Dec 23 - 28 Christmas in Texas

Dec 23 - The clouds and the rain are behind us now. It's a sunny morning and expected to get up to about 28C/82F today and continue that pattern right through Christmas! It really doesn't feel like Christmas. It's not cold and there is no snow and ice to deal with but we will be okay lol. Thankfully I am getting some pics from Bonnyville so we remember what it could be like. Yeah, palm trees are okay instead.

Thanks for the pic Blainer! Makes us feel Christmasy-er lol.

I was first up today with Margaret and as soon as I looked at the kitchen floor I saw water laying on the floor? WTH? It took a couple seconds but I figured out that Leslie had overfilled the Berkey water filter last night and it leaked off the counter and across the floor. She got up to help with the clean up. It's just water. It will be okay. We're both up now so with our morning coffee in hand we started our day. Leslie is prepping some stuff for supper tonight and then she's going to pickleball. I want to go to the RV place and get parts to fix the fridge properly. Turns out they don't stock a temperature sensor so we ordered it for delivery tomorrow. At least they do have 5 amp fuses. The lady will call me when the parts get in. For now I can just climb the ladder and plug in the jumper in the morning then unplug it at night. Not terribly hard but likely running those fans longer than needed.
In the afternoon we both worked on the outside of the rig again. I have a couple more places to replace caulking and Leslie is cleaning and treating the slide rubbers. Haven't cleaned them at all this year so it's definitely time. When we finished those jobs we just relaxed until supper time. When it cooled off I climbed the ladder and unhooked the jumper to the fridge fan and then parked in my lazy boy.
Dec 24 - Remember I said it didn't feel like Christmas? I have completely forgot to get something for Leslie for Christmas! We are just getting something small to open Christmas morning for each other. I know what I want to get her so now to just go find it. Shouldn't be too busy on Christmas eve, right? Ha, not even going into Walmart parking lot. Leslie will love something from Home Depot, right?
Leslie went to line dancing this morning while I was out shopping. She is enjoying the activities here in the park and she's meeting a few people which is great. We really haven't connected with anyone here this time. Everyone is super friendly and we wave and say hi but we just haven't found someone to hang out with? Even the other Canadians from Ontario and Quebec seem friendly but distant. We have been busy fixing stuff but we are usually sitting out in the afternoon on the patio for happy hour. Not many people do happy hour here. Weird. The ones that do are happy with there own group and don't seem to invite others over. Maybe we smell bad after working on the rig?? I used deodorant? Maybe it's Leslie lol. One thing we have noticed is that most folks are here for the entire season and have been coming here for many years so they have an established group.
I got back from shopping a little bit defeated. First problem is the fridge sensor is not in and they close at 2:00 for Christmas. I'll be ladder climbing for a couple days. Second problem; Leslie wants a couple of food plates or trays that have the divisions in them. I call them prison trays. lol Lots of people use them for all the potlucks, which are really frequent in the RV world. I had called Bed, Bath & Beyond and a girl said they had them. Not today they don't and the store is closing out so they won't be getting them. I bought some new dish towels but even I can't just give her dish towels for Christmas! That's just not right. 
This is how awesome Leslie can be. We are going for lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse, awesome place, and then over to Bass Pro Shop to look at sandals!! Bass Pro Shop! I don't even hate going shopping there. Leslie found some new sandals with good arch support for her Christmas present. I'll surprise her with the towels tomorrow. Thanks Leslie for letting me off the hook so easy. I suck at shopping. 

We went to one in Ft Collins too. Very good food!

Keto friendly margarita.

Yeah, we can shop here.

We headed back to the rig and just relaxed for the rest of the day. We texted and called some people back home to say Merry Christmas. Didn't need a big supper after the huge lunch so it was an easy night.

She liked her Christmas present!

Leslie got a text from Julie, the folks we had a fire with a few nights ago. They are in Pennsylvania visiting family. It seems Julie tried out a hover board that her grandkids had. It ended badly and she texted Leslie with the medical report because she knew Leslie is an X-Ray Tech. It's bad news; she broke both wrists and will be getting surgery on the left one Friday. That sucks. 

Right arm will heal with a cast, left arm will need surgery. So bad.

No pickleball or swimming for you for a bit.

Dec 25 - Merry Christmas everyone!! We started our day with Bailey's and coffee and I got to open my awesome gifts from Leslie. She does not suck at shopping. She got me awesome shorts, mechanics gloves and sweat pants for lounging. Perfect. I gave her the dish towels in the gift wrap that she gave me my presents in :(  I hid the towels in the truck and didn't wrap them. 

Some flavour in our coffee.

She bought me nice stuff and wrapped it. 

I borrowed the wrapping paper :(

We have a potluck at 2 pm at the main hall so Leslie is prepping a Greek salad as our dish. We just put our names on a random table so we got to meet Mark & Linda who own a park model here at the park for the winter. They summer in Iowa. Also at our table was Art & Linda from Arkansas. Leslie knows Linda from line dancing. Art is a man of few words. It was a fantastic dinner; so much food it was overwhelming. The park supplied ham and scalloped potatoes. The rest was potluck. They set it up in six different stations so that only 3-4 tables were dishing up from one station. It made the lineups so much smaller. Then if there was something on another table that you wanted you could go up after the first serving and help yourself. Of course I did go with my plate and check out the other tables. Scored my Christmas fave, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping! The desserts were also fabulous and we both enjoyed our favourites from all the tables. Down here they make unbelievable pecan pie. Leslie even broke the keto plan for some pineapple upside down cake. It was a really nice dinner and we really enjoyed chatting with the folks at our table. We waddled back to the trailer and relaxed for a bit with our books. Fat and happy.

Lots of hungry people but many stations to feed them.

Leslie won some candle holders from Santa haha.

Everyone got a picture with Santa if they wanted.

Later that evening we got a surprise Facetime call from Rachelle. She is hosting Christmas dinner for our family in Bonnyville and she called us so we got a chance to say hi to everyone at the dinner. So awesome. What a great surprise. Thanks Rachelle.
That's the great thing about the technology now is that we can see and talk with people at home. It makes things a little nicer. Leslie still gets a little sad that she can't be there but hey we have a Christmas tan!
Dec 26 - Happy Birthday Rylan!! It's tough with a birthday at Christmas time but it does make it easier to remember. He's a whopping 9 years old already! Wow time flies. We messaged Graham to set up a facetime call for later. We're a little ahead of them on the clock so we'll wait for a bit. We did get that call and got to see everyone which was so nice. G and his family are heading to Vancouver for the holidays tomorrow which always concerns me. The drive through all those mountains can be a real bear. They made it safe and sound. Perfect. 
Back to work. Christmas is over. Leslie went to pickleball and I started on the last two strips of caulking that I will do for now. I have decided that this summer I will start at the front and do everything that I haven't done so far. This Proflex caulking is a better product than what the factory used I think. When Leslie got back from pickleball she took the laundry down in the truck. I called the RV place and the lady is telling me their truck broke down in Corpus Christi so they won't get the part again today. Wow really? I'm just leaving the ladder beside the fridge vent now so I can hook and unhook the jumper every day. That was our day really. 
Margaret has been having these bad coughing spells at night so we are keeping an eye on her. She is breathing weird and then hacks pretty hard almost sounds like she barks. The vet has told us for the past couple years that they hear a heart murmur and these symptoms line up with congestive heart failure. She still wants to walk and run during the day though. Poor old girl. Getting old sucks. 
Dec 27 - Leslie is off to line dancing and I am taking a wheel off of the trailer to take to a tire shop. We noticed back in Ft. Collins Colorado that there is a nail in the tire and I think we have tempted fate long enough. We are traveling on I-10 soon and I would hate to have a blowout on that highway. I chose a Discount Tire shop not too far from us and they said they can get it done in about an hour. I drove back to the rig to drop Margaret off. It's getting too hot out to leave her in the truck for any length of time. As I was driving back to the shop I got a call from RV Mobile Home Repair and my new sensor is in! Perfect timing as they are just a short distance past the tire shop. I went there and got the sensor and then back to Discount Tire. Nestor, the rep I was working with, gave me the awesome news that it was a piece of a screw in the tire but it only penetrated the tread, not the tire. They had already separated the tire from the rim before they pulled the screw so they remounted and balanced the tire for free!! He said it was their mistake so no charge. That's great news.

A free tire repair! Awesome.

I was a happy guy when I got back and told Leslie about the tire deal. I put the wheel back on and then we decided we should go out for lunch. We want to try a Chick-Fil-A for lunch. We have never been there before. We are happy to say that for a fast food choice it was really good. Leslie got a grilled chicken lettuce wrapped for her keto choice and I had a spicy chicken with the coating and they were both pretty good. It looks like a real piece of chicken and tasted good too. Margaret was a fan when we shared little bites of chicken too.

For fast food it was pretty good. We will go back again.

I waited until the sun was less intense around 4 pm to install the new temp sensor and 5 amp fuse on the fridge. Leslie is helping me by holding the ladder and reading the procedure for getting at the fuse in the control board. Like an idiot I forgot to use the 12 volt disconnect and grounded the 12 volt wires on the metal on the back of the fridge. We changed the 5 amp fuse and put the cover back on the board but now we have no power to the fridge again. WTH? Of course I thought of how I had touched the 12 volt supply to ground and hoped that it was just another fuse. Luckily that was the case. I had blown a 20 amp fuse in the panel with my stupidity. I have fuses and we soon had power again. This time I powered down properly and reinstalled the temp sensor. It is so cramped to get your hands in there and there are two tiny screws holding it on the fins. With Leslie holding the ladder still I got it done after leaving a little knuckle meat up there. Yayy this should be the last time I need to go up there.

Leslie held on when I had to go up a step.

I needed my reading glasses to see in there. Tough spot to reach.

Our neighbours from across the road walked by just as I got finished so we chatted about the job for a bit. They have a residential fridge so they won't have that problem to worry about. We felt we earned a drink after our successful repair. I heard the fan start afterwards, so we cleaned up and grabbed a drink to take outside. It was 33C/91F earlier today. It's cooler now of course but still plenty warm. We walked over to Carl & Judy's place across the street and continued our chat with them. They are from Oklahoma and don't drink but they were happy to sit and chat. Carl worked 42 years for Mobil Oil/ Exxon Mobil which is the parent company for Imperial Oil in Canada. Cool coincidence. We came home after our chat and made supper. I could hear the fridge fan running again.  Yayy!

Dec 28 - Margaret had a really bad night. Not only is her breathing rough but she needed to go outside three times for stomach issues. Poor old girl is having a rough couple days. Lots of trips outside today too unfortunately. It's concerning but we feel a trip to the vet is not going to gain us much knowledge. She's slowly getting better today. She's eating again so that's a great sign. She even joined me for a short run while Leslie had her out for a walk.

Leslie rode her bike around the park and then played a few games of pickleball while I did a 5k run around the park. We had showers after and then drove downtown to a place recommended earlier, New York Deli 2. OMG the sandwiches are huge and really good. Leslie got a turkey club salad and it was so big we brought some home for later. 

They're fixing up the exterior a bit.

Big buckets of tea while we check out the menu.

Really cool interior with tons of Beatles stuff on the walls.

Now that's a salad! 

My sandwich was called Big G ;)  Roast beef and turkey club.

Fantastic place with a really large menu. I wanted to order a different sandwich to go but I am so full already I didn't do it. I think we'll hit this place again before we go. I need to do more research on this menu lol.

We drove back to the rig so I can keep an eye on Margaret and then Leslie is going to Walmart for groceries. She prefers shopping without me. It's less stressful for both of us. Margaret is sleeping lots so I just chilled on the couch with a book. Got the better part of this deal for sure. I helped Les unpack all the groceries and then we sat outside with a beverage. We just watched TV for the evening and then crashed early. We're all tired after getting up so many times last night. Thankfully it seems we're past the roughest part of whatever was making her sick.

Dec 29 - Margaret needed to go outside around midnight but then we all slept the rest of the night thankfully. Margaret wanted outside around 7:30 which is her usual time and she only needed to pee. That makes us feel better already. We'll see how the day goes. It will be a quiet day and just let her get better again. It's cloudy and cool but really muggy. Good chore day. Leslie is baking keto muffins and cleaning while I work on the blog. Hopefully all goes well today.

Cheers everybody.