HI FROM THE LIVELYS

Yes, I know it has been awhile since you've heard from me. It seems as if since we got here to Palm Creek Nov. 1st we have not stopped running. Mostly to the pickleball courts and to tournaments. This picture was taken near Surprise,AZ. on our way to Sun City Grand tournament.

My doubles pardner Joyce and I won gold in the skill level of 3.5. Then next day John and I won gold in the mixed level. These medals are really pretty.

This past week-end we went to Tucson for a tournament. We left with the coach on Wednesday am and went to Phoenix. Did I mention we discovered that the coach needed new house batteries? It was in Conroe that we found that out. After several phone calls Lazy Days said they would pay for them. We were glad as the cost of them are 534 dollars EACH! So finally the battery place called and said the check had arrived. It was just perfect as we were going to Tucson Wed aft, so just left early and went up, had them installed ( 85 dollars an hour is what they charged ..... very cheap) took an hour and then we were on our way.

At this tournament John and I both entered the singles along with mens and womens doubles along with mixed doubles. I won silver in the singles, Joyce and I won gold in the doubles and John and I won silver in the mixed. I am showing the back of the medal showing what skill level we won in. We will not see that level any more as we have been moved up to 4.0. This a tougher level, so we are hoping to bronze in the next tournaments.
I will try to get some pictures of the Park, as they have planted lots of flowers and it is so pretty. Hopefully it will not take as long to post as the last time.

TRAVELING FROM HOUSTON TO BENSEN,AZ

We stayed at a Passport rv park on Saturday night. It is literally in the middle of nowhere. The address is Balmorhea, TX. It states in the book it has a restaurant, but after we got there we remembered we had stayed here in 04 and there was no restaurant. So hot dogs it was. They did sell diesel for $3.18. The highest on this trip was Flying J 2.97.9 in El Paso.

It was dark (of course) when we started off this morning. Then I noticed the sun peeking over the horizon in Johns rearview mirror. I hope it is plain enough for you to tell. It was so beautiful.

When I first saw this cloud, it was kind of dark and then next time I looked it had this beautiful soft pink lining surrounding it. At that instant I felt the Lord so very close as if He was telling me that He was right beside us and always will be.

Then the thought came to me looking at these colors how much He shows how much He loves us and all we have to do is look up.
Happy Sunday Everyone ..... You know there is no trick or treat where He is concerned!

PB TOURNAMENT @HOUSTON RESULTS

We stayed in TT Conroe for a week before the tournament started so John and Larry could play together. Then we moved to south of Houston to a rv park that was about 9 miles from the Center. If we didn't, it would have been a 60 mile drive each day. John and Larry did well together as they won GOLD. John's first mens doubles gold and Larry's also. I was excited for them

The lady I played with (Mary Jane) with in Hot Springs Village hooked up again for womens doubles and won GOLD.

John and I won GOLD in mixed doubles against my doubles pardner.

For the first time I entered singles and Mary Jane did too. Then there was Winnie, she has retired and noticed the SR GAMES advertised and thought it would be fun. She entered bowling, badmitton, and ping pong, decided to try pickleball. She played the day before for the FIRST time and really enjoyed it. In fact she enjoyed it so much she bought a paddle and found out when the pickleball players of Houston played.
She got GOLD because she is from Texas, I got gold and Mary Jane received silver. Lots of fun.
We did find out we would not want to face that Houston traffic every day.

INSIDE THE NEW COACH

THIS was suppose to go with the last other group

I didn't notice that there was a kingsize bed! New sheets, foam pad topper, everything!

I am anxious to see how everything in the house refrig rides. I know one thing it is one heavy dude with its 4 batteries. We are overweight on that side, so had to rearrange. That was another thing we did not notice, this coach can't carry as much weight as the Allure.

I love the table, there is more room in different ways. We still don't have everything put away or up, maybe next spring when we leave AZ.
We are headed to Houston in the morning (18th). Will get there Tuesday and stay until 29th. There is a SR Games pickleball tournament the 27 and 28th. Then we are going to go to Palm Creek in Casa Grande again for the winter. We really enjoyed it. I like the town of Casa Grande and have found (believe it or not) that groceries are cheaper there than anywhere else we have been this summer.

VISITING THE KIDS

We got thru on Friday (finally) at Lazy Days and headed for Ocala. Our son Dave and his wife Kelly live here and Trice drove from Louisville to meet us on her way home to Aventura, Fl.

We stayed at an RV park right off I-75 about 9 miles from Daves house. Saturday pm we cooked at our park and had the kids over for steak.

Sunday we packed a picnic lunch and went to Rainbow S prings St.Park. The springs are just beautiful and they have a swimming area roped off. The water temp is 72 all the time and Trice thought she might help Dave get in ....

But he didn't need the help ..... isn't the water beautiful?


Should be one more picture, our last night together - John was trying to hide the Bar-B-Q sauce he had gotten on his shirt. I'll put it in next time

FLORIDA!

We are now in Florida moving into a different coach. It is an 07 Country Coach Intrigue. I found it on Lazy Days RV internet. Was just crusing looking at coaches and discovered this one had maple cabinets! It just so happened that our friends Dave and Audrey were here trading coaches. So asked them to go look at it and give us an opinion. They looked it over and said it looked very good (they know how picky John is) and we should come and look at it. So after the pickleball tournament was over we drove down and traded.

It is 45 foot and that hasn't seemed to give us that much more room. But think this natural .... Dave and Audrey came out of a 36' no slide into a 36' 3 slide and said there wasn't near as much room. Our new coach as a lot of room it is just configured differently.

We love the color and the roomiest of it. There is a lot of improvements in the ease of getting to the engine, etc.

Our son came to see us and the new coach and this is the only picture I have of the inside of it. Really it looks junked up because I haven't found a place for everything. But it will come together. Especially since we sent a lot of stuff w/Dave that we haven't used in 2 years. Honestly it is just like a home, you put stuff back "just in case you might need it". Since he left I have accummulated 2 more trash bags full that we will drop off on our way to AZ. Will send some pictues of the inside when it looks a little better. (Of course that may be next year!)

HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE PB TOURNAMENT

Well as usual I am running way behind on my blog. Sept 18 and 19th we played in a pickleball tournament in Hot Springs Village, AR. We got there on a Wednesday and played in the village. There are a lot of people that play and we got some good games in. Thursday we went into Hot Springs and explored the town and went out to where we used to live. One of our sons best friends is a Meth. minister and is now minister of the church where we used to go. We did not get to go to Sunday service, but got to visit with them and their family. Lots of great memories.

The tournament director put me with this lady, Mary Jane from Monticello, AR and we won gold in doubles in our age group.

John met Mike in Baton Rouge and they teamed up and won bronze .....

John and I won silver in the mixed doubles and the lady and her pardner that beat us ..... she beat me in singles. There is a joke in horse racing that goes like this. Someone asks how you ran and you say 3rd and they say how many horses in the race ?(you hope they don't ask that), then you have to say 3. That was kind of like me, there were 3 entered, but one lady dropped out. So thinking postive I came in 2nd (in a 2 horse race). Good times we had. Oh yes the ladies of some club in HS Village baked cakes and cookies and had sandwiches for all the players FREE!

OFF TO SILVER DOLLAR CITY

Starting Aug 25 thru Sept 5 Silver Dollar City sponsered a Souther Gospel Picnic. Groups, quartets, trios, singles from all over came and sang about Christ's love for you and me. It was wonderful. It started about 10 lasted all day and part of the night. Each group sang for 30 minutes and then you went to another venue and enjoyed another group. The night show started around 6 and one group performed for an hour and then another group came on about 7:30 and performed for an hour. We went once in the evening and stayed about an hour. It didn't open until 4 and then you had 2 hrs to wait. My attention span is just not that long, so only went for it one time.

This year is SDC's 50th anniversery, so if you turned 50 or was married 50 yrs you got a free season pass.

It was always interesting to watch about 300 people try to go thru this opening, but we always managed.

One day when we went in, first people we saw was some friends from around Siloam. He and John were in the same grade and great buddies.
We had a great time during these 12 days. Sometimes we would go out and catch a couple of shows, but Sunday we went early and listened to Dr. Dennis Swanberg (he was really good) and caught 6 shows! By the time we got home I was so tired I could hardly wiggle. I forgot to mention Silver Dollar City is mostly up and down hills.

SILVER DOLLAR CITY!

There are 4 places that hold the shows. Two outdoors and 2 indoor. This is the biggest indoor, holds 1400 people.

The line for this theater usually went way beyond the green building

We usually tried to get there early so we could sit on a bench. By the way the umbrella was for the sun, not rain.

One show was Reggie Sandler and family. His daughter and wife, they had beautiful harmony voices. Reggie use to play for the Platters, his guitar skills were unlimited.
There might be another picture below this and these are people from our hometown we went to school with that just happened to get in line at the same time.

OUR SUMMER DOINGS

I have been a little lax about my blog since the FIRE! Treasure Lake RV park here in Branson has a couple of tennis courts. Last year when we were here, John and I chalked them (what else is new), then it rained so much we taped them. Well that tape left residue that was still here in July when we got here, so we have enjoyed playing every morning. But the heat index has been brutal, so we go and play about hour and half and then quit. We have not talked ONE person into playing or learning to play. So needless to say our singles has improved. Of course you know I put hummingbird feeders out and caught this little guy.

We were just leaving our sight and caught these deer grazing thru. We knew there were deer here, but had never seen any.

I thought at first we were in TT Colorado River when I saw them. You Thousand Trails members know what I am talking about.

I will try tomorrow to complete this blog and show what else we have been doing this summer .