The Best of 2016 (Part 2)

June:

In June we said farewell to our gate attendant positions and began our duties as camp hosts. Positions that we were much better suited for! We also increased our number of work hours from 10-15 hours per week to 30 hours per week. The added hours limited our free time but were a welcome addition to our paychecks! Toward the middle of the month Mindi, Chris, Sarah and Mike came for a visit. They spent a day in the park enjoying the amusement rides and the water rides. Another day we all piled into our truck, crossed the border and toured the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. While we were working the kids spent a couple of days touring the Toronto area. They were very impressed with the city and its inhabitants. 

July, August, September:

Worked, tended and harvested my container garden, enjoyed a day visit from Bob's sister and her kids and grandkids and spent a day in Tioga PA (our home town) for its annual Old Home Day. Even the cats started looking ready to move on! After Labor Day the park is only open weekends so many of the employees had left. We stayed to the end of September when the park closed for the winter.

October:

On our way back to FL we spent a few days in Murphy NC visiting good friends. We attended an Arts and Craft show where I found the perfect Christmas present for Mindi. She lives in Oviedo FL which is famous for its "free range" chickens. Of course we had to visit the Blue Ridge Olive Oil Company to restock our oil and vinegar collection! A new stop for us was Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge GA. What a fantastic apple orchard and farm market. We bought three half-bushels of apples. I did a lot of canning when I got back home! We returned home just in time to "hunker down" for Hurricane Matthew. Thankfully he changed his mind at the last minute and stayed just off shore so damage was less severe than expected. Spending almost 6 months in the motor home made us aware of some desired/needed changes. Our first project - new bathroom and kitchen faucets.

November:

November saw us continuing with our motor home updates. After 10 years and many trips with our cats the window valances and shades were beginning to look quite shabby. Solution? Plantation blinds and oak valances. As of this post we still have 4 more to do. When we bought this motor home we were so excited that it came with a 4-door refrigerator. So much room! Worked great when you were on vacation and eating out a lot. Not so roomy when you are preparing most of your meals at home. The final straw came when we discovered a 12 inch pizza would not fit. So we did a lot of research on installing residential refrigerators in RVs. We decided it was doable and found the recommended refrig at Lowes, on sale even! The only negative was that it had to be special ordered from the manufacturer and wouldn't be available for at least a month. We ordered it anyways, removed the old refrigerator and started retrofitting the cabinet.

Family Thanksgiving was held at our house this year. I love family gatherings and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Our niece has moved back to Florida and it was fun having a little one around again.

And of course Thanksgiving means it's time to start decorating for Christmas!

December:

One afternoon we had some very unexpected visitors! Two bald eagles took up short term residence  in a tree behind our house. They stayed in the tree for a couple of hours observing the neighborhood. One was feeding on a small animal. We enjoyed watching them through the binoculars but it was hard to get good pictures because of the scrub trees.

The refrigerator for the motor home was delivered sooner than expected. We were able to get it in through the door and into place without too much difficulty. It really does have a freezer drawer (Lol!) and the trim work is now all in place. We finally installed the main bath's tile back splash. It only took about two years to complete! We also helped Bob's sister tile her kitchen back splash. I finished up all my Christmas gift projects and even found time to make Christmas cookies. 

Some pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The tricycle that Sarah is riding in the picture below was hers when she was little. It was re-gifted to our great niece.

And that was 2016! Wonder what 2017 will bring?