10/10/2012

Well, we made a flying trip to Larry's daughter house in Chelsea AL.  Our granddaughter was getting married.  The wedding and reception was at their house in the backyard.  They have a beautiful house and 3 acres and their back yard slopes off to a lake.  Jen, Larry's daughter, ask her Dad if we could come on Thursday to help with the set up.  We arrived Thursday afternoon and started to work.  We worked hard Friday and even Saturday, since the wedding was not until at 6 Saturday evening.

The wedding went well.  A cold front was passing by and it was pretty cold and windy to be outside, but it did not dampen the festivities. The bride is only 18 and her new husband is 19 and plays college soccer.  So there were lots of young people including a whole soccer team.   The threat of rain caused the party to break up fairly early, which was a good thing because it might have gotten out of control.

The newlyweds are both still in college so there was no honeymoon.  Although her parents did pay for a hotel for the night.  They will be living with her parents.

Her is our granddaughter and her mother, Larry's daughter.  Don' the both look beautiful?

This is Larry and his daughter, Jen at the wedding.

Oh and bty we are going to be great-grandparents sometime in April of next year!!

09/11/2013

 Well, here we are in Indiana at a State Park as campground host. We will be here till mid to late October.  Campground host is a much better job than last year.  This year we only have three bathhouses to clean.  And over Labor Day we only had one.  Most days this requires us to only do a quick wipe down and sweep up.  There are not to many campers since school has started, even on the weekends.

Larry plays with a local band when we are here.  He also plays most Sundays at a little country church near the park.  So he is happy!

The park is beautiful and we see alot of deers, rabbits and squirrels. It sometimes is a little too quite, but some family members are coming out soon.  Also, I am trying to work back up to riding my bike every other day.  I am hoping to work back up to 10 miles.  I am not sure I will be able to do it, but I need to set a goal.  Larry gave his bike away, because his knee is bad, so I have to ride by myself, which make it a little harder.

Little house - big back yard!!

08/16/2012

Well, we are now at Rend Lake in southern Ill.  I have forgotten how beautiful it is here.  It is so quite and so peaceful during the week.  We need to get some of the family to come back here for a long weekend.  Maybe next summer.

Larry's birthday was this past Wednesday and we were in southern MO.  I took him to a famous restaurant called Lambert's.  It was good home cooking and they throw these big rolls if you raise your hand, sometimes from across the room.  They also walk around and serve macaroni & tomatoes, fried potatoes, fried okra, black eyed peas, and molasses and sorghum. as much as you want and as often as you want! It was great and we ate and ate!!

Our next move is back to southern IN for a month or so.  We need to sit for a while and recoup some expenses.  We had two tires go bad and Larry just replaced all four.  We also saw six shows while we were in Branson and that was not cheap.

Little house big back yard!!

08/09/2012

Sorry , I have neglecting my blog this summer.

Larry's surgery was very successful.  The only problem he is having is his incision keeps oozing a little.  We have a Doctors appt. on the 21st, so they will look at it then.

We have been up to the Indy area and spent some time with are sweet granddaughter and Larry's son.  We meet up with Jason and bought him dinner.

Then we had to leave the Indy area and down to KY to Larry's brother house.  They were having their family reunion.  The reunion went well, but attendance was way down.  Larry's aunt passed away since the last one and many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren did not attend.  Which is understandable, because most kids come because of the grandmother wanted them to.

We are in Branson, MO right now and having a great time!  We set a budget of what we would spend on shows and I have a show scheduled every day and came in under budget.  Some Larry picked and some I picked.  Let's see, we saw Sons of the Pioneers and went to the Titanic Museum.  Guess who picked which!  But I must admit I enjoyed the Sons of the Pioneers, except it was outside and very warm!  We are planning on seeing a family group, a magician and then Mickey Gilley.  We are having a very good time!!

We are planning on leaving here and taking a couple of days to make our way to Rend Lake.  We are hoping to meet some family there for the weekend.  And back to Harmonie.

06/28/2012

Well it has been a busy few weeks.  Larry has been having excruciating pain in his neck and shoulders and it had become nearly unbearable.  So he had a MRI of his neck and we saw a neural surgeon.  He found that Larry had severe stenosis, which is narrowing of the spinal column.  His was so narrow in two places that his spine had no spinal fluid around the spinal column. 

The doctor had an opening on 06/27 and Larry jumped on it.  So yesterday he had surgery.  The doctor removed to disks, inserted cadaver bone and a titanium plate to hold his spine staple.  Believe it or not, but he has no neck brace and should be able to resume normal activity in about two weeks. We stayed overnight at the hospital and were home today by 10:30.  He seems to be doing well.

Because of the surgery, we had to cancel our trip north to Michigan.  We are not sure of the rest of our plans are for July and August, but that is how things go.  All we can do is hope this surgery relieves Larry's pain!

06/17/2012

We just ended our family reunion in Vincennes, IN!  All, except one,of my 10 siblings made it!  Family members attending number 47.  Six of us have campers and the others stayed at cabins near the campground.  We have one sibling who still lives in town. We like the location so well we are planning to have it here again next year!! 

Everything seemed to work out well despite the heat!  We had our brand new baby, Braxton, attend with his mother and father.  I enjoy the little one so much.  Julia, Paxton, Tenley and Zayn were all great to see and enjoy!  I believe a good time was had by young and old!

05/04/2013

Okay, we have been in Indiana for a couple of weeks.  Right now we are staying near Franklin, spending time with Scott and Mady.  We have seen Jason, Theresa and Phil, and Karen.  Hopefully this weekend we will be able to see Jay-bird again.

Mady is about a inch taller than me.  She is growing up. 

We plan on staying here for about another week and then hit Evansville for a couple of days on our way south for Lexi's graduation.  We are trying to coordinate with John to stop and visit before going on over to Jenifer's.

Not anything too exciting.

04/06/12

Back in Alabama at Larry's daughter's house.  She and her husband have put in a full hook-up for her Dad, so it makes for a nice stay.  It is much cooler here and in Eustis, Fl.  The high today is around 70, so it is very, very pleasant.

Somehow I have really hurt my back and riding for two days in the truck did not help it.  I can not believe how bad it hurts.  I cannot even turn over in bed and like to sleep on my side.  It is impossible to get comfortable.  Last night it even hurt  when I coughed or took a deep breath.  Today it seems a little better.  I have iced it down every couple of hours and hopefully that will help.

Little house big backyard!

04/02/12

The days are getting HOT!  The sun is so intense, so we are moving north!  Today is our last day at Southern Palms.  Tomorrow we hit the road again.  We are planning on spending Easter with Larry's daughter in Chelsea.  We should be on the road only two or three days depending on how Larry's back holds up.  I hope it is cooler there!

03/28/2012

The party is over:-(  People are leaving every day.  By Sunday about half of the park will be gone.  It is getting very hot and because of that I am ready to move on also.  The sun is so intense that I need a hat when I take a walk.  I find my sunglasses are not enough.

We will leaving here April 4th, is all goes as planned.  We will be stopping a night or two in Tallahassee to visit with one of Larry's cousins.  We will be at Jenifer's for Easter and plan to spent a week or so there before we move further north.  The next stop will be in KY at Larry's brothers house.  After that we will back in Eville for a little while, but Mady is anxious to see us so we will be moving on to Franklin for a while.

Little house big back yard!  Gail

03/25/2012

Last Wednesday evening Larry's show the Southern Palms Opry was held.  It was a overwhelming success.  Around 300 to 350 people attended.  This was the show that Larry was in charge of.  He selected the performers, arranged for rehearsals, set the order of the program,  he even typed up the programs.  Even thought the rehearsals were not very good the show when off with just a few minor hitches.

I teased Larry and said it should have been the Larry Neal Variety Hour because he was in every act except two.  In his defense, his band members each did three number and he did a set, then the piano player had asked if would play his guitar when she played, and another lady singer had ask if he would play during her set and then the dubro player's backup guys did not show so Larry played for his set. He was also in the Gospel Quartet, so he was on stage alot.

Here are some pictures of the night:

.

03/10/2012

Yesterday we went to St Augustine on a bus with others from the park.  The best thing we saw was the old fort, Castillo De San Marcos.  It is is national monument and ran by the National Park Service.  Some of the rangers were dress in official Spanish army uniforms, which looked very hot. This fort was started in 1672, making it on the oldest structures in North America.  It was not completed until 1756.  It was initially built by the Spanish to protect their empire in America.  The fort was never overrun but it has served under six different flags.  When the fort did change hands it was always done by treaty.
Here is Larry by the cannon.

We also saw several other things, for example the oldest Wooden  School House, the old city gates, the non catholic cemetery and Fountain of Youth.  At the Fountain of Youth we all drank from the spring, so the next time you see Larry and I we should look younger!  The grounds were full of peacocks and peahens.  We were able to get very close to one peacock who want to cross the pathway full of people.  Here are some picture, but the don't do the colors justice.

Here is some more nice scenery at the Fountain of Youth, that I noticed! ;-)

03/07/2012

Here in Florida's night sky we are able to see four planets at the same time!  Mercury, Venus and Jupiter are all in the western sky. Right at dusk,  it starts with Mercury, just above the horizon.  Then almost in a straight line up is Venus and the Jupiter.  At the same time, in the eastern sky is Mars!  According to the Internet we should be able to see another planet, but I have not yet found it.  But being able to see four planets with the naked eye is very cool!

The weather here is starting to heat up a little and the sun is pretty intense some days.  We will be starting our journey north in about 3 weeks.

Little house big backyard!

02/29/2012

Hey, we have finally sold our house!  We are officially homeless and happy about it!!
The house has been empty and on the market since we started our journey.  We were able to sign all the paperwork over the net and anything that needed notarized by express mail.

We are still having fun in Florida!  Here is Larry and his "girlfriends" line dancing Sat. night.

02/22/2012

Wednesday evening the RV Park held its annual talent show.  Larry and my brother Mike both had skits in the show.

Mike was in the synchronized swimming skit.  They had on swim caps and goggles and performed using a blue tarp as the water.

Here they are coming into the "stadium".  Mike is the first one.  The skit was hilarious and the hit of the show!!

Larry sang a solo with the choir.  He also played his guitar for another singer.  And then he sang Long Tall Texan with two buddies.  It was quite funny and I was very proud of him!

We are have fun in Florida!!!!

Little house big backyard!!

02/12/2012

I can't believe I forgot to blog about Larry and my adventure a couple of weeks ago.  We went to a hypnotist show where we both volunteered to be part of the show.  There were not many people at the show, so I decided it would be a good time to be hypnotized.  The hypnotist asked for 12 subjects and only 11 went up, including me.  They asked for one more person and much to my surprise Larry came up.

We both went under rather quickly. But if you did not go under all the way or came out of it for some reason, the hypnotist quietly lead you off the stage. So there were only three left on stage when I woke up. Larry being one.

While under hypnoses I felt  like I had two minds.  One which gladly did what was asked of me and one which I was aware of my surroundings.  For example, I knew enough to sit with my legs together, even though I had on shorts, I did not want to sit with my legs apart like men sit.  Also, my concern for Larry was always there.  I was afraid he might hurt his back or something else. It was quite strange.

I guess we were the hits of the show.  Larry and two of our friends ended up being the last  three on stage.  They were ask to be ballet dancers, body builders and belly dancers and these were just a few of the suggestions given to them. I purchased the DVD of the show so Larry could see all that we did and especially what he did.  He did not really remember much, but for some reason I did.

It was great fun!

Little house - big back yard!

01/31/2012

 We just came back from a visit to my brother Rick's condo in Islamorada which is the Florida Keys.  We drove down Friday to Ft Lauderdale Airport w/ my brother Mike and his wife, Paula to pick-up their son Troy.  From there we went on to the keys.  We arrived  about 9:30 at night.  We flipped a coin to see who got the master bedroom and I lost, so Larry and I had twin beds but the bath was just steps across the hall.  The condo was great!

The next day we all went down to "Robbie's Place", a waterfront, surf shop, rental place.  We ended doing an "Eco Tour" on a small runabout.  This turned out very good, since it was just the five of us and Sam our captain and tour guide.  We were out for two hours and saw many things, including  a saltwater crocodile, iguanas, many, many birds and lots of mangrove "islands".

Larry and I on the "eco tour boat"

Saltwater crocodile

Birds at "Robbie's Place"

The third day we drove and hour and half down to Key West and spent the day there.  This was a good time.  Larry and I walked from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean!  This is only about a mile and a quarter!  Later that afternoon we all went to the Square to watch the sunset, along with about hundred other people.  There were all kinds of entertainers and booths selling everything and anything to do with Key West.

Mile marker 0

Larry and Mike under the tightrope walker at Mallory's Square

                       The sunset from Mallory Square, Key West, Florida!!


The fourth day the weather changed and the wind was horrendous!  It was steady at about 20 miles per hour with gust up to 30 to 34.  We did go to a state park in Key Largo and had planned on snorkeling off the beach, but the wind would not lay down.  My brother Mike did get in and tried to snorkel for about 5 minutes!

Paula and me on the beach in the WIND!

All in all it was a good trip.  Larry had never been to the Keys and I had been only once and that was about 40 years ago.

Good to be back to my little house!!

01/24/2012

The weather here is on the warm side.  The temp is about 10 higher that usual for this time of the year.

The Florida weather is great for growing flowers and I have planted four planters and a hibiscus on our site.  Hopefully it will survive the summer and be blooming next season.  I think that it should be established enough by the time we leave to do fine.  In my plants I have two flower boxes of impatience and two basket of Gerber daisies.  Ever thing is blooming except the Gerber daisies, but they are looking good!

Little house big back yard!!

01/11/12

Yesterday we went to Blue Spring State Park and had a great time. There were 107 manatees in the spring.  It is so neat to see these animals so close.

Here  is Larry and my brothers Bob and Mike with a manatee.

We also took the boat tour on the St. John's River.  We saw around 50 alligators and all kinds of birds.  Some of the birds were Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Tri-Colored Heron, Purple Gallinules, many Anhingas, one Wood Stork and many more. 

It was a beautiful day not too hot and not too cold and not a cloud in the sky!

Little house big backyard!!

01/09/12

Larry, Max and Lois and I went to Eustis's First Friday party downtown last Friday.  It was great!  Two great bands, one on each end of the streets.  Lots of vendors selling food and everything else. Lots of lights and people!  Tables and chairs are set out but some people brought there own chairs.

Here is a picture of Larry, Max and Lois.  We will be sure to go again next month!!

01/02/2012

Happy New Year everybody!!

We had a good New Years Eve.  Earlier in the day I saw a Little Blue Heron and then two Sandhill Cranes in the creek.  This creek runs around the edge of our park on two sides.  I new the cranes had to around close because every morning and evening I would here their call.

 

Here is on of the Sandhill Cranes.

And here is the Little Blue Heron

The New Years Party was great.  Great food and friends!  We all had a good time.  Here is a picture of me with my party hat.

Here is Larry, Lois and Max doing the Electric Slide!

Little house big backyard!