again

The winds died appropriately around the time the sun disappeared and we were well-lit (not from alcohol, although maybe close) from the glow of Ken’s festive lights on their Journey. It was around 6:30 when we all said goodnight and Merry Christmas before heading back to our Suite. G & J walked back with us and came in for a night cap. It was a nice quiet little visit before they, too, drove back around the corner to their spot over the fence.

A great group of friends (& family) today
Around the circle to the left:
Tom, Deb, Dave, Cheryl, Kim, John, Gayle, my chair, Bill, Ken, Bob, Jo-Anne

They have reserved a spot here in the park and will arrive tomorrow by noon and spend Christmas Day with all of us. It is so nice to have some family here, nice for Gayle and nice for me to have a sister close by for a few days. 

This was 6 different 'jump-ups' from my seat
and I was not alone

Ho ho ho! I hope you’ve been good and get to bed in good time. Bill washed and I dried our dishes from the day, they piled up today for some reason! The rest of the evening was doing Christmas eve things. You know hanging stockings and so on. 😉

These were a surprise to all of us
As Dave said  'Never turn your back on an Arizona sunrise - it will change'
Good night and MERRY CHRISTMAS
from Bill and I at Pilot Knob RV Resort

There is one person NOT forgotten today. Bill's 3rd daughter, my step-daughter, celebrates a birthday today. Happy Birthday, Krystal!

This was a great day. I hope yours was too! Thank you for stopping by today.

My Kind of Day, Arizona Market, Surprise Birthday Lunch at Lin’s

Friday, Feb. 24^th at Pilot Knob RV Resort, California. Man, I have a great feeling about today. It isn’t because it is Friday, I don’t crave Fridays anymore. It is just a beautiful sunny day with no wind and I feel on top of the world for some reason. Oh yah, being retired and being with my sweetie down here in the southwest might have something to do with it.

We were up at 7 and instead of catching a sunrise, I caught 3 empty washers at the Laundry building. At that time of the morning, we weren’t concerned about using 3 instead of the stipulated “2 washers per person please”. After all, there were two of us. We were overdue for doing laundry so had lots to catch up on.

Great price, $1.25/washer and dryer

When the wash was done around 9 we came back and had bacon and eggs on the Weber Q. We haven’t had them for a couple of days for one reason or another and they tasted great! Today we are meeting our friends, conveniently, at Lin’s at 1 pm to celebrate our friends’ birthdays. The honourees don’t know about it.

One of our birthday gals
Happy Birthday, Pat!

I had a shower after dishes and took Clemson for a walk. Something else overdue, he doesn’t get one every day and I feel bad when I miss a couple of days in a row. Terrible Mom, eh? While we were gone, Bill got his shower and then we were ready to head out at 11. Clemson was put in charge of looking after the house, a job he takes on willingly because he gets his treat.

Our cutie guard dog

I'm sure this is scary to you

So, we drove to the Arizona Market first and it was a busy place. We both like this market, if you are looking for something you have a really good chance of finding it here. Keep in mind that it is a flea market though if you go looking for a birthday card, you won’t find it. J

Just some views from in front of our site

I won’t say what we were looking for but we found it without too much difficulty and only had to make one connection with someone back home. Not too bad! If that sounds convoluted, it is. It was meant to be. Just let it go. We bumped into George, Suzie, Bill and Barb. Bill and Barb were there to pick up a sunshade and we were all putting in time to meet up at Lin’s.

towards the office - a whole row of empty sites

Arriving at Lin’s at 10 to 1 we see Rob’s empty truck so we knew we could venture on in and seat ourselves with the birthday clan. The cat would be out of the bag by now. Hmm, can you say that when going into a Chinese restaurant to eat? LOL The buffet here is awesome. For $9.95 you get all you can eat and if you are over 62 you get 10% off that price. Bingo!

I think I went up 3 times but kept each plate to a minimum and walked out of there feeling very content, not over stuffed. At the same time, Bill and I knew, as did most of the others, that we wouldn’t need anything for supper tonight.

When we left the market restaurant, we stopped for diesel at Baron’s Fuels at a good price and hit a Walmart to buy the card I mentioned. I already had a perfect card for Pat.

Left front: PaT (birthday gal), Rob, George, Suzie
Left back: George, Rose, Bill and Bill

We met back at camp and joined together at Bill and Barb’s for Happy Hour. This was fitting since Bill and Barb are leaving tomorrow. Bill and Barb are from Rochester, NY (I think, sorry if I got that wrong). They met George and Suzie a few years back while camping at Lazy Lakes RV Park.

From left, Rose (birthday gal), my Bill, Barb's Bill, Suzie

The sun was great for a while but once it moved behind the tree, I was shaded and got cool very quickly. Shortly after 4:30 I’m afraid we broke up the gathering when we headed home. Last we heard, Rob, George and Rose were headed up for Texas Hold ’Em at the clubhouse tonight. Good luck!

Back home I settled in my recliner with my book. I’ll be finishing this one tonight! Bill tried reading but his eyes were too heavy and nap time took over. It is difficult starting a new book, especially when you are tired. I knew a catnap would do him good so I took my book to the bedroom and did my reading away from the sleeping sounds.

I didn’t take many pictures today at all but since I missed the sunrise this morning, I had to go down the road to get a snapshot of the sunset. 

 I hope you all had a great day today. It was a good one and I’m winding down quickly. Good food, good sun, reading and exercise and great friends do that to us. Oh and I did get my book finished!

Thank you for reading along, your comments are always welcome.