THE WEDDING AND BEYOND! JANUARY 2012

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. David Irwin, married on January 1, 2012.
Clare and David had a beautiful ceremony at the First Congregational Church of Griswold, near their home, officiated by Clare's uncle, Rev. Dr. Byron E. Waterman. They even wrote their own vows, which were beautiful. After the ceremony we all enjoyed a great sit-down dinner in the church hall, complete with "birch log" wedding cake. 

During our 2 1/2 week visit in CT, besides the wedding, we had a great time with family and friends (especially Christmas morning with our grandgirls!). Little Blue took us all the way up from Texas and back, and we had some great scenery and stops along the way. One regret is not getting pictures of Cousin Courtney and her family, who graciously hosted us for a night at their great home in Jefferson, GA. 

Here is a pictorial history of our Little Blue/Christmas Holiday travels.

Early frosty morning on I 66 from Washington, DC after spending the night
with Carol's sister Nancy Twist and  her husband, Russell.

Over-nighted in Pigeon Forge, TN, and drove through Smoky Mountains National Park.
We plan to revisit this beautiful park in the future.

On our way down to Memphis we trailed behind this truck towing two vehicles,
which were only held together by the vines that have grown over them! Yee-haw!

Made our pilgrimage to Graceland, which Holden hadn't seen, and he particularly enjoyed the kitchen. I was impressed with the fancy fabric ceiling in the billiard room. Graceland is really worth the stop, partly to get a look inside the two private planes parked on the property, as well as Elvis' awesome auto collection (including the famous pink cadillac). They also have great audio tour technology.

After Memphis we headed to the Dallas area, spending a night with Holden's cousin Woody, wife Anita and daughter Emma. As seems to happen so often on our travels, we get so busy visiting that we forget to take pictures once we get inside! So, here's a picture of their rental house in Richmond Hills, TX.

While in Dallas, we stayed at the unique Aloft Hotel, which is literally a loft hotel, with lots of cement and colors.

We took a day's tour of Dallas and nearby Fort Worth, including a reenactment of a cattle drive, which consisted of a dozen head of longhorns wandering down the street to the sound of whips cracking and cowboys shouting. :-)

Dallas City Hall

Dallas relocated numerous historic houses to this one section of town,

and now each one houses various different non-profit organizations.

Part of Dallas' skyline

Here ends our Christmas holiday road trip adventures. Next stop,

"spring" Big Red from Crestview RV service and hit the road again!

 

Catch-Up Post #1: December,2011!

Sorry for the long hiatus in blogging!
I guess we're taking this retirement thing seriously, and o-d'ing on leisure!


First, here's a correction to the very first blog: our very first dinner guest was our good friend, Jo Kennard, who joined us for an afternoon and evening while we were parked at Riverdale Farm Campsite in Clinton, CT. (We still get busy with visiting and miss photo ops, so this is a photo from Christmas at Jo's house!)

Okay, here we go for another installment of fun!

In December we left New Caney, TX, passing this Christmas house

 near our rv resort for the last time. Sadly, they never lit it up for us!

We headed to Galveston, which has really made a come back from being devastated by Hurricane Ike in 2008. We stayed a couple of nights at the newly repaired/renovated Dellanera State Park, a beautiful campground smack dab on the ocean.

Galveston hosts "Dickens On the Strand" every December, and it was fun to walk the streets with all sorts of folks dressed up in Dickensian attire, and to enjoy the music and food venues.

Holden and Old Saint Nicholas

Traveling down from Galveston we landed in Port Aransas, on Mustang Island, which is across from Corpus Christi. First time Big Red got to ride on a ferry! We enjoyed the beautiful campground and got to see whooping cranes from afar, but we stayed bundled up, as the weather was pretty chilly.

Next stop San Antonio, and the Riverwalk all decorated for the holidays - what a wonderland!

After San Antonio we headed to Austin and the Salt Lick Barbecue. We had plans to drive back over to Houston and leave Big Red for service during the time we'd be in CT visiting with the family for Christmas, but the morning of our departure from Austin the slides wouldn't go in (no power at all!) and one of the leveler jacks got stuck again. So, we called an RV service place in nearby Buda, TX, lined them up to pick up the rig, and drove off leaving Big Red behind!

Houston Advent Season

Advent Lessons and Carols, Houston, Nov. 27, 2011

Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Church and Shrine, Anglican Use

Janet sings alto, and Ed Franklin (T'day. guest) is Music Director

The cloister and texas night sky.

Houston Christmas Decor

Electric Banyan Trees and Nutcrackers

Tomorrow we're off to Galveston, Mustang Island (off Corpus Christi),

San Antonio, Austin, and then we store Big Red and

head north in Little Blue for the holidays and a wedding!

A Big Red Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2010: dining room/kitchen approx. 300 sq. ft. Thanksgiving 2011: entire house 306 sq. ft. What an adventure! Carol's sister, Janet, and her friend, Ed Franklin, joined us for our first soup-to-nuts dinner in Big Red.

It took some really fancy footwork, but we managed the following repast:

spiced hot cider, pumpkin soup, turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potato, turnip, acorn squash (served as yams and butternut squash in one dish!), green bean casserole, two kinds of cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream and wine. Here's the "after" picture (oof)!  

A good time was had by all, and, as usual, we all ended up more stuffed than the bird! 

Now, let me bore you all with a few interior pictures of our home...

Dining/Living room

Galley with nice big frig!

Cozy king bed with storage above and below

Bathroom, large shower to left of sink

Bedroom storage areas

Our Rv Adventures Begin

On Oct. 4, 2011 we purchased our new home: Big Red the rv (a Tiffin Allegro Red 34QFA). We headed from the dealer, in Tonawanda, NY, to CT, with Little Blue tagging along on our new dolly. We hope you will enjoy dropping in to our blogspot from time to time to see where we've been and what we're up to. :-)

Oct. 6-26 we were in CT staying in front of Clare and David's place, which is Holden's family home in Griswold, and then at Riverdale Farm Campground in Clinton. Then we headed off on our first adventure, with Jean Rollo and John Fraser as our first house guests, at a Penn State football weekend in State College, PA Oct. 28-30. It snowed!

We pushed off Oct. 30 to head to Texas, which will be our new home base, and along the way that day Nan and Russell (Carol's sister and her husband) came aboard to celebrate Carol's birthday.

We saw some beautiful country on our way down through VA, TN, AL, and LA, and now we're in Forest Retreat RV Park in New Caney, Texas. This will be our digs for a month as we register our vehicles and our selves, and visit with Carol's sister, Janet, for a month.

Stay tuned for more pictures, and thanks for tuning in!