Happy New Year, Everyone....We're Baaaack

  Hi everyone!  Let's bring you all up to date.  John recovered from his pneumonia and I graduated from my walker to a cane just 3 days ago.  However, my recuperation is slow and my physical therapy proves (to my surprise) just how weak my left leg/hip remains to be.  The doc told me I really shouldn't be walking on the beach and my physical therapist said I can't ride bike for another 2 months!  Drat!!  But I will most likely take on the beach with much caution.  Our Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years were wonderful, spending them at our house with family.

 

Ellie's 4th birthday

 

Cooper & Bennett taking a ride on Grandma's
walker on Thanksgiving Day

 

Superman and Buzz Lightyear

 

Alexandra and Cooper

 

Kylie Girl can't keep her tongue in her mouth anymore

 


Emma, Ellie & Cooper on Christmas Eve

Dustin, Cathy, Ellie & Emma

Michele, Alex, & Russ

TW, Arlene & Bennett

Michele decorated my walker!

 

Heather & Cooper

Bennett opening his stocking stuffers

 

   We were planning to leave for Florida on Sat, Jan 3rd, but after checking out the huge extra charges at several hotels for Kylie, our pug, we decided to leave Friday at midnight (after my night out with my Frogette friends) and drive straight through to King's Bay, Georgia where Harvey has been parked since the end of October.  With the OK from our veterinarian we "drugged" Kylie to get her through the trip in the Jeep because she hates to ride in the car.  We also put her in a crate in the back seat which she is not used to.  The trip went well, but it was pretty grueling!  We stopped at a rest stop about 2 hrs into the trip to let Kylie out, then for gas ($1.99/gal) in Virginia, then for breakfast at McDonald's in Charlotte, NC about 6am.  We made several more stops along the way including a 1 hr "snooze" break and arrived in King's Bay, GA at about 3:15pm.  John drove all but about an hour and a half.  He was amazing!!  Kylie did very well until the last 2 hrs.  She was panting and breathing so heavily we thought she was going to have a heart attack!  She survived as we finally arrived at King's Bay Submarine Base at 3:15 pm.  We drove back to the storage area where we left Harvey and there he was looking exactly as we had left him!  We could tell he was very happy to see us... he seemed to have a smile on his face although it probably wasn't as big as ours!!  We went inside and realized that Harvey had some company while we were gone... we found mouse droppings on the kitchen floor, in some drawers and on the bed.  Luckily he didn't seem to have gotten into the pantry!  
John got into the driver's seat of the rig to start him up and guess what... the battery was dead!  What a bummer!  But we were able to jump start him with the Jeep so all was well again until... we tried to lift the motorized windshield shade.  It wouldn't go up... didn't even make a sound.  So we called the Lazy Day help center (where we purchased Harvey) and they told us we had to reset the mechanism because of the dead battery.  But guess what... that didn't work either.  So we just rolled it up and tied it and off we went to the campground just down the road to stay for the night.  We pulled in about 4:50 pm, hooked up and then realized how hungry we were because we hadn't eaten since 6am!  So off to Sonny's BarBQ we went for our favorite... pulled pork and brisket.   And guess what... there was a sign on the hostess's desk that said, "we apologize for any inconvenience but we are out of pulled pork."  I could have cried and almost left, but we decided to stay and I very much enjoyed the sliced pork sandwich, as John did his brisket dinner.  We came back to Harvey and crashed about 9:00.  Sorry, no pictures today.