A Pleasant Day in Wildwood!

  John made some yummy pancakes for breakfast and then we went down to the Thousand Trails office beside the pool to talk with a gal about a membership.  After spending about an hour with her and getting all the details and answers to our questions we decided, for us, it wasn't a good investment.  Mostly because most of the Thousand Trails parks are too far from the beach.  We think it is more worth it for us to stay with the 2 zones and Encore specials we get with Josh at the Hershey RV show!  I called mom to check on dad and he is definitely septic.  But they seem to have everything under control at the moment.  We got ready, packed lunches and left for Wildwood about 11:00.  We arrived about 11:40 and found a reasonably priced parking lot.  The boardwalk was wonderful...reminded me of OCMD.  The beach was huge.  It was a very long walk to the edge of the water... felt like a quarter of a mile!!  It was pretty windy and overcast down by the water.  We tried to put up a wind screen but it was too windy to get it anchored in the sand!  It was senior week, so there were a lot of teenagers there, but they were well behaved except for some rough language.  After about an hour the wind calmed down and the sun came out and we had a wonderful day.  John even came back from his walk with 3 sand dollars!

What a nice boardwalk..it went on forever!!

 

 

Look how far it is from the boardwalk to the water!
And how overcast it is.

 

 

John walking back from "testing" the water temp.
It was cold!!

  We left the beach about 4:30 and went up on the boardwalk to get a blizzard at DQ.  Then we spent about a half hour in Playland.  We had a great time playing Skeeball and Poker.  We gave all our tix to some kids which they greatly appreciated!  As we headed out I remembered that I wanted to get some caramel popcorn for our neighbors back home that were taking care of watering my plants.  We, by coincidence, pulled up to a parking area by the boardwalk that was located right next to the Johnson's popcorn stand.  John... you're a genius!!  Of course, we had to get a small one for us, too.  It was so yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I talked with mom on the way home and she said that dad was still listed as critical but stable, and his kidneys were starting to fail prompting a need for the doctors to insert a tube into his kidney thru his back to help drain the infection.  We grilled for supper, made a campfire and decided to leave for home in the morning.

Bad News From Home!

 We got up and had a late breakfast.  It was a bit chilly and overcast but we decided to risk it and head into Avalon to the beach.  Boy, did we get this one wrong!!  It was so cold and windy as we got onto the walkway by the beach that we just looked at one another and "uh uh... this isn't going to work"!!  Instead we drove around the town for about a half hour and saw some absolutely gorgeous homes.  Many of them were immense and so well kept.  The lawns were so lush and green.  I wish we could show them to you, but, of course, we forgot the camera.  (We have to get back in the swing of things again!).  We also decided to make a trip to Atlantic City to check out one of the casinos.  We headed back to the CG and the sky got to looking better and better.  So we had some lunch and spent most of the afternoon at the pool. It was lovely except for the call I got from my mother.  My 91 yr old father had become ill and needed to be hospitalized.  About 23 yrs ago he had his bladder removed due to cancer.  Over the years he has had complications from the mesh used in previous hernia surgeries that caused tears in his abdomen and in and around his ileostomy where his bag is attached to collect his urine.  It can lead to severe kidney infections and blood infections that can cause sepsis (infection that goes thru his entire body).  Sepsis can be fatal if not caught in time.  He came close to death about 18 yrs ago because of it and has had several hospital stays in the last few yrs because of it, so he is monitored closely, especially when running a fever.  This time he had a fever and quite a bit of pain, so he was transported to Lancaster General Hospital to be treated.  We didn't feel an urgency to go home right away because of his history of bouncing back pretty quickly... he's like the energizer bunny!!  We asked mom to keep us updated.  We got showers and headed to The Showboat casino in Atlantic City.  Guess what... that was one of the casinos that was shut down a few months ago.  That should have been a clue as to how the evening was going to go!!  We ended up at the Taj Mahal and had no luck at all.  We asked one of the security guards for a recommendation for supper and he told us to go to a steak house just outside the casino.  John checked it out while I attempted a last minute surge.  My surge didn't pan out so we couldn't afford the $50 a plate steak supper.  I would have had to hit an enormous jackpot to even consider eating there!!!!!  We headed out of the city which, let me tell you, has gone downhill considerably.  We have no desire to ever go back there!  I got a call from mom that dad was being admitted to the intermediate intensive care unit and being put on IV antibiotics.  Testing was still being done but it looks like he has become septic with a blood infection.  He was listed as "critical, but stable". 

 When we got back to Harvey we built a campfire, made some s'mores and talked about whether to go home or not, especially since my sister, Bonnie and her husband are out west in their RV.

John got a great campfire going!

 

John looks relaxed sitting at the fire, huh?!?

  It was a beautiful evening and tomorrow is supposed to be nice, so we decided to stay and wait for updates.  We turned in about 11:00.

 

We're Baaaaaack and on the Road Again!





 

Hi everyone!
   We've been pretty busy since arriving home from Florida in April!  John has been walking like crazy-he will walk over 500,000 steps this month-and he goes to the gym almost everyday!!  He even got me to join!!  Our granddaughter, Emma had a 10th birthday party and we attended one of her softball games, I had a garage sale, hosted the "Frogettes" Trivia group and the old neighborhood's "Bunco" group, and kept our grandsons, Bennett and Cooper overnight a few times.  We attend church Sunday mornings and small group every other Sunday night.  I have Praise Team practices on Thursday nights and then John and I go to Micks, a local restaurant, to play Trivia.  Recently, we found out that our daughter-in-law, Arlena is pregnant with triplets.  She is serving as a surrogate for a couple in Connecticut.  We met our granddaughter, Alexandra at a park in Columbia to see her and her boyfriend, Todd gather with his friends for the prom and attended her graduation from the commercial art program at the Brownstown Vo-Tech and from Hempfield HS.  We boated on the Susquehanna river with some friends from church who have a pontoon boat and had the family at our house for a Memorial Day picnic.  We have had a great time with friends and family but are ready to escape the "hecticity" of it all and get away again!
  

Emma at her 10th birthday party.  Isn't she pretty!

                           

She asked for a stuffed animal, so that's what she got from us.
That's her Mom, Cathy, in the background.

Cooper enjoyed the birthday cake, too!!

Alexandra and Todd arriving at the park in Columbia.

Ahhhh...she does love me!

With proud Mom, Michele

The happy couple... do you think Todd is getting tired of pictures?!?
Alexandra asked me to make her wrist corsage and Todd's boutonnière.

Cooper and Bennett playing "Ring Around the Rosie".

 

 

They are both stunning, aren't they?  Of course,
I'm a bit biased!



Alexandra on stage at Warwick HS after receiving her diploma
In graphic arts from Lancaster Career and Tech Ctr



Mom and daughter

 

Emma ready to hit "the big one".

Ready in the outfield

Little sister, Ellie, and grandma are watching
 

The view of 3 Mile Island from the boat... it's so
massive close up!!



Our able bodied captain, Ed...



...and his wife, Carol



See the guy getting ready to swing into the water.
The guys dared to do it... maybe another time!



This was a drive thru pizza pick-up on the water!!



This is a young blue heron...

...we counted at least 23 nests in the clump of trees



Proud mom, Michele and Alexandra
 at Hempfield HS graduation

 

The happy graduate!

 





With cousin and our grandson, Bennett







The proud grandma and "gramps".



We had Harvey the RV at the doctor (Camping World in Hanover) for some warranty issues and a general check up ever since we arrived home in April.  We picked him up on Sat, May 23 and parked him in the overflow lot in our development.  We got him all packed up and left this morning sat 9:30 for Sea Pines RV CG near Cape May, NJ.  We had a smooth trip without much traffic and arrived at the CG at about 12:45.  Kylie, our almost 13 yr old pug, was sure glad... she just doesn't like to travel!  We drove around for a while to find just the right spot.  We pulled in about 1:30 and were all set up and relaxing by 3:00.  We still got it!!  We made some sandwiches for "lupper".  We went outside and realized we didn't have a fire ring on our site so we rode our bikes down to the office to find out what to do.  They told us to just grab one from another site... easy for them to say... those buggers are heavy!! My strong hubby was able to handle it and we were in business for a campfire.  We rode around the CG for a bit and checked out all there was to do and then spent the rest of the evening talking about what all we wanted to do the rest of the week and watched some TV.  We were both tired so we hit the hay about 10:30.  Have to get used to the Queen size bed again (we have a King at home).  It would be easier if John didn't hog my side, too :)