Happy to Be Back July 28th, 2015

It has been a long time since I have posted anything, and I really appreciated all of your questions about whether I was ok, and how things were going.  Life has been crazy for months, and I have also had to reevaluate blogging again.  I will probably post once a week and possibly start the party again at some point in the future.

We sold our house in Denver this month and closed about two weeks ago.   It took six weeks to get it ready, and we lived in that mess the whole time, but when it was done it was worth it. You'll find a few pictures of the house below, and I'll share some more next week.   It was great that it sold in 2 days, but bittersweet.  We raised our kids in that house, it's where I have lived for a big part of my adult life.  I am feeling sad that I wont be living in Colorado, which is where all of our kids and grand kids live, but I know that my sweet hubby's semi retirement is going to be fun.

So now on the the good parts of what has been happening.  As you know we moved to south Florida last December, and we live a block from the beach and on a canal.  It was wonderful having a warm winter this last year.  

Then, for the most exciting thing, three weeks ago today, our middle son and his wife had a little girl, so they now have three little girls.  She is beautiful, and mom and dad are doing great, but very sleep deprived.  I have been back in Denver since she was about 15 hours old.  It has been an amazing journey.  

Tonight, we get to have our two older granddaughters spend the night with us in our new trailer (a whole other story to come later in this post).  We are going to have Turkey Carnitas Soft Tacos (I purchased the turkey carnitas at Sprouts) for dinner with rice and beans. We will be making S'Mores for desert, and this grandma gives you lots of choices.  Our older granddaughter loves KitKat's, so she gets KitKat S'mores.  The 5 year old loves Reese's, so she will get Reese's S'Mores.  She is a lot like her daddy, he loves Reese's also.  We are going to make Pillsbury Minion Cookies and we will have french toast for breakfast tomorrow morning before I take them home.  

One of the things that I have wanted to do in retirement is to travel around the country.  The best way to do that with a dog and a cat is with a trailer.  So we bought a trailer at the end of May, and that has been quite the experience.  We left Denver on May 31st to head back to Florida for a few weeks, but about 40 miles west of Hayes, Kansas, near the little town of Wakeeney, we were in an accident with our brand new trailer.  To be specific, I was driving, a pickup truck passed me, it was towing a utility trailer, a spare tire flew off of the back of the utility trailer and was headed toward our windshield.  God was watching out for us that day.  I swerved to miss the tire, but in the meantime the trailer ended up tipping and when everything came to a stop, I was facing the oncoming traffic on I 70 and taking up both lanes.  All of the cars were pulled over to the side, and everyone was coming to us to make sure we were OK.  We were fine, just shaken up, but our cute little trailer was totaled.  God is so good and faithful.  I looked at SH (Sweet Hubby) afterward and said "God just saved us today!"  I am so grateful.  Anyway, we ended up getting me a new car (bigger) and a new trailer (bigger) and we are having a blast.  We have stayed at several nice camping places and since the house sold we have stayed at both Chatfield State Park and Cherry Creek State Park in Colorado.  We have had our granddaughters, ages 6 and 5 spend the night with us and the kids and grand kids over for a bbq.  We take the dog for walks and life is good.  The trailer is a cozy 22 ft Lance trailer with a bathroom, bedroom, fireplace, kitchen, and dinette.  It is a lovely place to call home.  (I'll share pictures next week.)   When I wake up in the morning, I look out the door at the beautiful reservoir and have my coffee.  The other morning I saw a balloon taking off.  I think we are ready for semi retirement (that means he will probably work 20 hours a week and from wherever we are rather then 60 to 80 hours a week in an office.  I can blog a little since most campgrounds have WiFi, which is great, and I can take my crafts with me.  Also, we have to eat, so new recipes will be coming your way.  

To kick off his slowing down, we also went on a 17 day transatlantic cruise in April and then spent 2 nights in Rome before flying home. It was a blast.  Our cousins went with us and we all enjoyed ourselves so much that we are planning another cruise with them next June to Northern Europe.  On this last one we went to the Canary Islands, Cartegena, Spain, Malaga, Spain, Barcelona, Nice, Florence, Pisa, and Rome. I have so many beautiful pictures to share with all of you.  I can't wait.

I took the picture of the peacock below in Cartegena, Spain.  It was mating season, so he was showing off his feathers for the females.

Here is a picture from last nights sunset.  It was truly spectacular.

Have a great week and I'll see you again next week.