Happy New Year

This has been a good year for us and I hope that next year is even better.  We traveled quite a bit this year and were away from home for 6 months total.

We acquired a new family member.  Buddy has settled in very nicely and is a very good traveler.

           

                                          We saw some beautiful homes in the Charleston

and Savannah area

I  didn't let my fear of heights stop me from climbing the lighthouse in St. Augustine, Fla., all 217 steps!

                                                 We went to the racetrack in Daytona.

But I think my favorite place on this trip, were the keys.  I could have stayed there for months.

                  We got us a beautiful new grandson this year.  Logan is such a happy baby.

We saw the corn palace in S.D.

And the Badlands

Casper, Wy.

 We took a canoe ride on the Snake River with the Grand Tetons in the background.

We saw a few eagles, moose and elk.

 Crazy Horse Monument was very impressive.  I would love to see this finished but I doubt that will happen in my lifetime.

It is going to be beautiful.  The size of it is amazing.  

Mt. Rushmore will fit inside just the head dress of Crazy horse.   That's crazy!

The Grand Canyon

The balloon festival at Albuquerque.

Of Course then there was the diesel spill of over 25 gallons.  What a mess and costly too.

We finished up the year with a baby shower for the new one coming in March.

I had my sons and their families here for the holidays and that was just the icing on the cake.

It has been a great year of family and travel.  I hope next year brings as much or more travel, fun and family time.   And of course I am looking forward to the new grandson that is coming next year.

I hope that the new year is happy and prosperous for us, everyone.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Tired, but in a good way

By Christmas morning you could hardly get into the living room.  I have never seen so many presents!

                               The kids were so excited.    I was excited to have them home.

                                                 It was good to see old friends and new ones.

 As you can see, the gift pile was taller than the grand kids.  We all must have been very good this year.

 It wasn't long before the youngest one crashed.  Peepaw sure was happy to be the one to rock him to sleep.

We took a group picture of our family.  Next Christmas we will be larger by one more boy.

Of course we finished the day with a crazy picture... more like the real us!
Our family has truly been blessed this year.  We have good health and we have each other, what more could we need.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas to all

It's been a while since I posted, but to tell you the truth, there just hasn't been anything to post about since we got home.

We have worked at the house and been to doctor appointments and that is about it.

I have decorated the house and Doug put up lights outside, all in preparation of the kids and grandkids coming in.

Doug has been working on a plaque for Kaitlyn to take with them camping.

Sunday we were surprised by Mike and Kaitlyn coming  in a day early.

The little Patawan is growing!  March will be here before we know it.

Then last night, Tuesday, Brian, Lori, Ashlynn and Logan showed up a day earlier than expected.

It is so great to have everyone home for the holidays!

We are about to go over to my sisters house for a family get together.  Love Chrismas Eve too!

Update on Doug's eye

We went back to the doctor today.  The good news is that the infection is all clear.  The bad news is that it has left a lot of damage.

The newest picture is the one on the top left and middle top.  What you see on the left is a damaged circle on the bottom of the cornea.  That circle has very little tissue.  The picture top middle that looks like a line, is the shape of his cornea.  That drop is lost tissue.  There should be a nice curve.
Doug is still on all medications.  Antibiotics are needed because the tissue is an open wound.  They are precautionary at this point. Steroid is taken because small blood vessels grew into the cornea to heal the infection.  Only problem is, white blood cells also cause rejection.  The course of treatment now is medication and a "healing contact".  I never heard of this.  The contact works like a bandaid to keep the eyelid from tearing the open tissue.  The doctor will recheck him next Monday.  Hopefully this "bandaid" will help the antibiotics heal the open tissue.  If this fails, the next option is something else I have never heard of.  A piece of amniotic tissue will be sewn over the open would to promote healing.  The amniotic tissue is lab grown and has no DNA of it's own so Doug's body won't try to reject it as a foreign body.  Let's hope we don't have to go that route.
We leave tomorrow for Tunica.  Looks like a good time for me to drive again.  Doug's vision is better or maybe I should say it is "near normal" for him.  Doug has not have good vision (20/100) in that eye since he was a small child.  This is "normal vision" for him.  Prayers are welcome and appreciated.

Well it's back to the doctor tomorrow

Doug didn't have a good day with his eye.  In fact, it looks horrible now.  I know it had a lot of trauma when they took the culture and I expected it to look worse, but this is really bad.  After a call, they decided they should see him again tomorrow.  We should have just taken the motorhome to Maumelle Park and stayed all week.  This will be our 4th trip to Little Rock this week.

On a different note:
I thought I would post our expense sheet for our trip.   Fuel costs would have been a lot better if we hadn't spilled about $100 worth.  We averaged 9 mpg on this trip but think it would have been closer to 10 without the spill.  Being in 10,000+ alt. I think even the 9 mpg was good and yet our best mpg was our fill up leaving the Grand Tetons.
Our campground costs (in green) almost equaled our fuel costs.  Maybe on the next trip we will try boondocking some.  I am spoiled to having full hookups so I don't know if that would go over or not. It might work for me if it was a only a 1 night stay between campground stops.
We traveled 4,288.5 miles.  I look forward to our next long trip which will be next summer.  We need to start planning that one soon.  I am sure we will take a few short ones before that just because I can't stay out of the motorhome that long.
Happy travels all.
Later

start	end	miles driven	gallons	mpg	fuel cost	campground	cost	DATE TO	Date		TOTAL
74236						Maumelle COE Park	$24.00	9-8-14	9-9-14	Maumelle, AR
						Springhill COE park	$10.00	9-9-14	9-10-14	AR
	74604	367.8	43.403	8	$151.00	Flying J Fuel				MO.
						Big Red Barn Campground	$29.00	9-10-14	9-11-14	MO
						Blue Springs Campground	$52.00	9-11-14	9-13-14	Blue Springs, MO
						Bluffs Run @ Horseshoe Casino Iowa/NE	$60.00	9-13-14	9-15-14	Council Bluffs, IA
74604	75001	402.0	43.3	9	$165.00	Flying J Fuel/Council Bluffs				Council Bluffs, IA
						R&R Campground	$22.79	9-15-14	9-16-14	Mitchell, SD
75001	75401	394.5	40.8	9		Pilot Murdo, SD				Murdo, SD
						Sleepy Hollow RV Campground	$62.01	9-16-14	9-18-14	Wall. SD
						Happy Holiday RV Resort	$163.53	9-18-14	9-22-14	Rapid City, SD
75401	75815	413.1	50.024	8	$200.05	Pilot Murdo, SD				Casper, WY
						Fort Casper RV Campground	$21.75	9-22-13		Casper, WY
						Grand Teton RV Resort	$203.55	9-23-14	9-26-14	Moran, WY
75815	76264	449.9	41.92	10	$160.64	Flying J Fuel		9-26-14		McCammon, ID
						Golden Spike RV Resort	$31.68	9-26-14	9-27-14	Brigham City, UT
76264	76606	342.2	41.039	8	$155.50	Flying J Fuel		9-27-14		Beaver, UT
						Arizona Charlies RV CG	$96.78	9-27-14	9-29-14	Las Vegas, NV
						Grand Canyon Railroad RV Resort	$66.72	9-29-14	10-4-14	Williams, AZ.	passport america
	77076	469.8	47.675	9	$173.50	Flying J Fuel				Bellemont,AZ
						USA RV Park	$69.49	10-4-14	10-6-14	Gallup, NM
						Coronado RV Park	$120.00	10-6-14	10-9-14	Albuquerque, NM	city park :(
	77495	418.5	38.348	10	$143.00	Flying J Fuel		10-9-14		Moriarty, NM
						Mountain Road RV Park	$27.75	10-9-14	10-10-14	Tucumcari, NM
						Oasis RV Park	$65.50	10-10-14	10-12-14	Amarillo, TX
						Fort Amarillo RV Park	$250.00	10-12-14	10-22-14	Amarillo, TX
	77755	260.6	26.572	9	$98.02	Flying J Fuel				Amarillo, TX
						North Texas jellystone resort	$25.00	10-22-14	10-23-14	Burleson, TX	Yogi bear
	78184	428.1	65.031	6	$236.00	Flying J Fuel				Waco, tx	spilled abt 25 ga. of fuel
						Yegua Campground	$39.00	10-23-14	10-26-14	Lake Summerville, TX
						Westlake RV Resort	$124.98	10-26-14	10-29-14	Houston, TX
	78526	342.0	36.737	9	$135.89	Sulphur Truck Stop		10-29-14	10-29-14	Sulphur, LA
						Paragon Resort/Casino	$34.65	10-29-14	11-1-14	Marksville, La.
		4288.5	474.849	9.00	$1,618.60		$1,600.18				$3,218.78