We flew home from Portland to Texas, but we didn’t have a direct flight. We had a lay-over in Seattle for several hours. With losing my mom so fresh, I wanted to visit my girlfriend Vicki’s mom, Emma, because she had just gotten out of the hospital and I knew I needed to visit. It was a great visit, and after, we went to Dave & Vicki’s for a little late breakfast brunch before they took us back to the airport for the rest of the flight home. Jim and Allison just happened to be in Seattle too!
We spent 2 weeks getting the RV ready to travel, the house ready to leave and saying goodbye to friends. We hit the road, driving through the countryside enjoying the wildflowers along the side of the road, mostly Texas bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush. There was a great scene that we drove past, but I wasn’t able to get a picture. Here is something close to what we saw: a meadow FULL of bluebonnets with Texas longhorns browsing in the field:
and then we were stopping in San Antonio to visit the kids:
We spent a few days visiting, shopping & eating out before we continued on our journey back to the Portland area. The weather was awful! we actually had to take a long detour to get to our RV park one day because the road was flooded and it was raining something fierce!
We left TX and stopped in Tucson once again to visit with Jim & Allison. We hiked and looked at cactus flowers, which I just love!
Allison posing next to the Ocitillo cactus.
Storm clouds over the desert
Pretty cactus flowers
We left Tucson and finished the drive up to Portland. It took us 3 nights and 4 days of driving to get there, the rule is…. 6 hours or 300 miles, which ever comes first. It was an uneventful drive, which is a good thing, I wasn’t ready for any unforseen problems.
We started March off with another fun square dance, the La Bahia. They hold it in an old Grange Hall in the middle of nowhere, Texas. We go camping for the weekend with the camping squares. We try and get as much dancing in as we can while at home in Texas.
And then the dreaded call comes. My mom is in the hospital and it doesn’t look good. I catch the first flight out from Houston (Jim stays in TX) to be with my family and mom at the hospital. We start up a 24/7 stay with her between myself and my siblings. She struggles, wants to come home, but her body just decides it is very tired and ready to take the final break.
Mom passed away on March, 28th, 2010. She went quietly, with little pain in the end. Dad was with her when she took her last breath, the rest of us were there in under 5 minutes. It was hard, but it was time.
Sometimes you just know, there was a reason why Jim and I stayed around my parents for the holidays this last winter. What a blessing to have been there when they needed us most.
Jim flew up the day she passed and I was really ready to have him with me. We stayed another week, so that I could help my dad take care of all that needs to be done, when you lose a loved one.
It was time to take a break, and since my birthday is the last day of March, we went out and celebrated with my sister, Teresa and her family. Teresa, Jessica and I also did a ladies day at a spa just over in Washington, when you cross over the Bridge of the Gods. It was a great way to relax!
We flew back to Texas the first week of April. It was tough to leave, but we needed to finish up stuff at the house and get the RV ready to travel. We decided to come back to Portland to help out where we could, instead of the trip that we had originally planned to go up to Michigan, Minnesota and the Dakotas.
We made it home to Texas on Feb. 1st. It was only a month short of being gone for 1 full year. It was good to be back to see friends and re-acquaint ourselves with the house.
Here we are having a birthday dinner at Florida’s Kitchen, Thursday night slab night! Lisa (on the left) was celebrating her birthday, along with Trudy (next to Jim) and Trudy’s mom, Marti. We love slab night!
Can you believe it? We leave the GPNW in mid January, worried about hitting snow on the way home, but instead (as seen in previous post) we get snow in AZ and then again here in Texas! What is with that? Luckily, it didn’t really stick, that is a good thing because no one here knows how to drive in it.
Towards the end of the month, we go to one of our favorite campouts with the Sam Houston Camping Squares. Here they are sitting (or is that huddling?) in the sun visiting. We like to visit and if it is the afternoon, enjoy adult beverages
another thing we enjoy is eating! Here the group went out to one of the local “all you can eat” buffets.
and then more eating! this time at the “Go Texan” square dance. They do an excellent job of a BBQ brisket dinner before the dance.
Jim and I in our dancing outfits for the night. We are just so cute
Jim dancing with Carol, I was babying my back, so I didn’t dance every “tip”.
I try to get out and walk about 5 days out of the week and caught this woodpecker in the tree across the street from our house. I don’t think I have ever seen such a HUGE woodpecker! He reminded me of the old woody woodpecker from the cartoon (did I just date myself?).
February came and went really fast after not being home for almost a year. Lots of things to catch up with at the house, LOTS of friends to visit with, and to work out new projects that need to be done.
Here are the rest of the pictures. We really didn’t get a chance to truly thaw out and warm up. There was more cold, rain, snow in the mountains than truly expected. We did get a couple of nice days that we got out and hiked. Crazy winter weather.
While in Tucson, many of the evenings we take turn preparing dinner. One night I decided to make a Chicken Pot Pie, weight watchers style. It took a little doing, but worth it, it was pretty darn good! I started WW last Sept (2009) to loose the extra weight I was carrying around. I wanted to be ready for my 35th HS reunion.
Some of the nights we go out for dinner, in this case, we had to go to a Tucson "legend", Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant. It was a great choice, loved the ambience, the wine, the food and definitely the friends.
With all the crazy weather, there was quite a bit of rain. The desert loved it, the bloom was exceptional this year. I didn’t go crazy with pictures, but I am including a picture of a Ocotillo in bloom. They are hard to photograph, so this isn’t the best, but when you see a "sea" of them across the desert, it is worth hiking to see them.
We left the GPNW the 2nd week of January, the latest we have after left the area. It was wonderful to spend time with the family over the holidays. As you saw before, we stopped at Yosemite along the way, so it has it’s own page, look for it in the previous posts if you haven’t already seen it.
From there, we headed over to Tucson to spend a week to warm up and hopefully thaw out after the cold of the north. We spent the time close to Jim & Allison at their winter hideaway. We traveled to one of our favorite AZ wineries, Callaghans (needed some wine that is LONG GONE), did some hiking and of course, relaxing.
Here are a few pictures, more coming in the next post
As you can see, I am a day late and a few dollars short. Maybe I should have waited until July before trying to catch up with my posts, then it would be Christmas in July
Here are a few pictures from December that I wanted to share; Christmas presents and Christmas dinner, dinner with friends in Seattle, it snowed on the 29th of the month, we went to check out my niece’s wedding dress on the 31st (the group of girls).
It seemed like a very busy month! and then the year was over, where does the time go.
I have missed you! Sorry that I haven’t updated in, like, forever, but life gets in the way. I am trying to get my act together and will get back to posting very soon. I have a lot to share since January! I truly missed you!
We are sitting here in the Portland area, enjoying family and friends, but the cold has been very interesting We haven’t been in the cold for 4 or 5 years, so it’s been a challenge to keep warm when we had below freezing for almost a week! Things are looking up, just freezing rain or snow for the next day or so, then just plain ol’ rain. We can deal with that.
We have had a great year; we left our winter home in Texas in the middle of March, stayed in other parts of Texas through the month so that I could do some genealogy. We then spent April in Arizona, May in Utah, June in Washington, July in Oregon, and August in Idaho/Montana. Then it was back to Washington and Oregon for the rest of the year! Yes, we will be here until after the first of January 2010. Then we head south to Arizona and finally back to Texas.
We have been keeping busy with my family while here in Portland. Both my mom and dad had a health scare in August, so it was fate that we had already planned on staying until the end of the year. They are doing great considering all the craziness of this summer/fall.
All the kids are doing fine, keeping very busy in their respective jobs. Mark & Sean are still in the Seattle area, Lisa and her family, are still in Idaho and Mike and his family are still in Texas. Jim is still working at Boeing which is good for both of us.
We had a great new adventure this last Halloween week-end; I was a non-voting judge at the Wine Press Northwest magazines Platinum Wine judging. What a great experience, one I would love to have the opportunity to do again. I got to spit out a lot of great wine while Jim got to actually drink his
As crazy as it may sound, we are still enjoying our vagabond lifestyle!
We hope this letter finds you and yours as blessed as we have been. From our home to yours, Merry Christmas and here is wishing you a wonderful New Year.
You can keep track of us "right here" and I am on Facebook & Twitter too! (I know, you just can’t get enough of me/us).
One would think that after cooking dinner for 41 people for Thanksgiving, one would want to take a little breather… oh, no, not us! Well, it did start out as a Franzke immediate family thing, Teresa, Al, their kids, their "significant others" and a couple of friends, 10 people tops. Well, one thing after another, now Jim and I are invited; as are Mark and Johannah, Al’s brother, his wife and kids… and now we are up to 20+ people
The original plan was to do a leg of lamb and a few sides… well, TWO legs of lamb later it was a dinner party to remember. It really was a potluck, so there was a lot of great food. I was too busy out at Lenne on Saturday to help Al, but I did do some of the shopping and lots of the wine.
I do know how to share (even though I did NOT ever get to go to kindergarden) and I shared some fun wines. I did save my Alexandria Nicole Petite Sirah (Mr. Big) for dinner, it was exceptional! Some of the kids went outside to enjoy a cigar (well, late 20′s isn’t a kid anymore, is it???) so I had to help things along and bring over a couple of single-malt scotches for them to try. I am a bad influence in more ways than you can count. Oh well, what are Auntie’s for?
Thanks for including us, it was a GREAT dinner, let’s do it again!
I have a lot to be thankful for; family, friends, being "retired", my lifestyle and my health. We take so many things for granted, it’s great that we can take this time to give thanks for all our blessings.
Turkey dinner was at my sister Teresa’s house (as usual and Thank You for doing this!), with enough food to feed 41 people! AND they all had seats to sit down and enjoy a most wonderous repast. Tables in the dining room/family room, tables in the formal living room and more tables in the "bonus/den" room (where the buffet was situated). Here are a few pictures…
lots of appetizers to get us through from breakfast to "dinner" at around 3:30pm… lots of adult beverages, sparkling wine, white wine, rose, red wine and sparkling cider & hot cider for the kids. 4 dishwasher loads later….
We were not short of food, but then, we were not short of people either! It’s always wonderful to get family together. What a great time, I think everyone enjoyed it, but it takes so much time to get ready and then it’s over so fast. I was cooking for 3 days and "whoosh", the food was gone, but that is a good thing.
I hope you and yours had a great turkey day, however you celebrated.
