Wanderings of the RVButterfly 2010 -2011

Christmas morning got off to a slow start.  The grandkids were up before 7 but commanded to stay upstairs till 9 when great grandma arrived.  Finally the time came and everyone converged in the living room to discover that the cookies and milk had been indeed eaten by Santa and Santa had left some neat gifts.

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Aaron got a huge hockey equipment bag.  It fits all his gear plus his dad’s coaching gear.  Aaron can fit inside and we threatened to make him sleep in there.

Brittany got a new dance equipment bag but was pretty reluctant to give up her old battered bag.  Too much sentiment.  Just like her mom!

Dozens more gifts for everyone, all photographed for posterity.  Dolls and car sets and blankets and puzzles.  All so carefully wrapped and so viciously ripped open. 

Waffles for breakfast!  Onward to fixing the turkey dinner for mid afternoon feast!

Saturday afternoon we picked up kitten’s mom Betty and trekked the 100 miles to Forsyth to celebrate Christmas Eve with The Fam.

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We had a delicious dinner and afterward opened presents.  It was a huge fun time.  Michael’s joy at getting his XBOX was such a huge kick to watch.  Watching a grown boy hug a box for an hour was amazing. 

Kitten got a wonderful blanket with all the grand kids names on it.  This brought some tears.  After all the paper was ripped off, the boxes opened and the oohhhs and awwwws done the kids started to dance to the Xbox game/video thingy.  What a hoot. 

A great evening and back on the road to Billings. 

We bought a bag of ice cubes in Arizona to put into the ice chest.  When we got here it still was at least 1/3 ice cubes.  I threw it out onto the flower pot on the front steps to melt.  4 days later, there are still cubes in there.  This doesn’t happen in Arizona!

This week we got an agreement with mom’s new assisted living facility. They know the paperwork isn’t done but were willing to let us move in some of mom’s stuff. We started with this bed, nightstand, dresser room and have now moved a pair of sewing tables and other such stuff.  When we get it arranged we’ll post some “after” photos.

We decided to get mom involved with the arrangements and since the sun was shining so pretty we brought her to the room.  After a few changes she approved and is looking forward to being back in Mission. 

Of course we stopped at the house so she could decide on what else to move to the room and when she got near her recliner it just sucked her right in.  We spent a couple of hours watching TV and just relaxing.  Mom loved the time at home. 

Mom told us Dewey had broken off the trunk key in her car. No big deal the car and the keys are old. We asked Dewey and he said yeah, the trunk key just snapped when he turned it. OK.

So I took it up to Gordon’s shop, indoors where it’s warm and Gordon and I proceeded to take out the back seat and reach a pole in and unlatch the trunk from the inside. We removed the latch mechanism and drilled out a rivet holding the lock cylinder. We tried for over an hour to see if we could get the key stub out of the mechanism. Of course our efforts resulted in the accidental destruction of the lock so we continued tearing the cylinder apart just for spite. When we got it all apart we found no key stub. We searched the floor, maybe we jiggled it out? Nope. Nowhere to be found.

About this time Dewey shows up. Now he tells us the key broke off in the door! Now wouldn’t you say that the key in the door is called the door key, not the trunk key? I’ll be through ranting and screaming in a while. Maybe a day or two. We ordered two new lock cylinders, should be in today.