Good Bye Lion Country...Hello Jonathan Dickinson

Monday December 24- We have been invited to a Christmas Eve, late lunch or early dinner, which ever you prefer. We took care of the pups before leaving for that. We are going to the Jupiter area. Todd and Lori from Generation Church included us in there holiday meal. We had to leave our place at 12:30. We made it to there place and met her parents and family. They had planned and were preparing a wonderful meal. It was a wonderful time and the meal was super good. After eating we got to see a few magic card tricks performed by one of the guests. So much fun.   

The reason the meal was kind of at a weird time was because after  eating Lori needed  to be at the church to help set up for the festivities tonight. We went to help as well. They have really gone all out this year. They are having the service outside under the stars. They needed to build a stage and all that goes with it outside. They also had lots of other things to enjoy, especially for the kids. They had a live nativity, snow, Santa, and much more. Lots of people put in lots of time and effort for this.

 They had a few technical difficulties but it was a big evening finishing up with a candle lighting. We always did this at our home church in Iowa and is one of my favorite parts of the service. We aren't with our family at this time of year which makes it hard but we really felt included in our church family here in Jupiter.

After the service we made it back home safe and got to talk to the kids and grand kids. Our boys got together today and exchanged gifts. They also got to open there Christmas pajamas from Grammy and Papa. They sent us a picture of them in there new pj's...

Tuesday December 25- Merry Christmas everyone......This day for us is a long day. First we gave the doggies there stockings to look inside. They had a fun time. 














             





                                        
Then we wait to hear from the kids. First we got to hear and see Ashton and Hailey open some gifts. They were super excited this year. It is so fun to watch so much joy escape from them. It warms my heart.

They are getting older now so they are happy with other things now, like shoes....it runs in there family, this shoe thing. Then they got one more surprise, Ashton opened and read that they would be going to Hawaii next December as a family. Mom and Dad have gone a couple times but this time they will all go together. Both the kids were super excited to learn that. They will be flying for the first time too.

Next it was time to see how the newest kiddo enjoyed her Christmas. Miss Maddyn seems to be picking up the skill of opening gifts fairly well now. She likes everything about the process of gift opening. The paper, the box and the gift. She was a hoot to watch as well.

The kids seem to have a great day. We had a long day. I went up to the pool for a little time in the afternoon. The day just seemed to go on forever.

Wednesday December 26- I knew what I wasn't going to do today...go to town. I decided to get the laundry caught up. I also decided to take down the Christmas decorations. We have to leave on the 1st. That is when I usually do it. I did some cleaning out. I called some family to wish them a Merry Christmas. We are kind of finishing up stuff here and starting to plan on the move.

Thursday December 27- Big plan today....the ice maker is froze up so...time to defrost. Jeff got out the cooler so I could unload the freezer. It's not my favorite thing to do. I also wonder if the freezer will work after I get it defrosted. Then there's always the question if the ice maker will work.. it did. We got the girls walked around the loop a couple times. I did a little sewing on the new quilt I started. The quilting thing is slow. Whenever I start a new project it takes a while to get it going. The wind started picking up so Jeff and I took down the sun shade, and rolled in the awning. Maren and Jeffrey came over for a happy hour but the weather changed, we got some rain so inside we came.

Friday December 28- We had a lunch date today with Wanda, the campground host from the second loop in Pleasant Creek. She has a home near here. We had made plans to meet her at Benny's On The Beach. We had never been there before, she had. She warned us about the parking, you have to pay and it is a bit pricey. She also let us know there would probably be a wait. We met her in the parking lot and we walked to the restaurant. It is right on the water and the weather could have been better. The wind was wicked and nonstop.  We put our name in and found a seat to wait. We were sitting outside until rain started falling or should I say blowing in. We took cover in the bar area until our table was ready. They were right on with the time....45 minutes.

They took us inside and upstairs to our table. The first thing I noticed was that there was 5 or 6 empty tables...what!!!! After we sat down they didn't fill those table up right away either. I thought that was strange since there are people waiting. We had a nice time visiting with Wanda. It was a bit slow getting our food and the service was just ok. Jeff and I had looked at the menu a head of time, cause Wanda told us it was kind of expensive. We shared a turkey club sandwich and boy am I glad we did. It was huge and brought to us with the wrong kind of bread...rye not white. Wasn't going to send that back. We had only paid for 2 hours worth of parking that was just about done.

We packed up the leftovers and made our way to the parking lot. We said our good byes to Wanda, telling her we would see here in the spring. Then we headed back to the park, the traffic was a bit heavy. We did make one stop at a music store Jeff had been wanting to see. It has live music quite often and a bar and coffee shop. It was really quite unique. We will go back next year when we are here to listen to music next time.


Saturday December 29- It was a warm one today. We put the sun shade back up today. It is fairly easy to do. I went to the pool today with my floating chair. It is a bit more crowded because the kids are out of school so family's are getting out to camp. Our friends Jeffrey and Maren came down for a happy hour and they brought supper with them this time. We had a great meal. Lasagna, salad and hot bread. It was really a nice meal. We also had nice conversation, we never run out of stuff to talk about.

Sunday December 30- We decided to stay in town and go to Newsound Church. It was a wonderful message given by a guest speaker. This is a wonderful, friendly church. You walk in the door and feel very comfortable. After church we came home. Spent some time at the pool again. We are also starting to pick up some of our stuff. Pulling out of here on Tuesday. We talked to Ken and Mary today. They are volunteers we work with at Jonathan Dickinson. They have arrived and wanted to know when we were coming.

Monday December 31- Packing up stuff today for sure. We also went out to fill up the car. We stopped at Trader Joe's to get some things. They fill up your propane here so Jeff wanted to take care of that.  Seth and Ashton are on there way to South Bend, Indiana. They have tickets for the winter classic at Notre Dame Stadium. They let us know when they arrived safe. The park is having a pot luck supper tonight but we decided to have our friends over for tacos instead. We had a fun evening but we did not make it to midnight. We want to take off fairly early because our site is available now.


Tuesday January 1- Happy New Year everyone. It's a brand new year and we will be starting it off in Jonathan Dickinson State Park. We got an early start. We had a few things to pack up. We were on the road at 8:30. It took us about an hour to get here. We had a change to our site, first we thought we would be on site V-1 like last year but now we are on site V-9. It is the last site in the volunteer row. It is a very sunny spot but it is more private. With less traffic our dogs won't be barking quite as much. We got in the site and started setting up some things. We wanted to be done so we could watch the Iowa Hawkeye's in the Outback Bowl. We also wanted to watch the Winter Classic. Our son Seth and grandson Ashton are there watching it. The Hawkeyes won, The Blackhawks weren't as lucky.

Wednesday January 2- We weren't actually on the schedule to work today but we went ahead and got started. It was a super busy day. We had lots of campers leaving today. We also had to get everything situated like we like it. The shower houses and sites looked really good this year. We also got treated to a beauty of a sunrise today.

 The day went by really fast. We got all of our duties done for the day. We both were tired, we haven't been working for quite a while. We will have to get in to the swing of things.


Thursday January 3- Another day of work and today went way smoother than yesterday. I even managed to get my laundry done while working. We ran into some campers that we have met here from last year. After work I volunteered to make the dreaded WalMart run. It was super busy getting there and the store was a mad house too. When I escaped the store I went to get in the car and had this joker park next to me...like this.

I got out of my spot and made my way back to the park. Jeff and I didn't feel like making supper so we cleaned up and went to Burger Fi for a burger and fries.

Our dinner was great and hit the spot. We also walked around the area and enjoyed the scenery. The Christmas lights were still up.

Friday January 4- We have started our 4 days off today. We walked Miss Ruby this morning after witnessing a beauty of a sunrise.....

We drove in to town to look at the Lazy Boy store, we are still hoping we could get lucky and actually find something in stock that would work for us. Well it wasn't going to happen here, today. Then we found the Blaze Pizza that is here in the area. Well it was king of a mess going on. It wasn't anything like the one in Wellington. The way they are managed and run makes a huge difference. This one needed some help. To make my experience better, they lost my pizza. I think they gave my away but I think they gave me someone else. Well our next stop was the mall, Jeff wanted to get some more coffee. I went to Bath and Body to do some shopping. The afternoon we spent here at the campground. Then we got cleaned up and headed in to town. First we went to The Square Grouper to listen to some music.

 

Next we moved next door the U Tiki, we met Kip and Amanda there for drinks and dinner.

We had a wonderful time, the food, service and company was great. It was a fun night for sure.

Saturday January 5- We got a little rain last night. This morning we walked Ruby around the loops. It was a really nice day so we were sitting outside with our coffee when a couple went by on there bikes. Ruby went crazy in her play pen. They ended up stopping and asking questions about full time rving. Well we had quite a nice talk. They live close to here so hopefully we will get together before we have to leave. We were planning to ride our bikes to Blue Point and listen to some music. The wind just kept getting stronger. So we took the car. We found a table and got a drink. We had quite the view. This is our first time here and both of us loved it. Next time we will try there food. This place is right on the inter coastal. So lots of boats to watch. They have a pool in the middle of the place. The stage was set up to the side. The music started at 2...he was slow to start but turned out to be quite good. We will be back for sure.

It was really windy but the people there put up a wind block which helped so much. They were also preparing for the evening with heaters. The service was really good and the food looked good but I'll have to fill you in on that later.


Sunday January 6- We are on the calendar to greet at the church. Left a little early so I could go by Jupiter Doughnuts and get a couple. Then to church. Amanda met us there. The service was awesome and I left feeling blessed. I got a call from Seth this morning. He and Hailey are on there way to Des Moines to Hailey's first meet of the season. He sent videos for us to watch and kept up with the scores she received on each apparatus. She was really nervous he said but each time her scores went up. I could see improvement from when we were there. She ended up 2nd in vault, 3rd in floor and 5th overall. She also qualified for state in her first meet. Last year she didn't qualify until her last meet. So proud of her and all her hard work.

Well that's another 2 weeks in the books. So far we love our new site and our volunteer job is going great. Did I mention the weather has been awesome.....