Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!! Today is December 27th! Just a few more days and we will be starting a New Year, I am hoping for all my dear friends and family to have a new year filled with joy, blessings, sharing, and laughter.
I know our niece and her husband will have a wonderful year as they are expecting our first great nephew; yes they know it is a boy! We are all so excited and happy for them. It's been 14 years since we have had a baby in the family.
I thought I would do a recap of 2012; it's been a busy year. Both our son, daughter-in-law and daughter are doing well. Everyone is healthy, the most important thing; their lives are going forward in a positive manner with good jobs, homes, friends and a love for THE LORD.
Dave and I have made the decision to retire in 2013. Dave's actual date is still undecided, but I am aiming for May 31, 2013. We close on a lot outside Ames, IA, much closer to our children, just a few minutes from Dan and about 50 minutes from Mary, in January. We haven't been near Dan in 12 years, so the potential to see him and Steph more than a few times a year is going to be wonderful. Also, being closer to Mary will make more frequent visits so much easier. Of course, that means we will be further away from our families in the Quad-Cities by another hour, but being retired means we will have a much easier time traveling down to visit. And with the Airstream, we can stay for as long as we want as we will have our home with us. :)
We waited through last winter and into spring and finally on July 3 we got our refurbished Airstream! Then we spent the rest of the summer and fall, every single weekend until the 1st of November traveling and camping. Wow, were we busy!!! But it was so much fun. My brother and his wife purchased a RV, a small travel trailer this spring, so we enjoyed their company on a couple weekends. Hoping for quite a few more in 2013!! It was a good time! Wish we could convince other family members to join us in the RV life style.
We had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Vermont with our dog's breeder and dear Friend, Pamela. Pamela and I attended doggie day camp with our dogs; six between the two of us. It was very enjoyable, though poor Pamela was going through some health issues and was quite miserable but she didn't admit to it and carried on. After parting ways, Dave and I continued on through New York and into Ontario and back through Michigan and then home. I would definitely like to spend more time in New York state, it was beautiful. Then this fall, our next big trip was to the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas and attended a Workkamper education rally. We learned so much at this rally and with their webinars, hope to continue to learn more this next year, so we can have a better chance of finding some workkamping jobs to support our RV life style while we are on the road in the future. We are hoping to do volunteer work with the National parks, State parks and the Fish and Wildlife associations across the US.
We had enjoyable weekend trips also, so had great use out of the Airstream even though we had a late start. Found some little kinks in it, but Ryan got it into the his shop in November and got everything repaired. I highly recommend RV Revive for any of your repairs!!! Wonderful family to work with and they do an outstanding job. If you reviewed our pictures of the Airstream that we posted this summer, you know how nice a job he does.
This week, during our shutdown from work, we are sorting old boxes and storage containers and taking items to Goodwill, pitching in the garbage or packing for long-term storage until after we get the house built, hopefully sometime next year.
Today, I found pictures from when I worked for Colonel Groves at the Rock Island Arsenal, the program from my high school graduation, and other memories that we haven't seen in years!!! Some things made us smile, some made us sad and miss family that has passed on, and some things made us laugh and other things confirmed that we have a wonderful family. We are so very proud of our wonderful and beautiful children. We have been blessed.
So even though I have no posting of travel and probably won't until this coming spring, I'll try to add a few more posts to track our activities this winter in preparation of selling this house and planning for our relocation after we retire in 2013. Guarantee we will definitely still be RVing in 2013, maybe not long trips, but exploring for short jaunts around the mid-west.
Hope this post finds everyone, wherever you may be, warm or cold, enjoying the final days of 2012. May God bless you and keep you!
Candy
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