Best Wishes and Merry Christmas

On this Christmas Eve, we offer our best Christmas wishes, health and happiness to all friends and family, wherever you may all be.

Today, after swimming and water aerobics in the morning, we gathered with 4 other couples to try out a new place for lunch: Souplantation.  It was just wonderful.  All fresh ingredients, with an extensive salad and vegetable bar, 6 different kids of " made from scratch " soups, pasta dishes, and desserts.  Lunch for both Donald and I was a total of $13.00.  The staff was also wonderful, considering it was all help yourself food stations.

This evening is quiet, watching Foyles War on television.  Tomorrow, it will be swimming in the morning, and then getting ready for Christmas Dinner at the clubhouse at 2:30.  Pretty quiet but missing family and :( grandchild!!!!

Happy Christmas!

Baby, it's cold outside

Watching the weather reports from home or other places certainly makes us reflect on how very lucky and blessed we are to be in the southwest at this time of the year.  As with all things though, there are opposites to every situation.  While you may not miss the snow shovelling or ice scraping car windows, we do miss the beauty of new snow in evergreen trees and a winter landscape for the Christmas season. Most of all we miss our children and their families. This time of year in the Coachella Valley in indeed their winter and this morning was 3.1C! Brrr. However, here comes Mr. Sun warming everything up, and by 11:00 AM we will be outside with our coffee in hand, warming in his rays.

We seem to be busy doing whatever, and the time flies.  Christmas dinner at the main clubhouse is what we will do on Christmas Day and Donald has been asked to carve our table's Turkey. Oh Boy. HA! His words, not mine. We have been offered an electric carving knife and it might be a good idea to borrow it! I will be cooking a vegetable ( carrots ) and bring some pickle dishes.

Panko Carrots

* large carrots, cut up, cooked and drained, saving 1/4 c. liquid
2 TB diced onions
2 TB horseradish
1/2 c. mayo
1/2 c fresh parmesan
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. panko crumbs

Toss the cooked carrots with the rest of the ingredients and 1/4c. carrot liquid, cover with panko crumbs. Bake for 20 minutes at 375 F.

Well, 15 minutes to my 8 am lap swimming time....I may have to wear a touque to the pool!

Seniors behaving badly?

Ok, that was Donald's suggestion for the blog title! Last evening, we had a wonderful time at a concert: The Moody Blues!  It was fabulous.  The venue ( The Show at Agua Caliente, Rancho Mirage ) was totally sold out, and we of course had the cheap seats and could watch the people who had floor seats. The cheap seats were still very good, especially with 2 giant jumbotron screens showing the stage and people in the audience. Now, that was entertaining as well!  Yep, lots of (us) in our 50's and 60's showing up with our hair down, long skirts and rockin' on.  In particular, a fellow who could not resist dancing in the aisle and being shown back to his seat and told to sit a number of times by the usher.  Well, it was dancing music for sure and perhaps a dance floor in front of the stage would have been a great idea. It wouldn't have been a mosh pit! Seeing and hearing Nights in White Satin played by the group was thrilling.  Yes, there was lots of room by your seat to dance, and I sure was.  Couldn't resist, and because I wasn't in the aisle, o.k. by the ushers! You can check it all out at : www.moodybluestoday.com

Today we went with our Wisconsin pals to Pancake breakfast at the main clubhouse, and then to College of the Desert for the Outdoor Street Fair.  Of course, a quick trip to Joanne's fabric shop on the way home was in the schedule as well.

Tommorow Donald will be spending time watching the Seahawks win. Yes, win. Oh, and Kim will be quilting in the north hall, and rooting for the Seahawks in spirit.

We love a marching band

Things are busy around the ol' RV site as we try to decorate for the holidays. Try is the catch word here, as it somehow always seems to looks like a put together mess. Oh well!

Last evening we headed over to Palm Springs for the Festival of Lights Parade and it was wonderful! We staked out a seating place near the Hyatt Hotel fairly early after picking up a couple of Christmas baubles and some cards.  There was a sushi place across from us, and we enjoyed a tuna roll and california roll while waiting for the festivities to begin.  Well, begin they did!  The opening was of course the Colour Guard, followed by a 250 piece marching band! Marvellous! I love marching bands, and the parade had about 10. Whoo hoo!  www.psfestivaloflights.com

Yes, we had to stake out our parade watching place early as about 80,000 people come to watch the parade, noted to be one of the ten best Christmas Parades in the US. Needless to say, traffic was a little busy after the festivities, however, we were back at the rig in just over 45 minutes, so it was not horrendous.

Today's fun activities are grocery shopping :( and cleaning up around here. Maybe some laundry. Exciting times.

Don't touch the grey buttons!

You can always tell when we're in a whirlwind of activity, when there are no posts for a number of days.  We left Imperial Dam/Senator Wash on Monday and headed to Quartzsite, and yes, back to Discount Solar.  The little fix that Craig had shown us on our way to Yuma, to correct the error reading on our inverter computer display did not seem to do the trick.  The fix was to pull one of the battery leads off and shut everything down for about half an hour.  Well, that only worked for a very short while, and then we were down to no inverter.

So, the great guys at Discount Solar reset the computer, and tested it hooked up to shore power.  Lesson learned? Don't touch the 'grey' button and reconfigure the computer when we don't know what we are doing. The guys there would not charge a fee for their couple of hours of time, so we left some coffee/beer $$ for them.

Since it was late in the day, we stayed at Lake Tamarisk RV Park in Desert Centre, for an early big whopping 1 hour drive to Desert Hot Springs the next morning.  Upon arrival, our friend Ken was waiting with my bike ( he had brought it down from the Shuswap in his cargo trailer), and an invite for coffee, and another invite for dinner out! Whew long day! The Spaghetti Factory on Hwy 111, was the eventual choice. Good service, great decor, good friends. What more could you ask. Oh, and the priced were right.

Yesterday was ( whoo hoo ) Quilting Day! Only first I managed 30 laps in the pool and then the water aerobics class. Yes, the class is 7 days a week! Got to work off those spaghetti calories!  There were about 12 quilters in the clubhouse, with great projects and conversations.  Happy Hour at 4 pm in the main clubhouse and then at 7 pm....zzzzzz.........oh, those lazy boy chairs in the rig .............