Sunday, July 30th, yesterday we went to Felton, Ca. and rode the Narrow-Gauge Railroad thru Felton Station, Roaring Camp, Indian Creek, Grizzly Flats, Deer Valley and Bear Mountain. It was about 1 1/2 hour train ride and we sat in an open car, it was pretty neat to see all the red woods some over 9 hundred years old and 200 to 300 feet high. After that we drove to Santa Cruz, what a nightmare to do on a Saturday with beautiful weather, as we waited in line to go in the parking lot the "Lot Full" sign was put out as soon as it was our turn to go in. We weren't happy campers after waiting for so long but it ended up OK because right after Dave kind of yelled at the lady a space came open where the parking meters are and it ended up saving us 9 bucks. To park in the lot it was $10.00 the meter only cost us $1.00 so it worked out. Oh, I should say we were going to the Boardwalk and beach in Santa Cruz. We walked around, a lot of people but it was the good old fashion boardwalks, like The Pike in Long Beach, that's the only thing I can relate it to. Carnivale rides, food everywhere, face painting ect. at least now I can say we've been there.
Today was back to the Garlic Festival again, hot there today and a lot more people then on Friday. Got garlic bread again and tried the regular garlic french fries, Dave said he liked them better me I'm not sure. We walked around and went to some cooking shows then decided we had had enough so we went and got ice cream, me pistachio garlic, yum, Dave chocolate garlic not so garlicly. We had a good time, I'm glad we finally made it, and would go again if given the chance.
Just realized that I haven't mentioned anything about Valentine, our dog, she seems to be doing fine being left in the motor home, she gets to sleep all day which is what she always did at home anyway. She has gotten to meet a few dogs in this park but the place seems to be covered with cats. I really have to watch her when she firsts goes out because the cats are right there and she tries to go after them. Needless to say the cats have been here for awhile and they don't take off running then there is a stand off between, most of the time, 2 cats against 1 dog, Valley. It is a clean park here but the spaces are really small and hardly any grass just a lot of rocks. I guess that's it for now, will write again after a few days because we have to drive back to Bakersfield again tomorrow for a couple days, will let you know why when we get back to Gilroy.
Bye for now

Friday, July 28th, and we are in Gilroy, got here yesterday at about 3 p.m., a lot later then we thought we would. Wednesday night we went to dinner with Kim, Danny, Tracy,(yes she did make it up) Dave and I. Dinner was really good, and want to thank Tracy again for paying for it. On Thursday we were hoping to get going by 9 a.m. but didn't get on the freeway until 10:15. When we got to Gilroy the 1st thing was to park the RV and get my car to the dealership, remember my air conditioning went out. We got the dealership to give us a ride back then we finished setting up the motorhome. It took a really long time to get the dish set up for the computers and while Dave was doing that I cooked dinner. Today we went to the Garlic Festival, what a spread, we sampled sausage sandwich, pepper steak sandwich, pesto pasta, mushrooms, scampi, calamari, garlic bread, battered garlic fries, stir fried chicken, beer, wine spritzers, and garlic ice cream. The ice cream, garlic bread and the battered fries are the best so far, but a person we were on the shuttle with said the regular garlic fries are really good too. We plan on going back on Sunday so will have to try them then. By the way, the dealership called before noon and the car is all fixed and it didn't cost a thing, thank goodness.
bye for now

Wednesday, July 26th, tomorrow we leave and just about all the work is done. Some grout work still needs to be done and the shower doors don't come in until next Monday, July 31st, plus I'm sure you all are tired of reading about Bakersfield.
It's a sad time and a glad time, Sad because we are leaving Chelsea, Toby, Danny and Kim, just kidding just kidding, I should have said Kim, Danny, Chelsea and Toby ha ha. Glad because we don't have to do or spend anymore money on construction. Another sad thing is the bandaid shares should start going down now that Dave isn't doing anymore construction work, if you could see his hands you would know what I'm talking about. He barely has any skin left on them plus the arms and legs are marked up too.
Let me do my last construction update since last Thursday. Friday the handyman was here again all day, he was working by himself, his helpers had the day off. Dave and I went to Danny's work which is at Grimmway and got to see Danny's Office (trailer) and had a tour of the factory. Very interesting to watch the process of processing carrots, they use 5 million gallons of water a day and they are open 24/7. We got to watch from the beginning when they bring in the carrots from the fields to when they are packaged. To long a process to go thru but I'll tell you it was really something to see. Just couldn't understand why every part of the factory we went in smelled of carrots, just kidding. I think they have something like 1500 employees in this facility but they have factories all over, they could automate more stuff and have less employees but the Grimmway family didn't want to do this, they want to be people friendly and not just have machines working for them.
Saturday we worked around the house again, Kim was working at Red Robin so we went there for lunch. (Dave, Danny and I) Saturday night we went to the races and the temperture was about 100 degrees and it was starting to rain, weird weather.
Sunday morning, before Dave and I had to go back to Kim's, we went to the famous "Buck Owen's" for breakfast, then Kim and Danny drove down to Danny's parents house. The weather got up to 113 and I was up in the garage rafters at Kim's vacuuming them to get all the dirt, cob webs, and spider webs cleared away, we wanted to put stuff away in the rafters and it was pretty dirty up there. Dave was in the house working on the closet organizers, touch up ect. Kim calls from down south and said the weather down there wasn't hot at all, just what we needed to hear. We left about 4 pm and went back to the motorhome and the air conditioning wasn't working right, Dave worked on it but it was f_ _ _ ing hot so we ended up driving back to Kim's and cooking dinner there. Kim and Danny got back and joined us, when we went back home at 9 pm everything was working again, I guess with the air running all day it just pooped out at 5 pm.
Monday the handyman and his 2 helpers showed up at 7 am and were finally finished at about 7:30 pm, so paint and baseboards were done. Tuesday morning Kim and I went to get my nails put back on, I missed them to much, plus after all of this work I wanted to treat myself. Let's hope they don't get in the way this time in the motorhome because that's why Dave wanted me to take them off last time, I couldn't help much with the work around the motorhome. He has taken it apart so much already he shouldn't have to do it anymore or at least not need my help.
Oh forgot to mention, the air conditioning hasn't been working any good in my car with as hot as it has been so we decided to take it to Firestone on Monday afternoon to get a full work over. They thought they fixed the air but they didn't so we took it to the GMC dealership on Tuesday afternoon. This a.m. we talked to the dealer and it needs some new part that they have to order but it is still covered under the warranty and the part may come in tomorrow, we said "no way" we are leaving tomorrow. Dave found a GMC dealership in Gilroy, that said they would order the part and we could drop off the car when we get there tomorrow and they will have it all fixed by Friday, boy did we get lucky on that one. Tonight for our going away dinner we are going to Tahoe Joe's, a Famous Steakhouse here, Tracy, Kim's best friend, is suppose to be driving up here and going with us then spending the night and hanging with Kim tomorrow because she doesn't have any work or school.
I think that's about it for now, next time I write we should be up in Gilroy at the Garlic Festival.
Bye for now.

Thursday now, July 20th, it's only about 105 degrees here in Bakersfield and I'm sitting in the house with the dogs and the painters. Dave is off to Lowes again for about the 500th time. This house is just sucking up the paint, each room is taking 2 coats or more, I'll we can figure out is maybe it is just so hot here and it is drying too fast, we have the air on but it doesn't help I guess. Dave got one coat painted in the master bathroom but it needs another one and he just can't seem to get back to it, so I guess he is having the handyman finish that job. Plus, he won't like me saying this but, it is getting near the end of the job, like one more coat of paint and he gets burnt out on the job. Danny got the rest of the shower grouted this morning before he left for work, now all that's left is half the bathroom wall to be grouted. Shower door should be in hopefully some time next week, the handyman is putting up the new closet doors and putting together the closet organizer then Kim and Danny should be set to go. There are 2 more rooms to paint, which should all be done tomorrow, then on Monday they will put in the baseboards thru out the house then this project is done. I can't remember it I mentioned it but Saturday the new front doors are getting installed. Boy, talk about cutting this close we leave next Thursday and everything should be done by then, we hope. Either way we are gone, I know we could find a hell of a lot more projects to do around here, but the money pit has drained us for now, every thing else will have to wait.
Danny's sister had her baby on Monday, a boy which they knew, 8 lbs I believe, so Kim and Danny are driving down on Sunday to go see him. Dave and I are staying home and making our trip plans and reservations, I guess the trip after Gilroy will be Washington State, then to Oregon the end of August.
Tomorrow we are getting a tour of where Danny works, Grimway, well let you all know how that turns out.
Bye for now

Monday, July 17th, I'll start with Dave never had time to paint the master bathroom before we left. Friday morning we installed the new covers for the front, driver side, and passenger side windows, they are for helping to block out the sun and keep the inside of the coach cooler when your parked. Of course we remove them when we are driving, or I should say when Dave is driving. Boy do they work, maybe our air conditioner won't have to work so hard now. By the time we got those installed, the car packed, and drive over to Kim's it was almost 11:00 am so no time for painting the bathroom. We dropped Valley off and went to breakfast/lunch before heading down south. We got on the road to Garden Grove at noon and made it to Mike's at 3:00 pm, boy I sure don't miss all that traffic, we went the 99 to the 5 to the 110 then the 105 to the 605 to the 405 then the 22, gosh the traffic was horrible. My ass was numb when we got there, Trini kept telling me to quit rubbing my ass I told her I had to get blood flowing thru it again. We had a nice visit and Mike BBQ'd chicken and ribs, Marisa, Lisa, Kyle and baby Kylie were also there and stayed for dinner. (Not sure if I'm spelling all the names right) Boy, that is the best baby, she never cries and just entertains herself. We left Saturday morning about 5:15am and got to San Pedro with no problems. We got there a little before 6 and Brad and Diane showed up about 6:15, Phil got there about 6:30. The boat left right at 7:00 am and we got to Catalina at about 8:10 and got lockers and a cart to haul all the diving equipment. The guys went diving on the other side of the Casino a long with the other hundred people also diving. Diane and I just sat and talked until they came back in to get their tanks refilled, while they were waiting for the tanks Diane and I took off and went shopping. They have a lot of neat stuff there and I had no idea of all the stuff you can do on the island. All this time I have never wanted to go there but if I had the chance now I would go for a week and really explore the place, maybe someday. All the other times I have been there it's been in the winter time and nothing is going on then but boy in the summer time the place is hopping.
The guys got the tanks filled and went diving again, after that they were tired and all of us were hungry so we packed up the gear and headed back to the lockers. After everything was put away we went to a mexican restaurant for margaritas and buffalo burgers. Well the guys had buffalo burgers Diane and I didn't. After ice cream cones we got in line to take the boat back to San Pedro. We started back to Bakersfield at 6:30 pm and got to Kim's at 9:15 pm picked up Valley and went home. What a great day, great weather and boy did we get sun burned but it was a lot of fun to get away.
Saturday the plumbers showed up and finished what they needed to do, Fernando and Danny worked all day in the bathroom but didn't finish, I guess now that's Danny and Dave's job. Al, the handyman, showed up this morning to start painting the whole house, he came back with a good bid. The front doors were suppose to be in Tuesday so Lowes should be calling with a date for installation, so it looks like everything is slowly coming together. We leave here on the 27th so not much time left to finish everything.
Better cut off for now, will update blog later.

Friday, July 14, 6:00 am, another day here in Paradise, Ha Ha.
Our website is down so I can't see what I wrote last time, I do know I ended real quick, was just tired and couldn't think of anything else to say. Anyway, the handyman we had for the wall finished up on Wednesday, and it looks great. Kim and I had run out a couple times to get paint for the whole house and decorative bark for the front yard. We had put the bark out under the windows and around the bushes and it perks up the house, but the outside of the house really needs to get painted but that will have to be another time. Dave worked all day on Wednesday with conference calls and computer work, he also did manage to build me a computer desk too. You see all my computer work is sitting in the drivers seat with my laptop on the stearing wheel, so I have no mouse to work with. I asked Dave for a mouse so he had to build a wood desk big enough to cover the stearing wheel and enough room for a mouse on the side. Thursday he got it painted in between work meetings, going to the dump again, meeting with an insurance agent, getting a hair cut and prepping Kim's master bathroom for being painted. He got it all done except the painting of the master bathroom. Hopefully will get this done this a.m. before we leave for down south. We are driving to Mike and Trini's (brother and sister in law's) to visit with them plus use them as a hotel. Tomorrow we are going to Catalina so Dave and Brad can go diving and Diane and I will just walk around, shop and lay on the beach. We have to be at the dock in San Pedro at 6:00 am and we didn't want to drive all the way from Bakersfield we would have had to leave at 3:00 am. This was a good way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, get to see family and have a place to stay, it was also Mike's Birthday yesterday the 13th, so will take him out to dinner or something. Kim's working at the hospital from 7am to 7pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday so her and Danny couldn't come with us to Catalina. Plus on Saturday,Danny and Fernando will be finishing up the bathroom and babysitting Valentine, hopefully they will finish and Danny will be able to have Sunday off.
Will cut off for now, write to you all later.

Wednesday, July 12th and it's time for another update. Fernando worked all day Wednesday, July 5th, then had to drive back home, Danny said he would finish the tile work. Our problem was the plumber's were coming on Sunday to finish all the plumbing work so we needed the wall, behind the toilet, the floor and the shower floor finished and grouted. Saturday the four of us were going to Danny's parents house, in North Hollywood, for his sister's baby shower, so needless to say all the needed tile work had to be done by Friday night. Danny worked on it Thursday morning before work then worked again on it when he got home from work at about 8:30 pm, he worked till after midnight Kim said. Friday night Dave was going to help Danny but he wanted to do it himself. He did tile work and grouting and Kim helped him with the grout work. She told us on Saturday when we came over that her and Danny had worked until 2:00 in the morning, but they ended up doing a lot more work then they needed to for the plumbers. The work they did though looked great. We left to go to the shower, which Kim was helping host along with Danny's mom. Once we got there Dave and I took Kim's car and drove to Simi, had to drop off a bill for the new owners of our house plus go see our Jeweler, I had a bracelet to pick up. Talked to Lyle and Russ, new owners, for a while then when we were leaving John next door was home so we went by and saw all the construction work that is going on at his house. Would have liked to have more time to go see a bunch more people but had to get back to the party. We got back to Bakersfield at about 9:30 pm that night. The baby shower was fun except it was suppose to start at 3:30pm and people didn't really start showing up until 4:30/5:00 pm. Danny's sister said people always show up late, some were even showing up at 6 pm. The plumbers came Sunday morning finished most of the work, but some of the stuff they purchased was wrong to they will be back sometime during the week. Danny purchased a new doggie door so Dave and him decided to put it in, well, they couldn't get the sliding glass door out and they tried everything. Monday Dave started calling around to get someone to come out and give us an estimate on replacing it. After Dave would give the measurements on the door everyone said it would be a special order and the cost would be about $4,200.00. You see the glass and sliding door are about 15 feet wide. We were told it would be cheaper to take all the glass out and put in a solid wall with just an opening for a normal size sliding door. It would also cut down the heat that comes thru all that glass. Dave got on the phone again and went looking for a handyman to do the work. We did get a couple people to come out but they never called back with any estimates, we looked in the pennysaver and found someone that said he could do any kind of work so he came out. He gave us a price the same day and when none of the others called back we went with him. He was out yesterday with a friend and had the walls up and new sliding glass window in by the end of the day. He was back this morning and they finished taping and stuckoing the outside wall. We are now having him give us an estimate on finishing up all the baseboards and painting the whole house. He does great work and wasn't expensive either, the second thing that hasn't cost us a forture here, my car seats and the handyman.
Will write more later, bye for now

Today is Tuesday, July 4th and it's time to write again. By the way, Happy 4th of July to everyone. Well let's see what has happened since I last wrote, the dry wall guy's came out last Wednesday, June 28th, but didn't show up between 7 and 8 a.m. they got there about 9:00, so needless to say Danny wasn't a happy camper since he had to get up at 7:00 am. Poor guy, I really think he can't wait to see us go, anyway the worker's were there all day putting up the dry wall and didn't even finish. Personally, I didn't think it was that big of a job, but what do I know, so they said they would be back the next day, Thursday, at 7:00 am to finish up. (yea right) They did show up at 7:00 am with a third guy this time, the first 2 stayed maybe an hour but the other guy they brought did all the tapeing, masking, and touch up jobs we had. He was there almost all day doing that, plus, he was singing as he worked. Have no idea what he was singing because it was all in spanish and Danny wasn't there to help us. Well, after the worker's did show up at 7:00 am Danny went in the spare bedroom and went back to sleep before he had to leave for work. I have to admit I layed down on the living room couch and took a short nap too, Dave was working on the computer and on conference calls, and Kim was working on her computer doing home work, a nap sounded good to me. Kim had to work at Red Robin for the lunch crowd and got home about 4 pm. We stuck around and went out to dinner with her since Thursday and Tuesday too are Danny's late days at work, he works from noon to 8:00 p.m.
Friday we had no worker's here but Dave and I, oh forgot the 3 dogs too, Danny was at work and Kim was doing homework at first then she was in the ONE and ONLY bathroom crinking her hair for work because she had the lunch hour shift again. We had a lot to do because Fernando was coming up Saturday morning again to work on the tile. My job was to prime the dry wall, which is like painting it, Dave's job was making a mold so he could pour cement for the shower step or something like that. Dave's job required a lot of cuzing, I guess, because he did a lot of that. After those jobs were done we started setting up all the new bathroom cabinets, which is a lot of work because you have to get everything level, thank goodness when all the tile work was put in most of the floors were level but of course the cabinets aren't. Danny then called in the afternoon and said Fernando could work on Saturday, only, and had to be home Sunday, but Monday he could come back up and stay all week to finish the work. Dave said it didn't make any sense for him to come up for 1 day just come on Monday, July 3rd and stay until the work is done. Dave and I didn't finish levelling the cabinets, with Fernando not coming up it gave us an excuse not to keep killing ourselves, we now had Saturday to finish the work. I was really happy about that because on Saturday Danny would be there to help Dave and I got a break. Kim got home from work, Danny got home from work a little bit later and we all went out to dinner. Saturday, July 1st, we got to Kim's at around 9 am and Dave and Danny started working on the cabinets again. Danny was going to do tile work but, thank goodness, he helped Dave with the cabinets, me I watched "Eight Below" a Walt Disney movie with the dogs, if you haven't seen it it is a movie about dogs. Kim was working at the hospital from 7am to 7pm but the guys did join me in watching the movie on the 2nd half. After the movie we all got back to work, them on cabinets me on the front bathroom. We always thought the grout in the tile in that bathroom was brown, it's not, it's green. I did a lot of cleaning between the floor and the shower and boy what a difference, it looks like a new bathroom. Can't blame Kim or Danny because they never use that bathroom and when you don't use it you think it stays clean, I learned that the hard way and so are they. With both of them working and going to school plus having 2 dogs you just don't realize how dirty things get.
Anyway, Dave and Danny quit working about 5 pm and did clean up, it was Saturday night so that means the car races. They were having fire works that night and big races so Danny said he would wait until Kim got home so Dave and I could go, so we left about 6 pm. We have been going since right before Father's Day and there has been hardly anyone there, but boy was it packed Saturday. There was a long line to even get in, so needless to say we got to see a lot of the oildale,bakersfield ect people. After watching a few of them, walk around, Dave turned to me and said these people at really starting to scare me, I told him if we stay much longer I'm going to start smoking again and get tatooed and pierced everywhere. That way we look like we fit in. Danny and Kim never made it to the races she was tired plus the place was so packed we all agreed it wouldn't be enjoyable. We left about 10 pm and drove to Kim's house to pick up Valley and go home.
Sunday, since we had the day off, we decided to drive down to David's and Jodi's for Riley's birthday party. Kim was working again at the hospital 7 am to 7 pm and Danny wanted to sleep all day so we dropped Valley off with him and drove down to Simi Valley. We went to David's for a couple hours and had a nice time. We didn't want to stay to late because of the traffic, when driving down the traffic the opposite way of us was bumper to bumper. Do you know we got on the road about 3:45pm and didn't slow once, I was amazed. We got back about 5:30 and went straight to the motor home and called Danny. He was at the casino and we said we would meet him back at home at 7pm and when Kim got home we would go to dinner. When Kim got home we went for chinse food, went back to the house, we picked up Valley and went home. It was a long day with all that driving.
Fernando showed up Monday morning at 9 am and the tile work started, Danny went to work so Dave and Fernando worked together. Kim had homework so she went to Barnes and Noble to read and I went back to work cleaning the rest of the front bathroom. Fernando and Dave worked all day and I decided when Danny got home from work, because Kim has class from 5+ to 9+, that we would go home and let the guys visit without us, that way if Fernando had any bitching to do about Dave he could get it out of his system without Dave knowning about it, Ha Ha.
When Dave and I came back the next day, July 4th, Fernando and Danny had kept working and didn't go out to dinner until Kim got home from school. Today was another all dayer, and come to find out we didn't get enough tile to finish the shower, Dave calculated wrong, so the big tile we have two boxes to many and the small tile, which we need, is two boxes short, oh well shit happens.
That's it for now on the construction work, forgot to mention while here my leather car seat split at the seam last week so we had to find someone to fix it. Dave found a place and we dropped my car off last Thursday and they had it until Saturday and boy what a great job they did. Instead of leather, which Dave always wanted and I didn't, they put material, which they matched completely with the dark gray on the outside and the light gray in the inside, it looks great. One more thing I have to mention before I cut off for this weeks update, my court date that was suppose to be July 12th has now been changed to August 1st. This is the court date with the labor board going after Hallmark for not paying me for my vacation time, will keep everyone informed on what happens.
Better cut off for now, Love you All