Tag Archives: Dad

Finally.. a bit of time

It’s been a long time since the last post – Sorry! We’ve been just so very busy.
The trip to visit family in Michigan (lawns and lawnmowers was a constant theme) was a good one.

Dad and Sue are good and everyone seems to be doing well.

We had a family gathering picnic at a quiet little lake:

We caught the fireworks:

It was very pleasant weather the first week or so, had a full on thunder and lighting storm which helped keep the temps down, then of course the last several days were 95 degrees with a 85% humidity!!! How can anyone live like that? Wiped me out totally.

The flight home was a bit strained, perhaps I will talk about that at a later time.

And when we got back to California, it had been in the 100s for a week and basically still is (2 weeks later). We have been working at the house as much as we can. I have half of the kitchen/dining/living room plywood sub floor wood filled in the nail holes and seams, I have bought the (ugh) oil based paint with polyurethane in it to paint it. So I need to finish the wood filling, sand, vac, and then paint..on a day that doesn’t get over 90 degrees! (This is a long hard job and have working at it for weeks.)

Any way, once it is painted, it is a washable surface! and I can start moving in the flea market furniture I bought last month and finding homes for things..and start the moving out of the ‘town-house-office’ scenario.

I have also spent a few hours trying to decipher both DirecTV and DishTV services, and Starband and DirecTWay… geez what a mess, but I think I will go with Dish for TV and use my current ISP on the funky phone lines at the house for awhile. If internet is too painfully slow I will look into one of the Satellite ISP’s then.

Me and Russel at the Fair parade in Michigan:

Yesterday was our 10th anniversary (15 years together).. we spent the day in Eureka to get out of the heat and shopped and ate and saw a great movie: Batman Returns.. check this one out, I liked it better than any of the past Batman movies, it was just full of great acting and story line.

And now, it’s getting ready to Reggae on the River time… next Thursday – Sunday.

I think we will go out to the house tonight and stay there until Sunday, next week will be full of Reggae and trips in and out the land, so this week end I hope to make great progress on my projects and Russel has been cutting and splitting wood for next season, and has lots more to do. Once I am at the land I never want to come into town. Once we have some entertainment like Dish TV and my computer there, well coming to town will be errand day and laundry and shopping and that’s about it.

Gotta go jump in Linda’s pool..it’s over 95 in the house in town right now.

Leavin’ on a jet plane

Christmas in Michigan

I’m back !!

Well, I’ve been back since the 29th when we flew into Sacramento and we were greeted with 50+ mile/an hour winds and rain blowing sideways and coldness. We decided to spend the night in Woodland and drove the next day, talking route 16 to 20 around Clear Lake. Wish i would of gotten some pics of that, but I was already coming down with a bad cold which is still with me today.

The Michigan trip was good, but too short for the amount of energy it took to get there and back, next time we will stay longer. Russel felt good for a few days and that was really a blessing. We had a white Christmas, which for me was quite unusual, I haven’t seen one of those in too many years to count.

The snow was just starting here:

snow on clothesline Michigan back yard at the Kenslers

This is my Dad, brother and me and my nieces:

It was odd, I usually was in the pictures, not taking them, so I had to spend some time in Photoshop to help them. I am thinking of using Ofoto for prints for the family to go to and get. I may get to Costco or somewhere else up north tomorrow that will take my cf card and i can get some 5x7s.

Oh, btw….. HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Going to Michigan …

for Christmas to visit Dad & the rest of the family. Currently it is 29 degrees there, and snow flurries. Now to many people that is warm/balmy/ok with them type of weather, but I moved away from Michigan and then Colorado because I didn’t want to handle the cold, snow bitter freezing winds.

Any way, I am sure I will be indoors for the most part, and it looks as if the flight day will be clear of any disrupting weather, that’s a good thing. This flight, takes us from Sacramento (5 hour drive from here) to St.Paul/Minneapolis to change planes for Detroit. I have never done that route when flying before.

I am hoping I can connect while there and blog, upload pictures, but don’t know if I will be able too.

I am excited to see Dad, and the whole family. I actually like most of my family, of course living on the other side of the country helps with that i am sure :).

To all who come to visit here, Happy Holidays to you all. May you be warm, dry, safe and prosperous in the new year. I will be back before NYE.

Frustration with the VA

I really don’t believe this…

but the last visit to the VA clinic could of easily been done over the phone! The main gist being, we were seeing a doctor in the ‘chest clinic’ and he ruled out anything being wrong there, and now we need to start over in the “GI clinic”.

Well, a few choice words and some whimpering helped and he sped up the process that would of taken us another 3 weeks at least if not six. He speeded it up so much that we get to go down there 2x in one week!!

We leave on Monday, spend Monday night in SF, and then the appointment on Tuesday. This time he is scheduled for an Endoscopy and, just for fun, a colonoscopy 🙂

At least this time we may actually get a real diagnosis.

I am just completely fried with all this.

To add to the stress level, my Dad just called with the news that he is footing the bill for us to fly home (Michigan) for Christmas.
Now this is a good thing on one level, but it still takes a lot to get there from here. More on that later, after this last (I hope) trip to the VA.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt