Last Campout & Fall Colors

We spent a few days camping with family in western Pennsylvania last week.   

We picked a campground close to cousins and had a lovely time visiting with them. 

We were the only campers there except for maybe two seasonal campers.

The campground's bathroom was rated a 6.5 out of 10.  

I wouldn't have given it a 2.  

There was no heat in the building and it was chilly out and raining.  

And would you believe there was a timer that controlled the lights in the showers (they allowed a generous  ~ ha! ~ 15 minutes).  

I passed on their showers.  

My SIL said there was a window opened when she used their shower and she was freezing.  

And her hubby, my BIL, said the main lights were in a motion senser and turned off on him and left him in the dark. 

Needless to say we won't return there. 

Our little shower in our travel van worked just fine and we have heat!  

Oh, did I mention only the first day was rain free.  

We came home in the rain too. 

More packing of knickknacks....there seems to be no end of them.  

Most of these are vases collected over years. 

After the rain at the beginning of last week we have had mostly beautiful weather.

  

Our Green Mountain Maple is changing colors. 

Dropping leaves too!

Hubby said even the leaves on the ground are pretty.

We will hate to leave this gorgeous maple tree when we move. 

I wish we could keep this weather through winter.

I worked hard last weekend...packing more stuff.  

For our last move from Illinois to Pennsylvania we were working and didn't have any time to do any packing or sorting through our stuff.  

Now that we are retired we have time to sort through our stuff.

It feels good to go through everything, cleaning, organizing, and de-cluttering.  

This week we had an appointment with a moving company's representative to get an estimate for our move from Pennsylvania to Ohio.  

We have to pay for this move since it isn't work related like our last two moves.

The appointment was an eye opener. 

We may do more packing then we originally planned to help keep the cost down.

They charge to pack each box plus a charge per pound.  

  

Speaking of crocheting.

I have the most adorable project to share with you on my next posting. 

So please come back to visit.

One More For the Road…Happy Camper!

 I couldn't resist embroidering one more towel for the White Elephant Gift Exchange at the RV Rally & Show in Hershey this week.

I googled "campfires" and chose this clip art and downloaded it into my TruEmbroidery Software to convert to an embroidery design.

Then I printed out the pattern in it's actual size.

That helps to place it properly on the towel.

I added some lettering because we are all "Happy Campers" at the rally.

I changed the thread colors slightly too.

Notice my first design said "Happy Camping" by mistake so I redid it to read "Happy Camper"!

My Hubby likes this one too.

If we don't do the gift exchange I'll going to give them to our club president because she works so hard for all us club members.

So true…isn't it!

The media loves to tell us all the bad things going on around the world but there is a lot of good going on too.

We all need to laugh more.  

My White Elephant Gifts

We have an RV Rally coming up next month. 

 Our Pleasure Way East Coast Club meets in Hershey PA while the Hershey RV Show is going on. 

We usually have a "White Elephant" Gift Exchange at our Potluck Dinner.  

That's when you bring an inexpensive item you already have at home and exchange it with the club members.  

I had some plain white hand towels on hand and thought it would be cute to embroider them with an RV theme to be my gift exchange. 

For those of you that don't know... small travel vans, like the Pleasure Way, are known as "Class B" motor homes.  

So, of course, we all love our "Bees"!

I also downloaded a clip art of a camper van and converted it into an embroidery design.  

It was the closest graphic I could find that was sort of similar to our Pleasure Way vans. 

This design converted with 32 colors in it and took awhile to stitch out. 

What do you think of my "White Elephant" gifts?

We are having travel van withdrawal.  

We haven't been on a trip in it since last November.

So we are looking forward to the rally next month.

Have a nice weekend and thanks for visiting.

The Magic Begins

We have arrived!

Sunny Florida.

Ft. Wilderness Campground.  

Walt Disney World!

My favorite place to visit. 

Oh yes!

Fall Days

It is a beautiful sunny FALL Sunday here in southeastern Pennsylvania. 

Our trees are just starting to change. 

My flowers are still blooming.  

Although I heard we will have freezing temperatures here by next week. 

I've been in my sewing room adding strips of fabric trim to my Thanksgiving Turkey embroidery design.  

I like this combination of green trim, orange trim and a lovely fall leaves pattern trim.  

Monday we are taking our travel van to the RV dealership to have the refrigerator fixed.  

The refrigerator works off either electricity, gas (propane) or 12 volts (battery).  

The gas mode isn't working right.  

It's about a two hour drive north of us to the RV Dealership and we will have to leave the RV there.

  

The good news is we tried out our insect fabric screens that I made for two windows on our travel van while at the York Train Meet last week and they worked great.  

We had fun at the York Train Meet - we camped out over night right next to the main exhibit halls.

When we were tired from looking at the exhibits we took breaks in our travel van.  

Both my Hubby and my brothers had Lionel model "O" trains growing up. 

 In fact, my Hubby stills has his.  

We're in the process of finally putting together a sturdy, well built model train table in our unfinished area of our basement.  

Our make-shift wobbly ping pong table that Hubby used for many years is gone {{finally!}}.  

This train table is made from a kit.  

Hubby put up the painted background blue screen and more ceiling lights.  

The next step is buying the wood for the top. 

Someday we will have a lovely model train setup. 

Isn't this a cute miniature vintage Borden's milk truck we bought at the train meet.   

It brings back lots of childhood memories of home milk deliveries. 

We hope to have our van's refrigerator fixed before our trip to Walt Disney World this Fall. 

Have a lovely Sunday and thanks for visiting my little world! 

Oh My...Ten Years Is Too Long!

The camp store was filled with "bear" items.

Can you believe it had been ten years since we have camped with my Hubby's twin brothers!

Our campground.

Way too long!

We met up at Bear Run Campground in western Pennsylvania.   

Hugged by a bear!

Hubby's twin brothers are eight years younger and they are still working full-time jobs.  

Busy lives!

So it is difficult for everyone to get time off together.

Our site and little travel van.

Plus one twin brother has three natural grandchildren and one step grandchild.  

The grandbabies are keeping them hopping...and they love it!  

But, they needed a break and managed to get away for a few days.  

Hubby's brother arriving.

We arrived first at the campground last Sunday afternoon and set up camp trying to find a level gravel/grass spot for, "Little Guy", our travel van, 

,,,saving the nice leveled paved site for Keith and Jane's travel trailer and truck. 

Me and my sister-in-law, Jane.

Hubby and his brother, Keith.

Monday we drove an hour and a half to visit Hubby's cousin, Carol.   

Keith, Carol and Hubby.

Carol is the sweetest lady who happens to be a gifted artist and quilter.  

One of Carol's beautiful quilted table runners.

Her quilts have won ribbons at quilt shows.  

And, boy, can this woman draw and paint.  

Carol painted this for her uncle when she was only 19 years old!

While visiting Carol I noticed she had a beautiful wildlife scene on her walls in her foyer.  

I assumed it was wallpaper. 

Imagine my surprise when Carol asked if we saw the wildlife scenery she painted!  

This is NOT wallpaper!

Jane asked if she penciled in the deer before painting them and Carol said "No".  

 She just painted (with latex paint) the figures and scenery as she went along.  

Could you draw and paint this without drawing it in pencil first?

I couldn't!

 She doesn't even realize how talented she is and that most people can't do this.

No clue at all!!

  

Wow...wow and wow!

Isn't this just stunning!

I asked Carol if she would come visit us for a month.

But she didn't get the hint.

The other wall.

After visiting with Carol we drove over to another cousin's farm and had supper with a bunch of  cousins.  

Now I should mention that Carol had fixed delicious sloppy joe sandwiches and strawberry shortcake for dessert for us for lunch.  

Carol's black lab, "Cash", named after "the man in black", never tired of playing ball.  

 So...we were pleased we managed to keep a straight face when Hubby's other cousin called us to supper and served us...yep...you guessed it... sloppy joes!  

And when she  asked who wanted strawberry shortcake for dessert we didn't say a word or crack a smile.  

We had a good laugh later though about the duplicate meals but really we didn't mind because it's one of our favorite meals and desserts.  

 The kicker is I had bought hamburger to make sloppy joes for one of our camping meals.  

Needless to say we skipped having sloppy joes for a third time!  

LOL !

Me and the cutest little horse.

After supper we went across the road to the barn to see and feed the horses.  

They all came out of the barn to eat.

This is a real treat for a city gal like me.  

Hubby's uncle raised Appaloosas horses on his farm for many years before he passed.  

Me giving "Ollie" a treat.

There are a few horses left on the farm including, "Ollie", a miniature horse. 

Niko petting one of his horses.

I caught myself saying "pretty" as the horses approached me...but as they got closer I changed to saying...

 "pretty... B.I.G!"

Trying not to act nervous as the BIG horses came nearer.  

I have always loved horses but more by worshiping them from afar.  

Lovely...they really are beautiful animals.  

What about you?   

Are you a horse lover?

I had never seen a life-size horse on top of a barn before!

This barn was by our campground.  

 We had a wonderful surprise greeting us when we returned to the campground.  

Hubby's other brother, Kevin, drove up to join us.  

He stayed at a deluxe cabin with his own bathroom, kitchen, cable TV and WiFi. 

We tried to not be jealous.   

We huddled around the campfire and roasted marshmallows and made s'mores and laughed and talked and just had a great time.

The adventure continues...so stay tuned!