18 January 2019 Karate Kid

The day was cloudy and cool. A perfect day for waxing! David made great progress on waxing the Wanderer, pretty much completing the drivers side except above the large kitchen slide out. It looks great. This is the south facing side in our current parking spot, so it was a perfect day to wax that side without the sun interfering. Of course people walking around the resort and our immediate neighbors had to stop and visit, so it was not all just Karate Kid (wax on/wax off). He received several requests to come and wax other folks RV when he finishes with the Wanderer! He is now 2/3rds complete. Two more good days and he should finish up. Then its time to do the truck! ;-)

Leslie took the day to do some deep cleaning inside since David was out of the way. Seems there is always something that needs cleaning.

17 January 2019 Spring in our step

We just could not stay put any longer. We realized there are things we had wanted to see while we were here and had not done a single one of them yet! So we drove into the old town area of Spring, TX. It’s a quaint little old town area with unique shops and plenty of cafes. We stopped in one of the cafes for a light lunch but David saw their home made carrot cake and had to have a piece for desert! Yummm! So much for light! Then we wandered through the shops, not really looking for anything in particular. We were not ready to start Christmas Shopping for this year yet! It was a very pretty day and we could not resist wandering around.

Later that evening we went to the Woodlands Convention center where we met up with Cynthia, Felix, and some of their friends for the Taste of The Woodlands. When we pulled up, we realized they were sending folks into the parking garage. We pulled up to the parking guard and asked if their were other options since our big truck did not fit in parking garages too well. He sent us over to the valet parking only to find they also park in a garage. After looking over our truck they decided to park us up front with all the expensive cars. It looked pretty funny with our big truck parked next to expensive sports cars! Many of the top local restaurants set up booths and offer tastes of their cuisine. The local craft breweries were present also so we wandered around tasting the different restaurants and enjoying local brews. We had a great time and selected a couple of restaurants we need to visit before we pull out.

International row (Dutch, German, Texan), Spring Tx.

Best Boutique in Spring, TX.

Watch out for the Loose Caboose in Spring, TX

The Tasting Panel!

Taste of Woodlands

12 – 16 January 2019 Filter Surprise

David continues with his waxing efforts. He is roughly half done with the Wanderer. When he changed out the built in water filter for the Wanderer, we took it apart to see what it has been filtering and were surprised by the amount of stuff in the filter.  Ick!!! David had lots of telecons for work this week, so we stayed close to home. After being in the same place for the last two months, we are starting to feel the wanderlust tugging at us again!

7 – 11 January 2019 Back to Fort Worth

David drove up to Fort Worth for the week for work meetings. Leslie held down the fort in Houston. In the evenings David got together with our friends Jim, Kelley and Rick one evening and Michael and Gale another evening. He also went and had his yearly physical while he was in town. His doctor says he will live for a while yet. Meantime Leslie sorted through her extensive CD collection and decided what she needed to keep and what she could part with. Exciting stuff for both of us! Ugh…

Later in the evening we went to Perry’s Steakhouse with Cynthia and Felix to celebrate Leslie’s Birthday in style. 

3 – 6 January 2019 Back to the Mundane

After the last few weeks of holiday celebrations it is back to the mundane. We had tons of laundry to catch up on and maintenance to do on the Wanderer. David continued his waxing task. He has roughly a quarter of the Wanderer waxed. Its taking more time than he expected since he is having to polish out marks on the paint where tree limbs have rubbed against the Wanderer. We investigated going to the Houston Space Center but the visitor center is closed due to the government shutdown. 

26 Dec. 2018 – 2 Jan 2019 New Years in Canton

Sorry it has been a while since we posted. It has been a busy time.

We flew up to Canton on the 26^thto visit with our Ohio Family. The first evening in town we had a pizza dinner with our cousins Beth, John and Amy and caught up on the last few months since we had been in town. It was the only evening available with everyone in town and after weeks of holiday dinners, we all wanted something simple for dinner. We drove down to Bergholz to visit with Aunt Joyce one day and stopped on the way back to visit with Veronica’s older sister Helen and her daughter Linda. A good time was had by all. We met up with Diana, Ron, Bob, Darlene and Cheryl, Veronica’s side of the family, for dinner at Cracker Barrel another night. The rest of the time we hung out with Veronica and helped her with some things around the house. We rang in the New Year quietly at Veronica’s while watching the ball drop in Times Square on TV. It was with great reluctance we left Veronica and flew back to Houston on the second. Once we got home, we realized we had not taken any pictures the entire time we were in Ohio! 

22-25 Dec. 2018 Christmas in Houston

We had a busy Christmas in Houston. Sunday morning we joined Cynthia, Felix and Ava (Felix’s daughter) to go to church. They attend the Methodist Church in the Woodlands for the last day of Advent service. The church is huge with over 12,000 members. They have three church venues going at the same time, one being a more traditional service (which we attended), another for younger members and another for millennia’s.  The service was very good. We then all went to lunch in the Market street mall. The place was swamped and finding a place to park the big truck was tough but we persevered. Following lunch we went our separate ways to finish up Christmas Shopping.

 

Christmas tree at the Woodlands Market Place

Later that day Cynthia and Felix joined us to go to The Heights theater to see Bruce Robinson and Kelly Willis in concert. It was the final show in their Christmas tour. It was an excellent concert and we all had a great time.

 

Leslie with Bruce Robinson and Kelly Willis

Monday morning David made some of Aunt Marjory’s date nut cookies to take over Christmas Day. We went through the few cook books and recipes we had brought with us in the RV and realized the cookie recipe was 300 miles away lost somewhere in a large storage unit. So David texted his cousins to see if they had it. His cousin Beth went through her Mom’s recipe box and found the recipe. But what was funny was the recipe was an email from David’s Dad to Aunt Marjory and listed it as David’s recipe! David had gotten the recipe from his Aunt Marjory in a hand written note. He later sent it to his Dad, who then copied it into his on line recipe book, which at some point he had emailed it back to Aunt Marjory! Funny how these things work!

David also took advantage of the beautiful weather to climb up on the roof of the Wanderer to wax some areas that are easiest to reach from the top verses trying to stand on the ladder to reach. This finished off the front of the fiver and started the waxing down the sides.

Later on Monday, we went to Lauren and Brian’s (and Olivia’s) for a Christmas eve dinner. Brian’s parents (Edward and Mary) and brothers (Adam and Kyle) made the traditional Troianello Christmas Dinner of Prime Rib steaks with mushroom cream gravy.  It was a fantastic meal. That was followed up with the opening of family gifts. Little Olivia received a mound of Christmas gifts for her first Christmas. We think she had more fun with the paper than most of the gifts. But she did take a liking to the talking Christmas Bear (it recites the Christmas Story) we gave her. It was a happy and fun evening. We really enjoyed getting to know Brian’s family better. Edward and Mary are thinking about buying a RV, so we had plenty to talk about! ;-)

 

Brian and Kyle cooking dinner with Lauren and Mary looking on.

Mound of gifts for Olivia (Brian, Olivia and Lauren in front, Cynthia, Edward, Adam in the back and Felix's son Andrew to right side)

Lauren and Olivia with her Elvis Onesie

Christmas Day we were up early to make the dishes we were bringing over to Cynthia and Felix’s house for yet another magnificent meal. Afterward we all sat around and caught up on the topics of the day. It was another fun and relaxing day. We left Etta behind at Cynthia’s and drove back to the Wanderer early since we needed to pack for our trip to Ohio to visit David’s family. 

Christmas Day feast (Left to right: Cynthia, Leslie, Adam, Kyle and Lauren)

Olivia in fur!