WOW. It's December

Can't believe it's December all ready and that I haven't posted since October.  So what's been going on - you say.  Let's go all the way back to November.  That was only 14 days ago.  Now really.

Just been working, talking, watching TV and playing games.  Have tried out some new recipes. 

One afternoon, I answered the phone to an unknown caller.  Sometimes I like to live dangerously.  Ha Ha.  It was a customer service rep from Verizon.  And an hour later they had made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  I now have a smart phone.  Sharon has a phone that she can text.  We have a new mifi (it's a jetpack) that you can have up to ten devices.  Forgot to mention it's also 4G.  OK, so we only have 2 but there's room for growth.  he he

The jetpack and smart phone were free.  Sharon's phone was only $19.99 after rebate.  We now have unlimited talking, texting and shared 5GB for slightly less a month then we were paying.  Like I said a deal we couldn't refuse.

Thanksgiving we spent with Diane & Scott.  They cooked 3 turkeys:  one smoked, one fried, and one fried with a chipotle glaze.  Plus the usual fixings and pumpkin cheesecake pie and pecan pie.  Who knew that Diane could cook.

Forgot to mention from the end of October until Thanksgiving, Diane & Scott took a mini vacation so we were busy keeping up with the campground along with Lynn & Jim.

Forgot to take pictures at Thanksgiving.  So sorry.

Just last week, we went down to Branson with Becky (housekeeper) and her two twin 9 year old boys.  We went to the Buttefly palace and then took a tour of Christmas lights at Shepherd of the Hills.  The Christmas Light tour ended at Inspiration Tower with free passes to the top and hot chocolate or hot apple cider at the General Store. 

Some pics from the tour that turned out well.

Inspiration Tower with lights to the top

 

 

Sharon, Vincent, Nicolai, Becky

 

 

Living statue of an angel in the Butterfly palace

 

 

The Trail of Christmas Lights was 2 1/2 miles.  It was spectacular.  It did take us about an hour to drive through it.

 

 

The beginning of the tour had these lighted trees.  See that small white light at the end.  That's the ticket booth.

 

 

 

There were carolers out in front of this church but the picture didn't turn out well.

 

 

They even had the Lochness monster. 

 

 

Well, I need to go back to the office so I'll try posting more pictures on facebook.  





October To Date

It's been a busy month for us.  We've been working about 5- 6 days a week depending on what's going on.  We're back into the swing of things and now things will change again - scheduling wise.  Bob, our maintenace person, hurt his back.  When he went to the doctor he found out that he has degenerative bone disease.  He's now back to work about 3 days a week and limited in what he can do.  Sure miss him a lot.   Can't believe how much he really did for us.

KOA has two awards they hand out to campgrounds if they meet certain criteria.  We exceeded and earned the first award, "President's Award".  To get the next one, you need extremely high survey results from the campers that stay with us.  This campground has never received this award, "Founders Award" due to low survey results due to the trains.  We get comments like: the campground is great, the staff is awesome, but the train whistles are annoying.  Well, this year we got the Founders Award.  Diane & Scott, will be called on stage during the KOA convention (for owners) to receive it.  In honor of all of our hard work, they took the entire staff and their spouses, guests, etc out for dinner to a high end restaurant.  We had a separate room all to our selves.

A few pictures from our dinner.

Lynn, Becky and Becky's daughter, Ariel.

Forgot to take pictures of our dinner until after we started eating.  The presentation of the food was so spectacular -sorry we didn't think of it before we ate half of our meal.

This was Sharon's meal.  She had Chilean Sea Bass with lobster sauce; risotto; seafood puff pastry and grilled asparagus.  She didn't even offer me a bite and she ate the WHOLE thing.

Here's my dinner: mashed potatoes; steak; green beans and covered with a red wine & cheese sauce.  The garnish on top was string potatoes.

Last Saturday, the 13th, we had the possibility of a thunderstorm.  Well, no rain by the time we closed at 7:30pm.  But before 9pm the sirens started.  There was a tornado sighted just 5 miles to the north of us.  Just across the interstate.  Then the winds and rain came.  Unbelieveable.  We opened up the office and stayed there for safety.  However, we couldn't get hold of all of our guests, so I went out on the golf cart and picked up a few people and brought them back to the office.  Talk about looking like a drowned rat.  The warning was over by 9:15 and everyone started trooping back to their campers.  We were walking through the place to lock up again and noticed water was pooring in under the doors.  We went outside to find 4 inches of water at least surrounding the sides and back of the office.  Well, Sharon, Lynn, Jim and I started getting rid of the water.  No time for pictures.  You'll just have to use your imagination.  Jim took the big pump and started pumping the water away from the building.  Lynn and Sharon manned the shop vac to get major portions of the water.  For the smaller areas inside the store area, I was using the mop.  We were greatful for the larger shop vac.  We emptied at least 6 times.

The next day, we used the carpet cleaner to suck the water out of the carpet.  Diane & Scott got back from St. Louis around 1pm on Sunday and they tore up the carpets.  Well, that was our excitement last weekend.

We were off on Thursday this week, so after running errands Sharon went out and took some pictures of the fall leaves here in the campground.  It was such a beautiful sunny day.

We still have quite a few trees that are green but the colors are just so beautiful this year.  With the winds that we've been having the last couple of days, a lot of leaves are falling.

This picture is of our fall decorations in front of the building.

I love this next scene.  The trees along the railroad tracks are all green except for this one section.  It's just so pretty looking at it all day.

The next month will be very busy.  Diane & Scott leave next Tuesday or Wednesday and won't be back until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Schedules will be kind of odd while they're gone but at least we are working with some great people.

First Week Back

We've been back for one week now.  Started back to work last Sunday morning.  Took us a little bit to get back into the swing of things again.  There's a new work camping couple here:  Jim & Lynn.  They've been doing this for several years.  He's around 70 years old and she's slightly younger.  They are an awesome couple.  Have enjoyed talking with them this week.  It sounds like they're staying here through the winter, also.

We are parked back in the same spot as before.  In case you forgot what it looked like, here's a picture from last year.

It looks pretty much like this since the grass is now green again with the rains over the last 10 days.

Yesterday, our friends:  Gary & Sue, stopped over in Springfield on their way to Weslaco, TX.  They worked in Okobojie this past summer and will work down in southern Texas this winter.  We were off yesterday so after they arrived we went over and caught up and then went out for dinner at Lamberts.  You know the home of throwed rolls.  They'll be in town until Monday at least.  The gear box went out on their camper and they have someone coming on Monday to hopefully fix it.  They want to be in Weslaco by Thursday.  Forgot to pull out the camera last night so no pictures.

By the way, if you look at the Springfield KOA photos on line, you'll see a picture of Sharon.  And it's a pretty good one, too.

Not much to tell, we arrived safely.  No issues on the drive down just some rain.  The rain stopped long enough for us to set up.  We still haven't set up the grill or the bird feeders yet but hopefully this week. 

This week just been getting settled and trying to remember all of the little things.  So far so good.  Haven't forgotten any major items but we'll get there.  For the most part the weather has been beautiful.  Thursday night had a spectacular lightening show with thunder.  Lost electricity for a short period of time when lightening struck close by.  No damage.

We've enjoyed this past week and looking forward to the Fall season.

Jackson, MN

Left Adel Friday morning at a fairly decent hour.  I believe we pulled out shortly after 9 am.  Of course, we needed to stop at the next exit - 4 miles away - to fill the camper tires with air.  Truck was fine but we had one tire on the camper that only had 40 psi.  Ugly!!!  So after filling the tires with more air, we were on the road and all before 10 am.  We are soooooo proud of ourselves.

It's Saturday afternoon and as you can imagine - football is on TV.  You have it right - the Iowa/Iowa State game.  From the noise coming from the corner chair - Iowa is currently behind. 

It was a great morning.  We slept in until around 9 am.  And just think we were almost on the road yesterday.  It was a little chilly this morning.  Kind of a nice change of pace.  That means we had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast.  After breakfast and close to noon, we headed out to the grocery store.  Decided we needed nachos for the game and of course, I didn't have the ingredients.  On the way to the store, we saw a field with a lot of kites.  Apparently there is a kite club and the public was invited today.  Here are a few of the pics that we took.

On Wednesday before we left we took a trip up to Ames to the Reiman Gardens.  Sharon saw an ad about the Lego giant sculptures.  There were 27 sculptures.  We found all 27.  Also went into the butterfly room.  We couldn't believe all of the species of butterflies that they had. 

This one is called the owl butterfly.  We couldn't get a pic with the wings open.  There were so many unique ones but we have never seen a green/black one and the other reminded us of stars in the sky.

 In another post I'll include some pictures of the lego statues and gardens.  They were really amazing.

Labor Day Weekend

On Friday & Saturday, we decided to take a tour of the area and see what was changed.  Went into Clive & Urbandale.  Oh my!  We couldn't believe all of the new housing developments as well as the businesses - both new & changes. 

We took a little trip towards Stewart along the back roads.  Found a few flowers for picture taking.

The above pictures were from Friday.  On Saturday, we took a road trip down towards Winterset, then Indianola, stopped by the grocery store on the way back home.  We had a very nice day.

Staying inside today.  Lots of campers with fires.  Hopefully, we'll be able to enjoy sitting outside tomorrow night.

Sunday Afternoon August 26th

On Sunday afternoon my family got together for a picnic here in the campground.  We had a wonderful time.  It was nice seeing both my sisters and my brother.  Visiting with them and catching up on all of the news.

The great nieces and nephews went swimming after dinner and of course some of the adults needed to go along and chaperone.  There were a couple of small frogs in the pool so the kids had fun catching them.  My niece, Sydney put them over the fence so they could come back later.

 

The guys decided to try a little tournament of ladder golf.  Others just stayed behind at the camper relaxing and talking.

 

 

After all of this, of course, it was time to eat again.  There were a few desserts:  carrot bars, spice cupcakes, brownies and dreamsicle cake.  Plus there was still fried chicken, lasagna, brats and hotdogs left.  And a few of us enjoyed the salads, too.  Then it was time for bubbles.

 

 

Some ball was played also.  Mostly catch.  Overall, it was a great afternoon.  Couldn't have asked for better weather, either. 

State Fair is Now Over

We completed the State Fair.  Sharon worked 8 days and I worked 11 days.  We finished scheduling approx. 300 volunteers yesterday so now we're free to enjoy the area and visit with family and friends.

Kevin and Taylor came to the fair on Tuesday & Wednesday.  We were able to spend a couple of hours with them.  I'm not going to try and explain their practical joke on us.  But, let's say, it was good and we did fall for it.  Especially me.

Thought you might like to see a few of the pics that we took.  I promise not to bore you with the 100's but a few shots from around the fair.

 

 

Chocolate Moose

Travis LeDoyt, Elvis impersonator

 

Proof, we were at the fair.  This was a beautiful morning as you can see from the rainbow in the water fountains.

 

The fair wouldn't be complete without the butter carvings.  This year was Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs and, of course, the butter cow.

 

Watched an acrobatic show with Kevin & Taylor

 

 

 

 

On the last Saturday was able to watch my niece at a gymnastics competition.  She did pretty well for being in gymnastics for a couple of months and first big competition,

 

 

Last morning of the fair we walked around and took some final pictures.  Watched the chainsaw carver for a few minutes before climbing to Grandfather's Barn.

 

 

 

The last afternoon of the fair we spend tearing down/apart the volunteer information data to start getting ready for next year.