Final Blog

Tomorrow we sign the papers for our new house. We will no longer be "on the highway."   After almost eleven years of life in an RV, it is time to hang up the keys. It's been fun sharing our travels with all of you. Now it is time to begin another chapter in our lives.

Remember "All who wander are not lost!"

Ending An Era

We are winding down a chapter in our lives. By the end of this week we will have become the owners of a stix and brix home instead of an RV. This morning we signed, scanned and emailed the Closing Disclosure document to the bank. Now we have to wait three "cooling off" days before we can sign the actual papers.

It was HOT today. Forry said the outside temperature was 107 at one time this afternoon! Toward evening we loaded up his electric cart on the car carrier and took it and some of the yard art into the new house. We sat out on the deck for a while and enjoyed the breeze off of the lake. I think we're going to like it there.

REST!

The alarm on my phone went off. I looked at Forry and asked if he wanted to get up. Getting a very negative reply, I shut off the alarm and went back to sleep. We were both extremely tired. It had been a long couple of days. The Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference met Friday and Saturday at Menno. There were representatives from Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington as well as visitors from Kansas, Indiana and Pennsylvania.

By noon I had already taken a nap. The Mariners were playing at one o'clock, so had to be alert for that. Can't say that we did much of anything else today.

PNMC con.

Another day of conference. We are tired.  Think I will go to bed instead of finishing the Mariner's game.

PNMC

We spent this afternoon at Menno, taking care of registration for the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference which is being hosted by Menno. It was actually a fairly easy task as name tags had been made in advance by the PNMC staff. I had to find the right name tag, then check them off my list and give them a schedule. Then Forry gave each registrant a tote bag (advertising the Mennonite Country Auction the first Saturday in October) and let them choose a coffee mug.

It was actually pretty nice way to spend an afternoon. It wasn't too terribly hot and we got to see lots of people we hadn't seen for a long time

ANOTHER Trip to Town

We got an email from the bank last night saying they had gotten the approval for the flood insurance. BUT, it had been so long since they had started the process that the bank statements we gave them were outdated and we needed to bring them current ones! So back into town we went this morning!

Since there is a three day "cooling off" period before we can sign the papers, it looks like it will be the middle of next week at the earliest... Perhaps, it will actually happen before the end of the month?

We took the rocking lawn chairs from the patio here over to the new house this morning. They look pretty nice sitting on the deck outside the master bedroom.

I badly needed a haircut and Forry was looking shaggy, so instead of getting it done in Spokane, we decided to check out the shop here in Moses Lake. Even checking in on-line, we had about a half hour wait. With only two girls working today, they were very busy. We saw half a dozen people leave as they didn't want to wait 45-60 minutes. I think I got a pretty good haircut and Forry looks nice. We'll see what it looks like tomorrow after it gets washed.

Hanging Up the Keys?

If you've noticed (like Sister Sherry) that we've been making an awful lot of trips to town, it's true. We have been dealing with bankers, insurance agents, appraisers and now, engineers! We spent a great deal of time this winter trying to make up our minds about what we are going to do next. We've pretty much lived in our RV and on the road ever since we retired almost eleven years ago. When we decided last fall, for a variety of reasons, that we weren't going to spend the winter in Arizona, it started us down a different path.

We had wanted to remain in the area for our dear friend Vic, who was nearing the end of his time with us. Though the winter itself was just plain awful (between the snow, ice and cold!), we enjoyed being close to both our family and our church family. As we started talking about summer travel plans, we realized that, while we certainly haven't seen everything, there was nowhere we had a burning desire to see. We had reached our initial goal of traveling through all of the 48 contiguous states a year or so ago.

Forry needs to have some work (i.e. replacements) on both his hips and his knees. That also  meant staying in the area. Then there was the whole issue of how tiring setting up and tearing down was getting to be for us - we're not getting any younger you know...

I had always said that someday I wanted to live near a body of water and we had off and on talked about it. One day Niece Becky told us about the house on Moses Lake that her brother-in-law had gutted and was rebuilding. We went to take a look and were very impressed. Craig does beautiful work! We looked at several other lake front houses, but...

So that's what we've been doing. It's been a bit of an ordeal as nothing about it has gone easily. The latest snag was a letter from the Feds that the house was in a "flood zone" and would require pricey flood insurance. Which prompted our today's trip to an engineer's office to start the process of getting an Elevation Certificate which can be used to exempt the dwelling.

One of these days, we just may get all of the paperwork taken care of, then we'll park Auntie Violet in the driveway and begin to enjoy our new house on the lake.

Finally, An At-home Day

Man, it got HOT today! It was 98 degrees this afternoon. I don't like it when it goes from chilly to hot so terribly fast. No time for one's body to adjust.

At least I had a bit of energy this morning. I had gone to bed early last night which may have helped. I cleaned up the weekend's scattered dishes and loaded the dishwasher. Then started a load of white clothing in the Splendide. Only after I had those electrical servants working did I sit down for my first cup of coffee. Somewhere in there, I also cleaned up the bathroom sink and counter. Not that it needed it or anything like that!

I don't think I've done any laundry since we got back from our last weekend's trips to Wenatchee and Mount Vernon. The drying rack in the living room is loaded. It's a good thing it was so hot this morning. The first load of clothes was dry enough for Forry to fold so that there was room for the next ones.

I did break down and shut all the windows so that I could turn on the A/C. On a day like today it is easy for me to give up my dislike of closed windows and put up with the noise of the A/C. We pulled the front curtains as well. It really helped to not have the sun shining in through that big front windshield.

I bought some pre-made skewers at Safeway the other day. Each skewer had pineapple, onions, peppers and mushrooms already on it. I thawed and marinated a thick piece of sirloin steak that I had sliced into one inch cubes. After grilling the pre-made skewers on all sides,  I threaded the steak on skewers and quickly grilled them as well. It made a really nice dinner without a lot of fuss.

Another Good Day

We were Greeters at church today, so were up early and heading for Menno. Since it was Father's Day, there were many families gone, camping and visiting parents. As they arrived, Pastor Jeanie had us give each person a puzzle piece. After the service, which was from the passage that talks about needing ears and eyes, hands and feet to make a whole church; each person took their puzzle piece into the education wing and attempted to put the puzzle together. Each piece together made the whole.

Following church, we went over to the parsonage for lunch with Pastor Jeanie and Pastor Lyn. I had brought the strawberries I had picked at Brother Pat's yesterday. We sliced them and had them with pound cake and whipped cream for dessert. They sure were good!

An In Town Day

We had an early appointment this morning in Moses Lake. We decided we would stop and pick up breakfast at Starbucks on the way. We did and took our breakfasts along to the meeting, sitting outside to enjoy them.

We had some shopping to do, then went to take care of our grocery needs. It had been a while since I had picked up groceries, so it took a while. Forry stayed in the car while I did my shopping as he felt he had walked enough.

Our last stop was out at Brother Pat's house. He wasn't home, but had invited me to come and pick strawberries and peas while he was gone. I picked a bowl full of strawberries and a grocery sack half full of peas. They were so abundant in his garden that you couldn't even tell I had picked any! I sat and ate peas for a good half hour after we got back home and hardly made a dent in the bag. They are so good!