Standiford Family Web Log

I have not posted for a couple of weeks so thought I better post before labor day weekend. We did not go camping on the weekend of August 22. We both even had Friday off but Beth had a couple of doctor appointments on Friday and then Beth and April went to see the Vatican Treasures at the history museum on Saturday. I wanted to get some work done outside but it rained and then got hot and it ws so humid that I stayed inside. Then on Sunday we went with some friends to a Cardinals game. Beth had gotten some tickets from work. The weather was great and they won so that helped.

When I weighed in last Wednesday at WW I finally hit the 25 lb weight loss. It took about 5 weeks to get from 20 down to 25 but finally got there. Had to buy a new belt.

Last weekend we did go camping. The weather was great but we really did not do very much. Just some R&R.

We are going to have some landscaping work done in the next few weeks so will try to take some before and after pictures to post. I have Friday off so I am going to pick up one of our friends and he and I will go down to the campground and then his wife will pick up Beth on Friday evening and drive down. Otherwise we would both have two cars down there. Really looking forward to a four day weekend.

We went camping again this weekend. Got down there in good time and of course, we ate our usual salad at the Creekside Cafe.

Saturday morning we visited with friends and at 4:30 pm we went to the Hawaiian luau to eat. The food was great. Whole hog roast and great side dishes. Tried to stick to the diet but hard when all we could do was guess at the point value. At 8:30 they had a Hawaiian show. It was raining very hard when we drove down to the show (it was outside.) By the time we got there is had almost quite. And by the time we walked from the parking lot to the show it had quite. It was a good show. Had two little dancers that were 3 and 4 years old. Really cute.

April and Kayden came down for a while on Sunday to go swimming. Went to lunch at the Creekside and then they went down to the lake to go swimming. While they were swimming I closed up the camper. Had everything done except the air turned off and the power cord put away. Left the campground about 4:15am or so. We were the last ones fo the group to leave the campground. 

Last Friday my refurbished Mac mini arrived. I had been thinking about this for quite some time and finally decided that I wanted to test the waters. The Mac mini was the least expensive way to test the waters. We went down to the campground on Friday so I took it with me along with a monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. I stayed up late Friday night setting it up. Really nothing to set up – more just a matter of hooking it up. But, many of the things I use a computer for require the internet and I didn’t have that.

Saturday at the campground was normal. We just sat around and talked, talked, talked. We did get the peaches. For the pitch-in on Saturday night Beth made a great peach crisp. It is from a Weight Watchers recipe and only 3 points per serving. It was great. It was a warm weekend but had a good time regardless.

Wednesday night was our Weight Watchers meeting. I hit my 10% goal and Beth hit her 5% goal. Slow going but we are getting there. Tried to put up some border in the guest bedroom tonight but it didn’t stick. The store told Beth that we were doing it wrong. Not sure what she wants to do now. We are going down to the campground again this weekend. Stay cool.

We did go to the picnic last night. It is a huge picnic. They had carnival rides, a silent auction, a regular auction, bands, food, etc. We found chicken kabobs and grilled corn that we were able to eat and still stay on out diets. We were there for a couple of hours and then came home. Today, Beth painted the rest of the frame for the door in the spare bedroom and I just finised getting it nailed into place. It looks pretty good. It is not 100% level but no one will be able to tell my looking at it and I don’t think anyone will lay a level on it to tell. It looks pretty good. I have to finish nailing it in place and then put the second half of the frame on and nail that in place. Then the only thing left is to put the new baseboard back on. Beth bought some new curtains for it today so we are close to having it done. I guess then we will go back to working on the dining room. That wraps up another work weekend. Next weekend it is back to the campground.

Well, it took me a while but here I am catching up from vacation. Thursday we spent some time putting decals on the truck. We had ordered them last year from Heartland so they match the camper. We got four of them put on the truck and then Beth looked on the internet to fnd out how you are supposed to do it and found out we did it wrong. Turns out you are supposed to take the backing off and spray the decal with a soap and water solution. Also spray the area of the truck where the decal goes. This allows you to move it around and also makes it easier to get the bubbles out. Oh well, it looks pretty good. I’ll send a link to some pictures. We have one more on each side to put on and then I will take a picture of the truck and camper both.

I don’t remember what we did on Friday but I do know we went over to another camper for a campfire. Saturday afternoon they had a band called the Creole Jazz Band. www.creolejazz.com. They were really good. If you go out to the web site and click on the musicians link and then click on the picturs you can see their background. Some of these guys have played with some well known people. At 7:00 pm on Saturday they had a group called Smash Band. They played at the new bandstand in the resort. I was concerned because with a name like Smash Band I figured they would be a rock band but they played a wide variety of music. www.smashband.com. They played for 3 hours until 10:00 pm when the fireworks started. The fireworks were really good. They lasted for 35 minutes. They had a lot of ground effects fireworks. Kinda like roman candles only they shot off faster then roman candles and went back and forth. Hard to describe in words.

Sunday we went to another concert by a guy named Carl Rose. He played the fiddle and guitar and sang. He also had a woman guitar player with him and her daughter also played the fiddle and sang. They did a mixture of gospel music and patriotic music. Sunday night we had a fire again and said goodbye because we planned on coming home earlier then normal since we had been gone for two weeks. The trip home was uneventful. And then, of course, the dreaded Tuesday when we had to go back to work after two weeks of vacation. It really did not go too bad though and now we are staying home this weekend to try to catch on work around the house. I mowed the grass and trimmed this morning and also cut some stuff growing along the fence. It was warm but not so hot that I had to quite every five minutes. Beth spent much of the morning cleaning stuff that she got from the farm when she was there on Memorial Day weekend. Then, I unpacked the prehung door that we got for the spare bedroom and took it into the garaged. Beth is painting it. As soon as it dries I will take the frame out for paint and then get it installed. I think we are going over to a picnic that a church is having close to us. It is a three day affair with carnavel rides, etc. Some camping friends of our go to this church.  Anyway, I guess that about catches us up. I’ll try to get some pictures posted soon.

I got behind in posting but will catch up tomorrow night – I hope. Just wanted to let you know that we are home and it is back to work tomorrow.

We slept late on Tuesday morning even though we had gone to bed early. We took are computers and new iphones and went down to ‘The Gathering Place’ at the resort and worked on getting the new phones set up with all the applications. When we finally had enough of that we drove into WallyWorld at Owensville and did some grocery shopping. We mostly just relaxed. We watched a few episodes of M*A*S*H on DVD and then went to bed. This morning the guys showed up to fix the landing jack on the camper. The shaft was twisted off. They had to go get parts but it is fixed now. Part of it will be covered by warranty but their service charge and mileage charge will not be covered. Oh well, lesson learned. Beth went down to the pool for water aerobics while I waited for the guys to come back to put the parts in. When she got back we ate lunch and watched another episode of M*A*S*H. I decided to come up and update the blog while she takes a nap. Some of our friends are talking about going on the hayride tonight so we might also if they are not full. More later.

We got up at 5:00 am on Monday morning and were ready to leave at 6:30 am. Took a little longer to hook up then we thought it would. Guess we are still rookies. Had rain off and on until we hit Indy and then it stopped and we had clouds until we hit the Illinois border and it cleared up. Stopped in O’Fallon and picked up our new iPhones and then headed to the campground. Got to the campground around 4 – 4:30 pm. I was so tired that I asked them to set up the camper. When he went to crank down the front jacks the one on the drivers side did not come down. He turned the shaft with a crescent wrench so we could get it off the truck. Got it leveled and everything ok. Looks like there is a shaft connecting the two that sheared. Guess it got retracted too far and sheared. We called the dealer and they gave us the name of a person in the area that can work on it. He is going to come out Wednesday morning. We have to pay him and then take the old parts and the bill to the dealer and they will reimburse us for it.  We went to bed very early since we got up so early and we were both very tired. Not only did we go to bed early but we slept late also.