Friday, August 20, 2010

BLOGGING 101 - HELP!

I am trying, so very hard, to learn how to do this, but I have no idea what I am doing!!  I've got the posting down, but am having a hard time trying to put up a slideshow...


Anyway, life is good so far, we've settled into a little routine and we watch our neighbors come and go.
We just purchased our toad, a 2010 Subaru Forester, manual transmission - because it is very easy to tow, we don't have to do anything to it, so we've been told...but now as I look into having the towbar attached and the purchase of a supplemental braking system I realize there is NOTHING easy about this full-timing thing and it's pretty pricey as well.  So much new information to digest and figure out...I think this entire year will be one big learning experience for sure.  We are trying to choose between the Brake Buddy, which has been around forever and people are very happy with and the Ready Brake/Ready Brute system, which seems simpler and is less expensive - I am leaning towards this but am still researching them. I don't know anything about this stuff!!


We went away for a long weekend and left BeBe at the campsite, put everything away, tied the awning down and everything was just as we left it when we came home - woo hoo!  My daughter graduated from cosmetology school and we had a fun celebration.  My son graduates this December from CSU Sacramento and I just made my last tuition payment.  Madeleine, Bill's daughter, graduated UCLA last June and is in Cambridge to get her masters in psychology and his son, Will, is at Chapman college in Orange, CA starting his senior year (we hope)! So the timing was/is perfect...we had to make sure there was no place for anyone to move back in with us!!
Here is a pic of the graduate with my mom and me...


Back to trying to post my pics...wish me luck!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

2 weeks down!

Well, we are now two weeks into our full-timing lifestyle....still in Tahoe, only about a mile from our home, so not too much of a change right now - it makes for a nice transition.  
Moving was quite different this time as we had to decide: toss, sell, storage, RV? for each and every item we owned! I ended up with one office box of scanning left to do - I am about 30% through it now and Bill ended up taking a lot of stuff to his office but has been slowly getting through it. The movers we hired moved at typical Tahoe time and it was a very long day from 9pm to 7pm BUT they got everything into a 10x10 storage unit and we were very grateful! The first year's storage cost us $800 and we will have a year to decide if this is the life for us for awhile or not...


Our Tahoe campground is like real camping and we've set up a sweet outside area with an additional canopy, our big grill from home and our little traveling fire pit - we spend most evenings there just chilling and welcome visitors! I have actually been getting some work done and try to get outside for an hour or so here & there to just chill in my little lounge chair, it makes you feel as if you really are on vacation - just that little bit of time. The campground has a heated pool, tennis, basketball, volleyball, movies, music, ice cream socials and karaoke and was packed when we arrived but now as we are getting into the middle of August it's thinned out a lot - we met Carol, a wonderful woman and her bird, Zach, and we hope to catch up with them along the road again sometime.  


This weekend we are on a little outing (sans RV) to visit our friends Dr. K & Suzanne in Truckee and then will hop on down to Walnut Creek to celebrate my daughter Lauryn's graduation with all of the family, then head into Sacramento with my mom and for Bill to check-in with the Sacto office, then back home.


Our friend, Daniel, is moving into our old house & we've left our washer/dryer there for him and for us to use while in town - a great deal for both of us!


The plan right now is to stay in Tahoe until the end of September and then move on to http://www.nevadatreasurervresort.com/  a beautiful RV resort & spa in a dumpy little town for a month or two if we like it...we have a spot reserved with a gazebo & stainless steel BBQ.


Will be posting pics soon of our newest & latest digs!