Birthday and boating

Last Thursday was our daughter in law Lorie’s birthday. She wanted to go out boating and eat somewhere on the lakes. Jeff shut down the plant early and when the boy’s got out of school we headed out. Jeff and Lorie had bought trainer water ski’s for the boy’s (Jamie 9 and Jordan 6) and after some basic instructions in the boat, and some instructions in the water, Jamie got up on the ski’s on his second try. Jordan tried about a week ago, and almost got up and did not want to try again today as he was busy playing with his Nintendo DS.

 

After skiing and putting around the lakes for a while we stopped at a Mexican restaurant on the lake for dinner. While we were being seated I told the waiter that it was Lorie’s birthday and after a very fine meal they brought out the hat and a “flan” dessert for her and we all sang happy birthday.

Jamie has been taking Karate lessons and tested for his yellow belt this past week. He passed his test and broke two boards together with his hand. We are all very proud of him,

I did some more work in Jeff and Lorie’s trailer, adding another bigggg drawer under the dinette. 39 inches long, 19 inches wide and 11 high on full extension slides. Trailer designers should look at all of the changes that we have made to this trailer to increase storage space…lots of new drawers, plus replacing the original drawers with deeper ones.

Tuesday I go in for a colonoscopy and Monday get to drink a gallon of that wonderful flush you out stuff. The next two weekends are camping with our old club, and after that back to South Bend for a visit with a very old friend who now lives in China. We have not seen him for about 20 years…really looking forward to that visit. Than back to Woodstock to wait for new old friends Jim and Bobbie Chapman to get here. Than on to Disneyworld for a week and working for Amazon.com in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

What are you up to these days?

You know I gotta say it……

love to all you bum’s

Jim and Linda

Time to go back to Indiana

Yesterday and today Maggie and I stayed home. Yesterday was a lot of walking to see the Capitol buI ilding and a few other places. Today Linda, Ashley and Jamie are going to the "spy museum".
It was not on my list of things to so.
Tomorrow morning about 7am we will start back to South Bend. I just found out that the first pre-season Chicago Bears game is on tomorrow night at 8pm, so I want to be back to watch that.
We got some bad news concerning our campsite in Kentucky...even thou Linda called early we found out that they did not keep/or they lost our name. I left emails with all of the campgrounds, but found out most are full. I did get us a reservation at the state park, but it starts 3 days after we are supposed to be there and it will be on two different sites....
We will have to figure out something for the first 3 days.
Jamie has amassed quite a collection of souvenirs to take home and we have saved all of the brochures that we got from everyplace. Linda is going to make him a scrapbook of his visit to help him remember. Hopefully when he studies some of the things in school he will remember that he has seen them in person. He has had a great time this past week.
Y'all take care, and remember
love to ya'
Jim and Linda

Washington DC days 2,3,4

As anyone who know will tell you, Washington is a “walking city”. There is a bus that you can get on and off for about $30 a day and it will get you close to most things. Since Dan and Dee live here we drove into the city and took the Metro which is the subway. It got us within walking distance of most things…but the key word here is “walking”.

Monday we did the Washington monument, the national archives, American history museum…I accidentally deleted all of the pictures from Monday, but you can go on line to see all of them.

Tuesday we did the Bureau of Engraving and Printing where we saw paper money being printed. The National archives where all of the documents, such as the Declaration of Independence are kept, the Jefferson memorial and the Holocaust museum which was very well done, but we did one hell of a lot of walking. There was no photography in any of these places

Wednesday we did the Marine Corp memorial

Arlington National Cemetery this is JFK’s grave

and Ford Theatre where Lincoln was shot

as well as the house across the street where he died.

The picture of the bedroom did not come out too well, and my camera battery was dying, plus it was a very, very small room with lots of people…you can see Linda’s head and Dan’s hat and face and that’s about it. I tried to get a shot of the bed, but my battery died.

Most of the places visited require at least a bag x-ray and photo ID, and most also required a ticket that you should purchase on line before hand. Some required that you empty your pockets and everything has to go the the x-ray machine. I had to have a personal search with a metal detector every time because of my knees, which are metal.

The lines are long and waits can be very annoying. But it is one of the things that we have to put up with after 9-11.

Here are the rest of today's pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/rufnitII/20100811Washington3#

If you are coming to Washington, I would highly recommend coming in the spring or fall, one because of the heat and, two because of the crowds….wait until vacations are over and the kids are back in school……plus it will be one hell of a lot cooler…

and do your research!!!! you can get on line tickets for a lot of things and maybe plan your trip to try and eliminate some of the walking.

Dan and Dee have been wonderful tour guides and we thank them so much for opening their house to us and taking days off so that they could give us a personal tour of the city. It has been a wonderful experience, even though I was grouchy from the heat, crowds and security.

In October it is off to Disneyworld in Florida for 5 days with our son Jeff, his wife Lorie, and the grandkids, Jamie and Jordan, age 6

Than on to Amazon.com in Kentucky for about 10 weeks of work to pay for Disney and taxes.

Hope that this finds you all well and surviving the heat of this summer…….damn!, it has been hot and humid!!!!

love to all of you

Jim and Linda

Picasa Content

Washington, DC day 1

Hi to ya'

Today we figured we walked between 4 and 6 miles. Plus car rides, train rides, escalators and stairs, and more stairs.....damn, are we tired.

We started off with a visit to the White House. Nice to see, but like everyone says, "it's smaller than I thought it would be"

Then off to more walking to see:

Korean war memorial

Lincoln memorial

Viet Nam memorial

WWII memorial

FDR memorial

air and space museum

I am sorry but I can not get on windows live writer to put the pictures in, so here is the link to the whole day and you will have to sort them out. Any questions send me an email.

BOBBIE I need help my dear.....

It was an extremely hot and humid day today and Linda's mom Maggie and I probably suffered the worse of it. We left the house at 8:30 and got back about 6:00pm...

Tomorrow off to seee more things, the Washington monument which you have to have tickets ahead of time for, and the national achives.

I am so sorry for the pictures, but it is late and I am too tired to try and figure out live writer.

http://picasaweb.google.com/rufnitII/20100808WashingtonDC1#

A road trip

Hi all
Today we left South Bend for Bristow, VA to visit with Linda's Brother Dan, his wife Dee and two of their litte babys: Ashlee 24 and Adam 27.
We are:
Jim and Linda
Linda's mom Maggie
our grandson Jamie age 9
I drove 642 miles in 11 hours even. A pretty uneventfull trip, with some pretty scenery in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. An interesting note, our "I-pass" which is an automatic toll deductor for Illinois is no eable in most eastern states. We did the Indiana tollroad, Ohio turnpike, Pennsylvania turnpike and never had to pay a toll....it is automatically deducted from our account.
We will spend the next six days touring Washington, D.C. with our tour guides who have arranged a wonderful week for us.
Jamie was a wonderful traveler for all but the last one or two hours. He kept himself and us entertained.
When we go here we had an nice dinner and enjoyed visiting with the family. Dee has a present for Jamie every day he is here, and tonight she brought out her "potato guns" which are pop guns that use potatoes for ammuntion.....how fun..everyone was getting shot with potatoes!!!!
Tomorrow is off to most of the major monuments and the white house. Every day we have planned activities including the Washington monument, the capitol and a special tour of the Burea of printing and engraving(where Dan works)
We will keep you updated on all of the activities as the week progresses
as usual
love to all of you bum's
Jim and Linda