another year. may 10 2026

 well many months have passed since my last post. crazy how time flies. 

we had a great trip from wi to virginia to florida last oct. no issues with the camper for the 2nd trip in a row!  stayed in brads area for a week and spent some valuable time with the grandkids. madison had her first sleepover in the camper! and bode spent a night there by himself. so fun! give bode a fire and he will keep himself busy all night. s'mores were always a bonus. got to the house in florida oct 22nd. then the process of unloading the camper and getting settled in the house.  didn't take too long and as we are getting into a schedule.  met up with beth, todd, gail and scott for a delicious shrimp meal at the freezer and then a catch up at beths house for a couple of hours. then a meet up with  sharon and fred at their house  and of course happy hours with ray, rita, diana and john at our park. 10 new groups of people in the park but most arent joiners and dont want to get to know their neighbors. weird. winter went by fast. our friend laurie came for a week, and brad and family came after christmas  for a few days. so fun. then eric and heather came in january along with aprill and payton. busy and fun week. cold tho for the most part. winter went by quickly. i swam, walked and rode bike.got involved with the activity dept so they kept my hopping. 

left inverness on aprill 17th. first day travel went great. 2nd day blowout! AAA came fast. changed tire. and we were back on road. then at rest stop we discoved more damge. broken shackle. very dangerous i discovered. found mobile fix it guy to come to atmore al to fix it. enroute to campground another tire had sudden air loss. called AAA. totally not helpful this time. they don't bring u a tire. dont bring air to air up tires and to tow to campground and cross state lines is a huge problem.....grrrr. finally decided to just drive with a low tire to closest gas station and see if it held air. AAA left us sitting roadside for over 2 hours. double grrrrr. finally got to campground 6 hrs late. triple grrr. i was so stressed. fix it guy came on monday and fixed what he could. so 8 shackles, multiple bolts, 2 rockers and 4 new tires we were road worthy and with just fender damage to fix when we got home. had a couple of good days traveling then hit potential  bad storms so holed up in Wenco Ill for 2 days. we avoided the bad stuff anyway. got home on aprill 28th. phew.... everything fine in big camper. no leaks no mice. yay! 

we had a kentucky derby party at our house . probably 30 friends from campground came. fun day. saw mom, cindi, joel and karen since being home. been busy. garden is 3/4 planted. mom had her pacemaker replaced, got my car back from cindi. double yay! its been kind of chilly since we have been back but it is supposed to improve later this week. and that brings me up to date

blow out aprill 19 2026

brothers weekend in tampa. they have such a great time together and we love joining them

laurie joined us for a week. so great to see her

new patio we added this winter

old blocks made a sidewalk

cedar key fl from the water

madison was very comfortable at our house

bodes 6th birthdaty

cedar key

payton and i got wet walking to see the manatees at the manatee festival in crystal river fl

we had to hide from the cold rain for a bit

brads family and us went to silver springs fl for a glass bottom boat ride

brads and family came at christmas. we had PRESENTS under the tree to open for a change

brett and his dngeons and dragens dice

maddie loved her bubble gun

thanksgiving at our house with gail, scott, beth and todd. 

rita and i enjoying a wine

tom and ray enjoying an old fashion in their new shirts

garden did ok until the extended cold snap in late  january

dianna did a great job keeping the plants alive

brad and brett enjoying the fire

mallory, maddie and the dog

bode and grandma

smores at the campground in waynesboro va. 

moms 94th birthday!

 Nov 4 2025

and here it is another winter in florida and i didnt post a thing all summer in wisconsin.  so back tracking to april. we took 2 weeks getting back to wi. traveling up thru alabama, stopping at casino in atmore. i lost....but love to stop there. got to chippewa on the 29th and opened up the big camper with no issues! yay. had a little kentucky derby party  at the campground. always fun. had stunning weather the first couple of weeks we were back so got the garden planted and 2 days later had a heavy rain with hail. flooded out half the garden, so some replanting was required. spent a lot of time with mom and us girls all had our annual pedicures for mothers day. went kayaking once with debbie and karen. dont know why i dont go out more. did a little  bike riding over the summer but not that much. brad and family came for a few days in june. so great to spend time with them. had a little gathering at our place while they were there. grandaughter payton graduated in may and we went down for her party in june. off she goes to stevens point for college. val and ken came for a weekend visit at the campground. so good to catch up with them. in august we took sydney and drove to erics for bradens wedding. kevin, aprill and brad flew out so it was great all getting together. was great meeting new great grandson Roman and playing with Kolsyn. Sadly never got to spend any time with bradens laythe.  once we got back to chippewa it was time to start winding down for the summer and loading up sydney for the trip south.  i canned a lot of produce from the garden so it was loaded down pretty heavy. we decided to head to brads for a week so we left on oct 1 and spent 5 days driving out. we had the kids for a night and brad and mallory had a whole night to themselves. bode wanted to come and stay by himself one other night. they were all so good while with us. they all love  there s'mores. bode was all about keeping the fire burning.  once we left brads we went to mt airy nc. for 2 nights at mayberry campground. great campground and passport america so half price. double yay as most campgrounds we stayed at were $50 plus and some not all that great. got to the house in Inverness on oct 19. then spent a week unloading sydney, putting everything away and cleaning up a very dirty camper. then discovered the roof coating that was put on last fall by como rv was peeling off so back to the shop it went. didnt know if we wanted to bring sydney down this yr or not but after seeing the poor workmanship i am glad we did as it is all under warranty. probably wont bring it down next yr.  so since being back here we have gotten together with friends beth, todd, gail, scott , fred and sharon. along with friends from the park. eric and heather are coming down in jan but otherwise i dont' belive any other company is coming. got the garden planted but a cold winter is predicted here. 

happy 51st anniversary

flooded garden. fortunately is mostly survived

after an initial nice couple of weeks the cold returned to the campground and fires and winter coats were needed, tom with dean and doug

brett and i

maddy and i

childrens museum in eau claire was great for kids

mom and kevin

val and i on our annual tubing trip down the namakogon river

paytons grad party

new great grand Roman

wade, brad, kevin, aprill and dalton at bradens wedding

breannas wonderful family, tj, breanna, kolsyn and roman

family pic in montann

brad, dalton and keving. 

most of erics family. 

roman and i

my buddy kolsyn

tom and roman

mallory and madison

bode and i

loving camper life

bode

house is looking good