Our Decision is Made...

As of next week, we will be living in the RV full time! YEAH!!!

We are going to move in to the RV and then put into storage the things that we want to keep.

The rest will be sorted, packed up and put up for auction. Also, the auctioneer will try to sell the house at the same time with the option for us to refuse any high bidder. The auctioneer is licensed with our realtor, so if it doesn't sell our realtor will just continue to list it.

We do not want to put this off and let the time just drag as we try to sell, so we just made the decision to move...

Now I am excited, scared, and many more emotions running through my head.

We will still be staying in this area at least for a while because of my brother's health issues, but we can make short trips without having to worry about the house.

I know that some of you will think we are crazy but this is something that we have wanted to do for a long time, and we all know that we aren't getting any younger..LOL.

We will be having the bedroom and stairway painted while we are gone this weekend to our granddaughter's State Volleyball Tournament and then the office and the rest of the family room will be painted this next week.

Now we have to get our list together of things we want to keep and get them packed and moved to storage...and the rest is history...LOL

Wish us Luck!!

Hugs to all!!!

We are back home...

Well we got home on Saturday evening after a stop at our RV Dealers to have a couple of things looked at.

The trip home was uneventful. We made a couple of stops for fuel and drinks. I had to get a couple of photos for this blog so here they are...lol.

I-44 in Missouri...

and entering Kansas.

We spent Sunday just lazing around and deciding what our first project would be. We have decided to load up a bunch of things and take down to the local auction that they have on Tuesday mornings. We ended up with 3 full trailers full!  Now we only need to do that about 100 more times...lol. I should have taken photos but I didn't even think about it until it was too late.

Our kids have things that they need to pick up better get moving. Hopefully they will come and get their stuff soon or Mac will haul it all away! He is determined to get this house on the market by December...Whew, I think it will be a rough month at our house.

Tomorrow I will sort through more stuff and I think Mac will try to get things ready to start painting again....maybe. After spending this last 3 weeks in the RV it has strengthened our resolve to get the house sold!

We will be leaving here on Thursday if we can get the RV out after all the rain. Our granddaughter, Britny's Volleyball team will be going to State. It is about 4 hours from here so we made reservations at the KOA so we can go to her games.  Good Luck Brit!!

Well I will keep ya'll up to date on our progress.

Hugs to all!!

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday in Missouri

It has been and very crazy few days. Everything from visiting, dining with family and visiting family in the hospital.

We had dinner with cousins on Tuesday evening. Harold & Joyce Scott. She made a great homemade Lasagna, Salad, Homemade rolls and she even made a Homemade Apple Pie! It was wonderful!!!  We visited until about 9:30pm and then headed back to the RV about 22 miles away.

Wednesday we headed back to Seymour to take my cousin, Sheryl out for lunch and to visit with more family. We had a nice lunch and then we looked around the town some more. I wanted to go out to Lone Star Cemetary to look at my grandparents and great grandparents graves and to take some photos for the genealogy that I have been working on. We then went to the Seymour Cemetary to visit my other grandmothers grave.

After that we took Sheryl back home and headed back toward Marshfield to stop and visit with my cousin Tommy and his wife Jeri.

When we got to Tom's house he told us that he had just gotten a phone call from his sister that Harold, my cousin that we had had dinner with the night before had been Life Flighted to Springfield because he had a heart attack. WOW..so we cut our visit short and headed to St John's Hospital in Springfield. He was settled in a room and was awake. He was scheduled for an angiogram on Thursday to check for blockages and stints if necessary. We headed back to the RV with heavy hearts to try to get some sleep.

I took some photos on the way back to Seymour of the fall colors and some of the Amish that were traveling to town.

Thursday we were supposed to have a visit from my cousin Connie and her husband Chet(this is on my dad's side of the family). She called about 9:30am to tell us that they were not coming because they had had the flu all week and still weren't feeling very well and didn't want to pass it on to us. Thank you for that Connie! We were also supposed to have dinner with other family members Thursday evening. My mom's last living brother, and my cousins. Dottie had made Baked Potato Soup, Sandwiches, French Bread and Tea. Yummy!

Top clockwise: Jeri, Lisa and Dottie

Wayne & Tommy

My mom's brother Ezra. He will be 93 on his birthday.

Brandon, Dottie & Wayne's son

While we were there we found out that Harold was going to have to have a Triple Bypass on Friday morning. He had 2 arteries that were 100% blocked and 1 artery that was 98% blocked. Don't know how he was even walking around.

On Friday we headed to the hospital to see how the surgery went and he came through very good. Besides the blockages, there was no damage to his heart. The doctor said his heart was strong. He will have to be in the hospital until the middle of next week and will have to make some changes in his life...not work all the time!

After the visit to the hospital we went to Michael's Crafts for some things I needed for my jewelry and then out to dinner. We had a nice dinner and then back in the RV to head back to the RV and jumped on chat for a little while.

Also made a necklace while chatting! Multitasking, Deb...LOL

Here are a few photos of the jewelry that I have made in the last few days.

We are headed home tomorrow after a short stop at the dealer to have a few things done. We need to get busy with the house and get that thing on the market. We kind of like this traveling stuff...lol

Hugs to all!

Marshfield & Seymour

We arrived at RV Express Campground about noon yesterday.

 

It is right off of I-44 in Marshfield, Mo. We were immediately greeted by the owner who showed us to our site and told us to come up to the office whenever we were ready.

Here is a couple of photos of the park and our site:

This is a nice park. All cement sites with grass and shrubs. Picnic tables and a grill. The only downside that I see is that it is next to I-44 and pretty noisy outside. You would not be able to sit outside and visit very well. Now inside the RV you can hear the traffic but it is not so loud as to be distracting. Nice place to stop for the night or a few days, but not somewhere that you would want to spend time outside. They also have a free continental breakfast every morning. We didn't go up this morning but may tomorrow. Super wi-fi !! Got on chat last night and didn't get booted once.

After we got all set up and made our trip to the office to check in, we headed out to Camping World to look for some things we just had to have...lol. Well after we made our purchases, we went and got fuel. $2.49 gallon for diesel. We also made a quick stop at Taco Bell.

After Taco Bell we decided to run over to Seymour to surprise one of my cousins if she was home.

Here are a few photos of the drive from Marshfield to Seymour...beautiful colors.

 

Well Sheryl was home and we sat and visited for about an hour with her and told her that we would be back over on Tuesday. We then took a ride around the square to see how much had changed. I took a photo of a mural that is on the side of a building at the end of the square. It is very good!

There are a couple others and I will try to get photos of them too. I am also going to try to take some photos of where my grandmothers lived. I may go our to the cemetery to do a little genealogy work if I have time.

I called several cousins to try to set up times to get together and we will try to make those happen in the next couple of days.

So we are going to be on the run most of the day today to see as much as we can of my mom & dad's hometown.

Have a great day everyone!

Hugs to all!!!

Goodbyes & Chicken Enchilada Casserole

We got up this morning to tell the people that were leaving goodbye. We all gathered around several RV's to tell our new friends goodbye and that we hoped to see you soon!

We then went back to the RV to get some laundry done so that we would be ready to travel tomorrow.  We also had to run to the grocery store to pick up a few items that I needed to make a casserole for supper.

I made Chicken Enchilada casserole for dinner tonight and several people asked for the recipe. So I decided to post it here on my blog.

Here it is:

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

3---13oz cans of White Breast Chicken

2---10oz cans of Cream of Chicken Soup

1 cup Sour Cream

2 cans Green Chili Enchilada Sauce

1---4oz can Chopped Green Chilis

2---cans of Original Rotel--or (1 Original & 1 Hot)

1/2 tsp Garlic Powder

1tsp Onion Powder

**************************************

1 can Chicken Broth

1 regular size bag of Tostitos--crushed ( I usually only use about 3/4 of a bag, just add them a little at a time, because you want it to still look just a little runny because it will set up)

2 bags of Shredded Cheese--I use Colby/Jack

In a large mixing bowl combine first 8 ingredients mixing very well.

Add 1/2 of the broth and mix well.

Fold crushed chips into mixture and add the rest of the broth.

Lightly spray 9 x 13 casserole dish and pour mixture in and even out.

Bake at 350* for 25 - 30 minutes.

Sprinkle with cheese and bake another 15 minutes.

Serve with a green salad or lettuce, tomatoes, and salsa.

Serves 10 - 12

I hope you enjoy this. We have it quite often because it is so easy to make.

We will be traveling tomorrow about 80 miles from here to just east of Springfield to RV Express Campground in  Marshfield, Mo to spend a few days visiting with relatives. Then we head home to get really busy on the house! I promise!!

Hugs to all!!

 

Heartland Rally Weekend

The rally officially started last night. We had a Meet & Greet down at Mike and Daphna Fiehler's RV. They supplied snacks and we brought our own drinks and chairs. It was very chilly outside so we were all in coats. We met a lot of new RV'ers and visited for about an hour and a half. Some people had tickets for shows so they took off and everyone else slowly headed to their own RV's to warm up.

Today we all met at 8am for breakfast at the Celebration Station-which is one of the buildings here at ABC Campground. We had some live entertainment to serenade us while we ate...lol

We had the afternoon free so Mac & I headed out to do some sight-seeing and to visit downtown Branson. We ended up going to a Craft Mall and looked around and then had some lunch. Lunch was not very good. After that we headed to downtown and parked and just started up the street. We went into Dick's 5 & Dime. I love those stores...they have everything! We went to the Fudge & Candy Store...not a good place for us but we did leave with some caramels, salt water taffy, and a small piece of fudge. I looked in a couple of other shops and bought me a sweatshirt since I didn't have one in the RV and have been freezing.

Tonight we met at 6pm for the potluck. There was a lot of food---but I don't think there was near as much as in Kerrville!!!

We didn't realize that this was the Missouri Chapter's first Rally. They had a pretty good turn out for a first one.

Jim Beletti, PR guy for Heartland gave us the low down on Heartland and their Financial situation. It's great!! Still no debt! After that they drew for prizes. Every couple won twice. We won a Heartland Cap & Sticky Mat(holds cellphone or iPod from slipping around) and a maintenance care package for our solid surface countertops.

Photos were then taken of the ladies and then one of all the guys. We visited more and passsed around contact cards.

We are now back at the rig watching the NASCAR race.

Tomorrow most everyone is leaving but we don't leave until Monday heading to the east side of Springfield for about 3 days to visit with family before heading home.

Hugs to all!!

Thursday in Branson

We got up this morning showered, and started some laundry and I added the stuff to my roast for stew in the crockpot.

We went outside and visited with the couple that are just a few sites down from us. We were just having a laid back day. I had a list made of things I needed to get for the Potluck on Saturday. We were going to stop at WalMart after we made our trip to Ozark to Lamberts for a late lunch. It ended up being an early supper. We got there at 2:45 and it was a 1 hour wait to be seated. After we ordered and finished eating it was about 5:15.

We made our stop at WalMart and headed back to the campground to put things up.

Kind of a boring day today, but the Rally starts tomorrow so things should pick up. Everyone has been staying in their RV's because we cannot have a campfire to gather around and it is too cold to just sit outside.

I will try to take some photos tomorrow and post. We are going in to town to do some sight seeing and a little shopping..Mac loves the shopping part...lol

Hugs to all!!

Joplin to Branson

We made it to Joplin about 7:00pm on Monday evening. We traveled about 375 miles. That's too many miles in one day for me. It was cloudy, misty and just plain dreary all day. We settled in for the evening after we got all set up at the Joplin KOA.

Tuesday morning we took off and headed out to the Downstream Casino & Resort. We had a great lunch at the Buffet and decided to play a few slots while we were there. I left my money there while Mac won a little. It was a fun few hours. Here is a photo from the truck of the casino & hotel. There is RV parking here but we didn't know it or we would have probably stayed out there. The sites are all concrete with Electric and Water and are on the backside of the parking lot.

We went back to the RV and tried to get a hold of our cousins Warren & Pam again. We really wanted to catch up with them while we were in Joplin. We finally talked to them and we headed over to their house for a couple of hours to visit. We had a great time and got all caught up. Didn't have our camera so didn't get any photos.

We got up this morning and started getting things ready to travel to Branson. It is only 105 miles from Joplin so it was a short travel day. We didn't get started until about noon so we got there about 2pm and got set up.

Here's my driver...

The colors are beautiful this time of year. The photos aren't great cause it was overcast outside.

 

We have already met a few couples from the Heartland Owners Club that are here. They invited us to go to the Dixie Stampede with them so we got our tickets and off we went.  Here is the link to the show:  Dixie Stampede

The show was ok, but I probably wouldn't spend the money on it again. The food was great though.

After the show we drove down the strip and headed back to the RV. Now we are all settled in for the night. Tomorrow more Club members will arrive and the rally starts on Friday.

We are going to go to Ozark tomorrow and have an early dinner at Lambert's Cafe. Here's the link:  Lambert's   It is the home of the throwed rolls. We went there last fall when we were in Springfield and it was a cool atmosphere. I'll try to get some photos tomorrow.

Well that's all for today...

Hugs to all!!