Charlottesville, Virginia!

We arrived in Charolottesville on Monday, October 7, and spent a week visiting with Jocelyn, Tom, Ronan, Aenea, and Pepper. We had a great time but we had some snafus along the way.

We had to drop some mail at the post office so we went there before going on in to the kids' house. Took our stuff in, got it mailed and went back out to the car and it wouldn't start. It tried, but would just not turn over. So we called our road service, then called Jocelyn. Jocelyn got there before the tow truck driver and had everyone with her. So they kept us cool and collected in their car while we waited. It didn't take long and the tow truck driver sent us on our way and towed the car to the Ford dealer.

Jocelyn took us around to car rental agencies and every one of them wanted $65-$110 a day for car rental. So for 3-4 days it could cost several hundred dollars because, of course, they didn't have any of the "cheaper" ones available. The kids have two cars, but the Crown Vic they don't drive because

they said it needed tires. We decided to cut our losses and take the Crown Vic and put tires on it so that it would serve our purpose and be back in service for the kids. A win-win.

While we were there and I was visiting with the kids, Terry finished the job of hanging the storm door on the front of the house that Jocelyn had started. She is not afraid to tackle anything and she did a great job hanging the door, but needed help with the hardware. Terry was able to get that job done for them.

We had some chilly weather while we were there, so Terry and I didn't do any outside activities with the kids, but they enjoyed coming out to the campground a couple times and we had a fire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Fun times with the kids for sure. We spent some time at the farm where the kids have a "share." We help pick fruit and pet the farm dogs.

We got our car back in the middle of the week. It was the fuel pump and a fuel modulator. Expensive stuff, but thankfully, they got the job done right apparently because she's run fine every since. It was amusing to a couple of the service writers because they were talking about how they never see any Ford Flex's come in on the hook. . . everything else, but never the Flex. Then they looked up and  saw ours come in under tow. LOL Oh well. She couldn't have broken down at a more opportune time and I am grateful for that. We weren't out in the middle of no where. . . we were where family was just a phone call away.

Our time with the family was soon over and we left on Monday, the 14th of October and headed south to Florida. We took our usual route down 321 through South Carolina, staying off I-95 for this part of the journey. It was an uneventful trip and we arrived in Melbourne, Florida on the 17th.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Kids, kids, and more kids!

It's hard to find time to blog when we are visiting the kids and grandkids in Charlottesville.

We are so busy with them during the day and then come evening, we tend to crash. Plus we do have the dogs as well, so they must be attended to and walked. I always try to spend time with them if we have left them alone for a bit. But they do very well and never get into anything. They are very patient with us and we love them dearly.

We spent the week taking in the grandkids routine. They each are in gymnastics and swimming classes and Aenea is also in a dance class. Both of them concentrate very hard and listen to the instructors. I had to laugh at Ronan's gymnastics class because he was about the only one listening intently to the teacher. The other kids were bouncing off the walls, doing what the teacher said NOT to do and running all over the room instead of listening. My grandkids are the best!

Aenea really likes her dance class. She didn't talk at all during her class, but she tried everything the
teacher taught her and when she got home, she was repeating things the teacher said and did little movements she had been taught. She is such a sweetie. I am thankful they are both such good listeners.

She is quite the artist. She loves to paint, so Jocelyn and Tom encourage her by keeping an easel up all the time. It sits in the kitchen and Aenea paints whenever she wants. She paints a lot. She is a creative little gal and I love to watch her intently concentrating on selected her next color.

Ronan likes to play on the PlayStation3. I think he and his friend Jack mostly play MineCraft. I never have found the interest in video games. I play some solitaire and sudoku. To each his own. While they are busy playing videogames, Pepper McPoodlepants is checking out the front yard. I think Jocelyn had gone out to the car and she is looking for her.

Terry and Tom worked on finishing up the door on Ronan's cabinet in his room. They have rearranged his room and added some storage items from IKEA. It looks very nice and there appears to be space for everything. 

Two nights they all came out to the motorhome and sat around the campfire. One night Ronan brought his friend Jack. I was surprised we didn't have mosquitoes. It was a bit nippy, though, and we all had to put on jackets. We had nice fires and had fun roasting marshmallows. These are special times for sure.

We even went to the park a couple times. There was one birthday party and the kids got to whack a pinata. Fortunately they had filled it mostly with little trinkets and not too much candy, so that was good.

We met two men at the campground who were touring the U.S. on motorcycles. They were from Germany and both spoke very good English. This was not their first trip here and they were enjoying the territory they were seeing this time.

I hate leaving the family, but it was time to move on to Florida. Since we had been broken down for 5 days, we had to drive straight to Brandon's, so we had one very long day of driving and two shorter ones. It wasn't bad, and I'm glad we had the extra time built into the schedule to do this.

Till next time. . .

Dale