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| Low Family 2012 Jonathan, Joshua, Stephanie, Mike & Jayden |
FOUTH OF JULY
Because of our obligations as hosts, we hang in the park on weekends and holidays so we had the kids out for dinner on the 4th of July. It was a fun day of food, drink and games. Taught them how to play Pegs and Jokers and Deane learned the hard way you can't do a slight of hand with the cards. Kids will catch you!!!!
One thing I wanted to get before we leave this area, was a family picture with all of them. Well, that proved to be a challenge and in the end impossible. The entire Low family has a great sense of humor and when asked to pose, all they could think of were ways to show their true personalities. I swore I would get a picture of all of them if I had to photoshop one..... so that is what I did!
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| Goffy family! |
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| this should be their Christmas card |
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| Mike, Josh and Jonathan Looks who is almost as tall as when their on their knees |
SHEPHARD FAMILY
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| Chrystal, Deane and Peggy |
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| Kim, Kelsey (6), Kristopher (7), twin sister Kailey and Josh |
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| Mom Kim and Kathan |
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| 2 year old Kathan - got to love this face! |
STEDMAN, LOW AND RADER FAMILY WEEKEND
My sister Janice and her husband Randy and their extended family (daughter Samantha, Sam's roommate, Kali and her 3 year old son, Lucas. Janice's son Tony and his 4 year old daughter Kiera, as well as Randy's 14 year old second cousin) came to camp for a long weekend with us. Steph and family came as often as they could between baseball games and when all of us get together, we do have a good time. On Sunday, when we were all together the Rangers said the park was quiet except for the host site (which is ours). Never said our family was quiet! Besides, when you get us all playing a game like Farkel, we are all competitive and the hooting and laughter can be loud. There was arm wrestling, remote controlled cars, bike riding, hamburgers, hotdogs and so much more!
FRIENDS
We reconnected with Karen and Les Houghton, friends we met last year when hosting at Belfair State Park. They are from Farmington New Mexico and arrived back at Belfair this month. We managed to get together a couple of times for dinner and games of Pegs and Jokers. Of the 5 games we played, Karen and I won 4!!!!!! Finally let Deane and Les win one since we most likely will not see them again for over a year.
Deane's best friend from high school, Rodney and his wife Dee are here in Washington, moored in Anacortes for the summer. Rod is President of the Metal Boat Organization and Dee is the Secretary and are here to help organize an upcoming Metal Boat convention in Anacortes. Rodney built their steel hulled sail boat while they lived in New Mexico, and when it was finished had it shipped to Newport Oregon. They sold their place in New Mexico and now live aboard their boat. While they were in Oregon they made all of the final fittings including sail masts that had to be shipped from England. Once done, they sailed to Anacortes where they will be until September when they will leave and head north to explore the Canadian Islands and eventually end up in Alaska. The day we got together was Rod's birthday and he wanted to celebrate in Seattle. We ferried over to the Seattle waterfront for another great dinner at the Crab Pot. After dinner we checked out the new ferris wheel on the waterfront and watched a beautiful sunset.
The Crab Pot has became our favorite restaurant while here. We had one more meal when we met Karen and Bill Woodrow there. They are good friends from Greenvalley Arizona and were in Washington visiting their daughters.
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| Dick and Betty Bobbitt |
It is the end of the month, and we leave here on the 31st heading for Oregon and Champoeg State Park. Of course we cannot get out of here without something needing to be fixed. We are 4 days from leaving, and our hot water is no longer getting hot! Nice thing about an RV is we have two ways to generate hot water. One electrically and the other with propane. The other day we heard a hum when we turned just the hot water on. Should have paid a little closer attention to that I guess.... now Deane is under and in the the 'inner bowels' trying to figure out if he can fix it. We still have the propane to heat our water with, just cheaper to do it with electricity because the park pays the bills!
I think it is time to move on. They say problems or bad news come in threes, and I have managed to get my three in just three days before we leave. Three days before we leave, we had a hot water problem, like there was none. Okay.... have to admit the water problem MAY have been my fault. It seems I left the water in the shower slightly running after using it this morning..... which MAY have drained all the hot water. Before realizing the shower was running, we thought we had a problem with the hot water heater, Deane tested everything, and was just getting ready to really pull things apart, which meant getting under and up in the RV, when he mentioned he found the water had been running in the shower. We thought that might be the problem, so he flushed the tank and refilled it. Now we wait to see if it gets hot! Yeah, it was my fault!!!! We have hot water again..... NOTE to self..... make sure water is turned all the way off after my shower!
Two days before we were to leave, I went down to do laundry one last time. Got the first load washed and thrown into the dryer, second load into the washer. Went to pull out the dry clothes and found they were still wet......heating element went out! Grabbed all the wet clothes and headed to a laundromat to dry them.
Day before we are to leave, while Deane is busy working on the RV, I went to clean the few sites we had to do today. I cleaned out a fire pit of a few pieces of what I THOUGHT were cold coals. Came back to our site, put the bucket down and came in and had lunch. I had one last site to clean and when I came out about an hour later.......Yea.... you got it... the coals I picked up earlier had been warm. Warm enough to have started a small fire and completely melted the plastic bucket they were in (the metal handle was the only thing left), burned a big hole in another plastic bucket sitting next to it and the scariest thing it had also melted a hugh hole in a 30 gallon garbage can sitting right next to the wood shed! The ground in front of the big garbage can was on fire and Deane was calm and collected as he got the hose and put it out. I on the other hand was of no use!
I am so ready to go before I do something else! Our jobs in Oregon do not require me to clean any fire pits!
Onto Oregon for two months, then in October we start a new adventure by heading to Florida for the winter instead of Arizona. We have contracted with the Florida State Parks to work in Alafia River State Park, just outside of Tampa Bay for the winter. I will be working in the reservation booth and Deane will be doing maintenance (not sure exactly what that means yet). Plan is to stay on the east coast next year and see as much of it as we can.
Keep checking back to follow our travels.