A birthday party for Lucas

Although his birthday isn't until March 17th, we celebrated it Saturday, March 12th.  His actual birthday is on Thursday and Mike will be in class preparing to take his PE test.  All of that, plus her family couldn't be here mid week to celebrate.  So the 12th it is.

                                                             Can you tell he was excited!

                                      Mike and Kaitlyn got busy preparing some real good food.

John and Shiela worked hard breading the catfish, shrimp and sliced fried dill pickles!

                             Mike has a nice new fryer.  He had it all cooked in no time at all.

 See, I told you it was a nice cooker.  It has two fry baskets and right now they both are full of fish!

I almost waited too long to snap a shot of some of the food.  It was going fast.  Don't worry, there was plenty.  To go with the fish and shrimp, there was also french fries, hush puppies, fresh fruit and vegetables.  It was all delicious!

This is Lucas's very own cake.  I didn't get a shot of the big one for all of us.  I don't think he took a bite of it, but he sure had fun playing in it.

                                                  The dogs had fun eating it up off the patio.
                                     After a quick bath for Lucas, it was time to open presents.

                                    A good time was had by all.  Happy first birthday Lucas!
later,

Oops! There's no water in the toilet!

We arrived in Houston just in time to miss all the rain in Arkansas and Louisiana!  We had a lot of rain here and a few good thunderstorms but nothing like they have had back home.  I just hope we can get back home.  At this time highways, 59, 69 and Interstate 20 are closed in La. and Tx..  Monroe, La. is underwater along with Bossier City.  I hope that by the time we head home this flooding is gone.
When we got here and set up we found that we had no water in the toilet.  We had water everywhere else.  This is not good.  We checked everything we could think of checking and then I got online and posted the question on rv.net.  What could be the cause?  I also checked with Jim, our resident Mr. Fix-it.

The most common answer we got was that it might have frozen and broken, not allowing water to enter the toilet.  Another answer was, check for mineral deposits.  It could just be stopped up.

We watched a youtube video on changing out the valve and Doug got busy.  Well  It is suppose to pop out when you push down on the tabs on the top and bottom of the valve.  Well if you look at the top picture, you will see the tab on the top of the valve.  But look closely, there isn't one on the bottom.  That's because when it popped out, it took the tab with it.  Luckily, we had ordered a new one just in case this one was broken.

                                           The new one was installed without any problems.

The water lines were hooked back up and everything worked great.  We had thought that it had froze and broken some how while we were gone and the motorhome was "home alone".  Upon close examination, I couldn't find anything wrong.  Nothing, but a bunch of white stuff in the end with a filter.  Yep, it was just stopped up.  I have never seen anything like this.  It was just a bunch of soft white gunk.  Mineral deposits had built up and was blocking the water.  It almost looked like flaky white fish.  LOL  So, we wouldn't have needed the new valve had it not broke when it was removed.  I think it's time to start using a whole house water filter. We have two filters in the kitchen, but nothing for the rest of the coach.  Lesson learned, the hard way.
Tomorrow we will celebrate Lucas' first birthday!  I can't believe it's already been a year.  Happy Birthday sweet little man!

Later

A day trip to Hot Springs

Today we went to Hot Springs with Doug's brother to pick up a new fishing boat.  They arrived early this morning in a new GMC pick up.  Gee, Ricky, a new truck and a new boat. I think I am jealous.

Now the new boat!

While they were signing papers and loading everything up to go, I had a chance to look around.  It seems that I am way behind on what motorcycles look like nowadays!

 What do you think about this one!  It looks like a batmobile.  They also have convertible tops for bad weather.

                                               Now this one is nice.  It looks a little wicked.

                               Here is a closeup of the interior.  It even has a stick shift.

Well someone is ready to try it out.  I think I will wait for the ones that fly.  According to the Jetson's we are suppose to be zooming around in flying cars by now.
Later

We are home, but is it really home?

We arrived home to cold weather and then rain.  We are suppose to have thundershowers in the morning too.  What is it with us and bad weather.  As soon as we left Amarillo, the temperature jumped up to the 80's.
Traveling in the truck and not the motorhome is hard on us.  It has taken me two days to just recover.  It's a 10 hour drive from Amarillo to Pine Bluff.  We try to stop often to stretch but you get in travel mode and want to hurry up and get to your destination.
We have been here so little that it doesn't feel like home anymore.  Home is where my kids and grandkids are.  We will head back to Houston next week for Lucas's first birthday.  Doesn't seem like it has been a year.  Time flies when you are having fun, and it flies even faster the older you get.
I guess we will be calling a realtor this week and start the process of putting the house up for sale.  When you consider that we spent two months over the last year in this house, it's no wonder it doesn't feel like home anymore.
Later