Busy Days of Fall

We’ve had a busy few weeks here. Guess who turned 11? Gosh, it’s so hard to believe that she is 11 years old. We had a small party with just the grandparents and Brad’s brother Bill, last Friday night. We had a fun dinner and then had cake. Piper loves sea turtles and I think Mandy did a great job of drawing the sea turtle on this cake. Piper was thrilled with it!

Of course, she very much enjoyed the opening of her gifts. We were the boring grandparents and bought her a gift card to Barnes & Noble. We just talked to them and she went there today and found some books she wanted. She received some fun things from Grandma and Papa Krumel. Nail polish, a sea turtle light, and a few other fun things. But from her mom and dad, she received her dad’s refurbished iPad. She was thrilled. They had pre-loaded it with things appropriate for her age. Look at that smile. It says it all. As for me, I loved her blue and white polkadot dress. She still loves to wear dresses and the sweaters I make her.

My peace lily is blooming for the third time this year. It must really like this window.

The gardens are gradually getting torn out as things finish producing. It was a bumper crop of tomatoes, pumpkins, eggplant, and acorn, squash, and cucumbers this year. To the left of the sidewalk is a patch of zinnias that are absolutely gorgeous right now. I’m too far away to get a good photo of them.

I finished another baby blanket using the diamond pattern and the same sparkle yarn. I made this one bigger at 38 x 38“. I still have six skeins of the yarn left….

So I began a prayer shawl for the hospital, using the same pattern, but making it narrower and it will be longer.

We were supposed to be on our way to the campground by now. We were going camping with our minister and his wife and Curt and Barb until Wednesday afternoon. We have been having major camper issues this summer. To make a long story short, when we went to pick it up a couple weeks ago to go camping, the electric jack didn’t work and the handle had been broken to crank it manually. Of course the repair shop said they didn’t do it. So, we had to order a new jack and they installed it. Oh, and did I mention the batteries were dead too? We have never had an issue with our batteries in the two years we’ve owned this trailer. Dennis is pretty sure they wired the jack wrong, which drained the batteries.

He went out to our camper storage last Thursday to put some things in the camper for our trip today and the batteries were completely dead again!  He took them off and to an auto shop where they tested them and said they were toast. He had to buy two new batteries, which was not cheap at all! After church today, we came home, loaded up the truck and went out to hook up the trailer and the batteries were completely dead again. We have no idea what’s going on. Right now I’m at home and Dennis is there trying to figure out what’s happening with it. If he can figure it out, we may try again tomorrow. Right now, I’ve about had it with pulling a trailer. Honestly, I would love to have a van that we could just drive and have everything right there. We don’t want a class A motorhome because we’d like something small enough to park in a regular parking place. But we both want a bathroom of some sort.

It’s been an expensive year for the camper and we’ve only been able to go camping two nights so far this year. Yikes! Plus, we were really looking forward to the time this week with our friends. Dennis’s patience is wearing thin and we have lost all trust in this repair place. They still have to fix the spot where a truck threw one of the construction cones into the side of the trailer on our way home from the Black Hills.

So this is sort of how I’m feeling!😂🤣😂

I hope you’re all having a lovely weekend. We have a stunning day today with clear blue skies and 65°. Absolutely perfect. I’ll talk to you all again soon.

Blessings and love, 

Betsy