Pumpkin Patch 2010

Every year since Elani was just 3 months old we've been taking her to a Pumpkin Patch for a photo shoot and to pick our a pumpkin to paint. It seems each year we come home with a few more pumpkins to paint. This year it was 6, yes, 6 pumpkins, 2 medium size and 4 small size. Elani and I love to put faces on these little pumpkins rather than cutting them and digging out that slimmy, gooey stuff inside, so we get our brushes and paints out and stir up our creative juices and paint faces on our pumpkins or whatever we want to paint on them. Each year, Elani gets more and more creative and puts more and more details on the faces of her pumpkins as you can see. Hair, eye lashes, tears, freckles, tattoos, bracelets, etc. It is always a treat for me to watch her concentrate on her art work.

Picking the perfect pumpkin in a process, too. It takes awhile.....after I get all the pictures I want or that Elani will pose for, she looks through all the piles until she finds the perfect size, color and shape of pumpkin for her to carry away and then of course she has to find a couple little ones, too. "They are so sweet", according to Elani.

We usually go to a Pumpkin Patch in Celebration, Florida, but this year we were a little late, so we found this little place at a church near where we live. Not as many pumpkins, but they had some nice places for pictures and they let us wander around as long as we wanted.

Catching Up on the News

It's been a long time again so it is time to catch up on the summer news and happenings with us. We've had a busy summer for sure with a lot of activity- good and not-so-good! But, that's life!
June 4th - Elani graduated from Kindergarten! It was so much fun watching those little ones march into the classroom with their little green caps on so proud, sing their little songs, recite their poems and receive their diplomas. She is growing up far too fast.
June 6th - My step-father, Don passed away, losing his 10-week battle with lung and thyroid cancer. It was a blessing that he didn't have to suffer long, but also hard on Mom and all of us, too. Monday, the 7th of June we set out on the road, driving Mom to Michigan for the funeral and to visit family and be there with her for awhile. While in Michigan we found out that Michelle (our daughter) is going to have a baby in January 2011! :-) We flew back to Florida on the 17th and spent a couple days at the house in Venice cleaning and closing it up for the summer.
June 30th - Rudy had his right knee replaced. He was ready for this one. One evening while he was in the hospital Elani and I went to see some Racing Friends (Dale and Diane) in Daytona for dinner and a walk on the Beach.
Rudy came home from the hospital on July 3rd, so needless to say, our 4th of July was a quiet one at home. Rudy's Physical Therapy kept us home most of July until Mom's house was broken into in Venice and we had to make a quick trip over to clean it up and make a report for the Insurance Company for her and to also get it ready for her to come back down.
Rudy was given the OKAY to go to Bristol in August for the NASCAR Race Weekend so we left and made the drive there on August 18th. Had a great time camping in those mountains and hiking up and down the hills back and forth to the track! Rudy's legs/knees did great!
Mom has been down here at the Beach House in Venice so we've made a couple trips there to visit and spend time there with her, but our last trip was this past weekend (Sept. 17-19), because she sold the house and the moving company is coming to pack her up next week). What an answer to prayer! We all are thankful that it sold so quickly, but we will miss those restful, peaceful weekends at the beach in the future.

We've got a couple more trips coming up (NASCAR Race Trips) and one to Myrtle Beach, SC to a Gaither Concert in October, so watch for us on the road!

Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, NC

We left for Charlotte, NC on Wednesday, May 26th around 2:30. Ashley Skinner rode with us. We had a great trip and really made good time. We checked into the hotel around 10:30 p.m. and called it a night. We planned to get up early to start our collection of NASCAR Driver Autographs.
I made an Itinerary with addresses to Race Shops and when/where the Drivers were going to be, so we had a plan.
Thursday morning we got up early and was standing in line at Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing at 7:45 a.m. with a couple hundred other fans of Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray to get their autographs. By 9:30 a.m. we were on the road to other Race Shops. We went to Hendrick Motorsports and spent a little time at Roush Fenway's open house. We didn't get autographs there, but we got pictures of Jack Roush being interviewed on Sirius Radio by Chocolate Myers.
We also stopped at Richard Petty got a piece of pizza and a cold drink as we strolled through the show cars and vendor trailers that they had on their property for their Fan Event.
Cully and Janine arrived around 8:30 p.m. so we met them at the Olive Garden for dinner near our hotel.
Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. Rudy and I were at the Office Depot parking lot just around the corner from our hotel waiting in line with 300 other people to get a wristband for an autograph signing later on Friday with TONY STEWART! Ashley and Janine came to stand in line with us around 7:30 and Cully showed up around 8 when the line started to move toward the door. We got our wristbands and went back to the hotel for breakfast and showers! Later we went to Michael Waltrip Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing before heading down to SPEED STREET where 4 RED BULL DRIVERS were going to be to sign autographs. By this time in the afternoon it was getting warm! We found the EpiCenter in Downtown Charlotte and eventually found the merchandise hauler where the guys were going to sign. We were among the first 50 people in line and I was glad for that. We got Brian Vickers, Casey Mears, Scott Speed and Cole Whit's autographs and pictures, too.
From there we rushed back to get in line again to get TONY STEWART's autograph at the Office Depot. We got some pics of him too. He was really nice and actually carried on a conversation with Rudy as he signed his hat! It started to rain while we were driving to go and visit our friends at their new camper (Dale and Diane).
No Rushing on Saturday morning to get up, so we all took are time getting around and having breakfast. We then left for our appointed time to visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame Museum in downtown Charlotte. What an experience! This place was awesome. We were there for over 3 hours taking in all the exhibits and inter-active stations, movies and cars.
RACE DAY finally arrived and we were ready to head to the track around Noon or so. It was a very warm sunny day and the race was great. The pre-race show was exceptional and we took lots of pics that I will share in a post later.
We headed south to return home on Monday morning arriving around 4:00 p.m. With everything unpacked and put away we settled in to relax before heading back to work on Tuesday morning bright and early! It was a great weekend with our Racing Friends. We couldn't have asked for better weather or better company! (We even purchased our tickets for 2011 Coca-Cola 600). We'll be back next year!

See ya on the road!

Mother's Day Weekend

May 8-9, 2010

On Friday afternoon, we picked up Elani at the school bus and headed south-west to Venice, Florida for the weekend. We haven't been over there since Easter weekend when my step-father, Don was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, so we were anxious to see him for ourselves and catch up on how he is doing. We arrived around 6 p.m. and after unloading the car, we had sandwiches for a light supper.

Don is very weak and doesn't have a lot of energy and looks like he is losing weight. I was surprised at the difference in him since we last saw him 4 weeks ago.

Knowing that we were heading to the Beach in the morning we all went to bed early for a good night's rest.

After breakfast (Rudy cooked), we packed up the cars and headed to Manasota Beach to soak up the sun-rays and collect some shark's teeth. Don and Mom left after about an hour, but we stayed until around 1:30 p.m. The water temperature was perfect, Elani played almost the whole time in the water diving for shells and shark's teeth below the surface and through the rolling waves. We found quite a few teeth, too and as usual, Elani came home with her bag of treasures from under the Sea.

When we got home Rudy fixed lunch for us all and we enjoyed the rest of the day visiting and resting.

Sunday, Mother's Day, May 9, 2010

Elani was so excited to give everyone (Mom and Me) our Mother's Day gifts. So we barely got out of the bedrooms and she was asked if we could open our gifts. Of course, she had to help us!

After enjoying another breakfast cooked by Rudy and getting dressed, Mom, Elani and I went to do a little shopping and talking. Rudy and Don stayed home. Rudy was the chief Chef for the weekend so he worked on preparing his chicken and dumplings for dinner while we were gone.

We had a very successful shopping trip. Before dinner we took some pictures in the back yard to document this Mother's Day celebration.

Elani loves to take pictures, too, so she went around the room taking pictures of the adults (posing us in the appropriate positions, of course) . She is getting pretty good at capturing us in our very candid states!

After a delicious dinner (and mom's homemade lemon pie), we packed up the car and headed home. It was a good weekend, but a sad weekend, too, for me anyway. It is hard to see Don failing so fast. Mom is a great care-taker. I am very proud of her.

See ya on the road!

After The Race

April 26, 2010, Monday

We are on our way home now from the Race Weekend in Talladega. It was like no other. We had a great Friday, the weather was beautiful and we went to practice and watched the drivers go 195 miles per hour and bump draft, too on the largest NASCAR track on the circuit. We met with some friends and visited until the storms rolled in. It rained and stormed all night long and continued all day Saturday, too. All events were cancelled at the Track and we didn't have tickets anyway. so we decided to take a drive to Birmingham and do some sight-seeing. It rained all the way there. too. We stumbled upon the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum after riding around downtown Birmingham, getting some lunch and getting a little lost. So we toured the motorsports museum for a couple of hours While there we ran into Sam Hornish, Jr. and Robbie Gordon and I got my picture with them. They were both very nice. We also saw Casey Mears. From there we stopped to check out a Bass Pro Shop. It continued to rain and storm all the way back to the camp spot so we settled in for a long evening after Rudy cooked another great dinner.

Sunday, Race Day - was gorgeous. The weather was just the opposite of Saturday's weather with sunny blue skies and a light breeze. After breakfast we packed up and headed to the Track to find out seats for the Race. It was a very exciting race with record-breaking number of lead changes and some wrecks, too. Kevin Harvick pulled out a spectacular win to break his loss record of 115 races and winning this one by .001 seconds over Jamie McMurry.

The Nationwide race was run directly after this Cup race so we stayed for awhile, but decided to call it a day at around 6 p.m. (CT). We packed up and left he campsite and track and was on I-20 in Alabama by 6:45 p.m. We drove until 10:30p.m. where we stopped at a rest area in GA and slept until this morning at 6:00 a.m. (EST) We should be home today early afternoon to recuperate and refresh before starting another work-week. Traffic is light and we are moving at a good pace. Couldn't ask for better weather to travel. We are so thankful for the traveling mercies that have been bestowed upon us this weekend.

See ya on the road in a later in May as we head to Charlotte for our next Sprint Cup Race.

Talladega Here We Come!!

Friday, April 23, 2010 We are on our way to Talladega for the 2010 Spring NASCAR race. We left last night from my office as I hopped in the RV from the sidewalk in front of our office in Winter Park. Not a common occurrence I am sure in Winter Park, FL. We drove until around 10:30 p.m. and stopped in a rest area to get some much needed "shut-eye" for a few hours, just outside of Perry, Georgia. We are actually making very good time and hope to be at the Track and setting up camp around 11:00 a.m. (which actually will be Central Time). It is great coming this way when we gain an hour, but going home is not so fun. We just stopped for fuel for the RV and Us (McDonald's Frappe) and it is 7:30 a.m. We left the Rest Area at 6 a.m.

Hopefully we won't be stopping again until we get closer and find a place to get some groceries for the weekend. Cully will be meeting us and staying with us for the weekend, too. He's just coming off a week in Mexico on vacation.

Can't wait to get to the track and hear the roar of those engines again.

See ya on the road.

March 1, 2010

Here we are 60 days into this year of 2010. What a busy time it has been for us. It seems like after the Holidays you think life will slow down and you will be able to relax and hopefully not be so busy. Not for us. Life just keeps on going, which in the long run is a good thing.

We had a great time in Pigeon Forge & Nashville, TN and surrounding area over the Christmas Holidays with Michelle and Rob. Christmas in the mountains is something we all decided we would be doing again. It was so peaceful, relaxing and so much fun. We just need to get the rest of the family on board to join us. After our 4 days at the Cabin we spent 4 more days in Nashville with Cully and let him be our tour guide of the sites and sounds of Nashville. I want to go back there sometime for more fun times, too. Here's a link to our pictures from the trip.
http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2183445015/a=2708781_2708781/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

January we took Elani to Daytona's Fan Fest at Daytona International Speedway to see some Driver's and get some autographs. We had so much fun with her there. She was totally in awe of the sights, sounds and how friendly the drivers were to her. She got plenty of autographs and drivers talking to her. She even got Jeff Gordon's autograph on her hat as he passed by her on the fence and then she got to ask him a question during the Forum. She was in 7th Heaven.
We met some of our friends from Michigan one night for dinner and did a lot of catching up with and about the families and friends from there. We need to do that more.

February started out with a Gaither Vocal Band Concert in Lakeland, FL with Tim and Cheryl Bair. We had a great time for 4 1/2 hours of great music and a spiritual uplift!

February was jammed packed as it is the beginning of NASCAR Race Season. We took Elani to her first NASCAR race at Daytona - the Gator Duels. It was so cold, but she had a great time camping with us and taking in all the fun. She listened to Jeff Gordon on the scanner, was right down by the fence when the cars came flying by, got her picture taken with DIGGER and other fun things in the merchandise trailer area. She got to meet the Hauler Driver (Mr. Dale) from the # 77 Sam Hornish Team and we had dinner with them. They are best buds now! Elani's papa took her to the Daytona 500 and they sat on the super-stretch where all the action took place - They saw all the wrecks.
Last weekend I had the awesome privilege of singing with a group for the Adventist Health System Conference on Missions for the Sabbath Services. I am always blessed to be a part of this group and to use what God has given me to praise Him for what He has done for me.
At the end of March we will be heading to Bristol, TN for the Race Weekend. Hopefully, I will have some pictures to share with you. We weren't able to go last year. I am looking forward to this fun-filled weekend.

See you on the Road!