The past 6 weeks has been full of family time, travel, celebrating, playing lots of games and lrelaxing from our everyday lives. We arrived in Whiteville, NC to spend a week with Paul’s sister Nancy just before Thanksgiving and had a great time with 4 of Paul’s siblings and a bunch of nephews. Thanksgiving dinner was the usual fare, with the usual overstuffing ourselves! We had turkey for several days.
Family outing to Myrtle Beach and Goodwill shopping!
After Thanksgiving, we moved to Paul’s brother, Stephen’s house where we parked the rig for the month of December. Stephen lives next door to Carol, another sibling who has 3 kids, 3 spouses and 3 grandchildren. We had a great two weeks hanging with them, along with another Thanksgiving dinner with lots more turkey which we ate for 3 or 4 more days and then it was time to hop on a plane and head to California!
We left Duke with Carol, who was very nervous that something would happen and Paul would be devastated. We went to California for 2 weeks where we had a wonderful time with our girls. Our first night in town, we were invited to join Stephanie’s company for dinner at Kyoto Palace. That was a great surprise, with a wonderful dinner and getting to meet her coworkers. Also, we bought a new car on Thursday between dentist appointments – that was interesting. Paul is not much for car salesmen, so he went to the dealer told them what he wanted, they had 1, came and picked me up, said you get to decide. The only choice is Yes or No! It’s a very nice CRV, Honda and will replace our red HHR that was damaged by hail this year. We can’t drive it until we return to CA in May but that is ok.
We made a quick trip to my parents the weekend before Christmas and enjoyed another family get together with my neices and nephews. My sister flew in on Sunday so we got a couple of hours of visiting before we left on Monday.. Back home on Monday, preparing for the festivities while Paul and Stephanie rebuild her closet.
Amy, Chasity, Stephanie, Nichole, Sanna, Stephen, Andy and Briana
Several were missing and more arrived after the photo!
Christmas Eve we were invited to my friend Diana’s moms place for a feast that was amazing; ravoli, salad, sausage, bread, prime rib, mushrooms, string beans, and yorkshire pudding. Wait, then there is appetizers and dessert! WOW! From there we stopped by to see our old neighbors, Barb and Brian along with their daughter Terese. Then it was a few lights in Willow Glen and home to get to bed and be ready for the big day!
Christmas morning was very relaxing as we opened gifts, shared how we came to our decisions of what we purchased and then enjoyed a breakfast before Amy and Nick had to depart for his moms house! The rest of the day was spent lazing around, making another meal and setting up some of the Christmas gifts! Paul and Stephanie continued to work on her closet which they finished by Tuesday evening before we left on Wednesday.
The day after Christmas we went on a tour of LEVI stadium with the girls, and Nick’s family. That was our gift from Amy and Nick.
A beautiful day and a wonderful tour. LEVI Stadium is beautiful.
The tour included the museum, locker rooms including the cheerleaders locker room, some of the club spaces, the press boxes and a roof top patio area.
The view from the rooftop patio. You can rent the whole thing (25 people) but it is mostly standing room with a great view of the stadium and the valley.
Thats a long way down to the field! I don’t think you would really see much of the game without checking the huge screens they have at each end of the stadium.
Some of the players in the museum
Aren’t they cute!
The stadium is very nice. I wonder if we will ever be able to afford to enjoy a game there?
Sunday we met Amy, Nick and Nick’s dad, David and his wife Linda at the winery where the big event will take place in June. Kirigin Cellars will be such a beautiful setting to enjoy watching Amy become Mrs. Amy Carpenter. After a little wine tasting and a tour of the winery Paul and I headed to Roseville to see our friends Tony and Janet and their new home in Roseville. They just bought a home in a Del Webb community and we were very excited to see them and the resort. It is beautiful. Paul and I will very much like to live somewhere like this after we get done running around the country. Another fun few days and then it was back to San Jose.
Tuesday we headed to San Jose with a stop in Stockton for Paul to check in with the RV dealer and I got to spend a couple of hours and breakfast with Luanne. We had a great time catching up. It was too short but time was running out.
Wednesday at 5 am Stephanie dropped us off and San Jose International Airport and we headed back to North Carolina to see our baby! Duke was very happy to see that we returned although we could tell he had taken to his new home! It was so nice to get back to our own bed. We were in bed by 11 pm and missed ringing in the New Year although we were briefly woken by Duke at 12:15 am as he was not very happy with the fireworks that were going off in the neighborhood.
Tomorrow, Sunday we will hitch up the car, pull in the slides raise the jacks and point this family towards Florida for some sunshine and hopefully less food!
Happy New Year everyone!
