It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 After almost two months of camping near Kansas City to spend time with our son and his family, it's time to hit the road again. We spent one last morning with these two little nuggets with our motor home parked down the street ready to go.

We've been here since Eli was a week old, and it's amazing how much he has grown and changed in these two months!

As the motor home rolled four hours south of Kansas City, we hit the snow that had fallen the day before. The roads were clear, but the ground was still covered when we pulled into our next stop at Mark's brother and sister-in-law's house. It's beginning to look a lot like a white Christmas! They have a place out back for our motor home to plug in. We love to be welcomed by our relatives that have room for a diesel bus to park!

After three days of helping them with a few move-in chores around their new house, we headed another two hours south to the Oklahoma City area. We stayed a couple nights at the Central Campground at Lake Arcadia. This is a first-come-first-serve campground with a unique check-in system that we have visited before, even though we've never scored a lake-side camping spot in those trips. But we were still surprised at the number of campers parked here in December right after a snow storm.

This was a great place to spend some time with family members that live in this area. We're still enjoying our Covid immunities, so we feel comfortable working on projects like the annual peppernut bake-off. Our grandparents made these nut-sized spicy cookies every autumn, and we love to eat them. This year we trained a couple of Denisa's sister's grandchildren in the art of rolling and cutting peppernuts. We're passing on the family tradition!

We moved the motor home to that sister and brother-in-law's yard so we could spend more time with family. Have we mentioned that we love it when relatives invite us to park at their homes? That meant more time to play games and bake together, including decorating sugar cookies with even more of their grandchildren.

This is our first trip to the Oklahoma City area since their devastating ice storm in October. We saw some trees that haven't been trimmed, and that showed us how the ice broke and battered the trees here.

Residential streets are lined with piles of broken branches, waiting for the municipal street crews to find time to pick them up.

We spent several nights at our son and daughter-in-law's house. They had trimmed most of the broken branches in their yard, but Mark spent a day helping with the big branches still resting on the pergola and shed roof.

Mark's view from the top showed the nervous home-owner watching from below . . .

as Mark hand-sawed the 300-pound branch into pieces small enough to throw down off the roof.

They were lucky to only have one board snap from the impact when that large branch from their pecan tree fell.

Their golden retriever thought it was awesome to have so many new chewing sticks just appear into his back yard!

After a little work, we had plenty of time to play. Denisa loves playing piano duets with Blake, and she is definitely enjoying it more than it looks. We played an entire book of Christmas duets on the piano . . .

and drove through the Christmas lights near their neighborhood. It's beginning to look and sound a lot like Christmas!

We were staying with them when the Christmas star made it's appearance on December 21.

We were in an urban setting with lots of ambient light, but the convergence of Saturn and Jupiter still made a bright dot in the southern sky.

Blake took a day off work to spend some time with us, enjoying a beautiful-weather December day in downtown Oklahoma City. We started the day checking out the over-sized Christmas ornaments in downtown.

We walked from there to Santa's workshop, where we could write letters to St. Nick in the shadow of Devon Tower.

It's a special time when you get to spend a December day with high temperatures in the 70s and no wind, with one of our favorite people! It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

We walked all around the new Scissortail Park that is adjacent to downtown Oklahoma City. We would walk around five miles in our loop today. This beautiful outdoor space has playgrounds, a water park, a lake with boats, dog parks, etc. etc.

One of those playgrounds includes a slide that is several stories high. A slider must crawl to the top of a climbing wall for the chance to descend down that very steep shiny metal tube. Denisa joined the small group of children making the climb to the top.

Mark and Blake said they could hear her trying to put on the brakes with her tennis shoes as she slid down that long tube. But you can see that she was still very surprised with the speed she was traveling as she got some serious air time coming out of the end of the tube.

We had a great time enjoying the unseasonably warm days before Christmas! We spent three more nights with Denisa's other sister. Our time there was spent playing cards and doing some shopping that we'll have to tell you about in another blog. But for now, we are certainly enjoying these fun days as it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Our First Grandchild Sleep-over in the Motor Home

When we bought the motor home six years ago, we could only dream of the day when we would have grandchildren coming to visit us in it. Four years later, we became grandparents for the first time, when our granddaughter Carter was born. She has visited us in the motor home several times during the day. But during our month-long stay near Kansas City, we hosted our first ever grandchild sleep-over in the motor home! Carter loves it that we have a steering wheel right in our living room!

We picked a nice weather day, so we could play outside on our campground playground . . .

and could build a camp fire in our front yard. She helped us cook hot dogs for dinner . . .

and ooey-gooey marshmallows for dessert.

We danced the length of the motor home and sang every song we knew while we played the piano.

We're glad to report that Carter slept well, and never once whimpered for Mom and Dad. We've spent so much time with her lately that she knows we can handle anything she needs. The next morning we had art time, as Carter used a piece of broccoli as a brush to paint a fall foliage tree.

That tree will be proudly displayed on our refrigerator for weeks. But we'll remember this first grandchild sleep-over in the motor home forever.

Touring our Latest Home-town of Leavenworth, Kansas

The reason that we are staying more than a month at our camp site at Suncatcher Lake is to spend time with our son, daughter-in-law and their two adorable children. But we also did a little road touring. Our campground is in the country, about 7 miles southwest of the town of Leavenworth, Kansas. So we're claiming this as our new home town.

Leavenworth is situated right along the Missouri River. While our address is in Kansas, the state of Missouri is on the other side of that wide river. We walked the trail in Leavenworth's River Park more than once. We're glad to report that we feel good enough to go a couple miles--without elevation--and at a slower pace than we are accustomed. But it's good to be hiking again!

We've followed this river before, and always have enjoyed learning about Lewis and Clark's experience on the Missouri River in 1804. They followed this muddy river on their expedition to find the easiest route to the west coast of this great land. A sign post describes the day they spent in this area rowing against the current. William Clark journaled that the water they drank from the Missouri River contained "a half a wine glass of ooze or mud to every pint." That's why it's still called the "Big Muddy."

We walked through the Leavenworth city campground, with sites right on the Missouri River. It was closed, so we're not sure if that is because of the time of year, or because of a rampant virus that is changing life for us.

Leavenworth is a military town, with an army base not far from the river. That is probably why it was selected to host a National Veteran's Cemetery.

The trees were at their peak color when we first arrived, as we looked down the hill to the solemn sight of acres of white tomb stones.

From the top of the hill, we could see that the Veteran's Cemetery is right beside the grounds of the VA hospital, so this town is centered on its military presence.

It's also known for its federal prison. We saw a grand domed building as we came into town, and we were a little disappointed that such an impressive building was the entrance of a prison! No pictures, because it didn't feel like an appropriate tourist stop. Instead, the most photogenic parts of town seem to be the beautiful trees that were turning glorious fall colors when we arrived in late October.

Leavenworth is also home to the C. W. Parker Carousel Museum. Denisa is a sucker for a good merry-go-round ride, so we made a drive into town on the weekend when the museum is open. This was also a learning experience, as we found that the word "carousel" is a shortened version of "carry us all."

This carry-us-all was made in 1913 here in Leavenworth, and restored back here almost 100 years later. For $1.50 Denisa got a private ride on one of the highest velocity carousel rides ever! The picture is a bit blurred because her horse is trotting by at record speeds in the picture below.

This museum also repairs and builds carousel animals. As Denisa trotted by at full speed, she snapped this picture of a couple steed in the paint shop.

Visitors can also see this primitive carousel, which may be the oldest operating wooden carousel in the world. It is hand-cranked, and can be demonstrated--but not ridden.

Besides those carousel horses, our only wildlife picture is this animal on the banks of the Missouri River. If we were in the mountains, we would call him a marmot. But here in the plains he is called a groundhog or woodchuck. If we were here in the spring, we would be asking him if it was going to get warmer or stay cold. But here in the fall we are fearful that it's only going to get colder.

Being thankful at Thanksgiving

We haven't posted a travel blog in a while because . . . we haven't traveled in a while. We are still nestled in our cozy campsite near Kansas City. Our only traveling is the 30-minute trip from our campground to our son and daughter-in-law's house in Lenexa, Kansas. We've made that trip so many times that we can tell you there are 12 stop lights, and we call it a personal victory if we hit 8 or more on green. We are thankful that we can thoroughly spoil our two grandchildren on our daily trips. If you can't tell from the picture below, our two-year-old granddaughter has us wrapped around her finger.

Eli is over a month old now, and we have fallen head over heels in love with this little man!

We are also trying to be helpful, as we volunteer to keep Baby Eli at home while Dad is at work, and Mom has errands to run, or big sister has to go to swim lessons, or there's a doctor appointment . . . Since Luke is a pediatrician, he has seen some mighty sick newborns that were exposed to germs that their little bodies can't handle yet. So he is following the advice he gives his patients--newborns shouldn't be out in public until after their two-month vaccinations. So we are thankful that we can soak up the time that we can hold little Eli at home. He seems to sleep best on a warm body.

We had COVID when Eli was born in October. It seemed like terrible timing then. But now we are thankful that we have some immunities from corona during the Thanksgiving holiday. Our son and daughter-in-law from Oklahoma City came down with COVID about a week after we did--right after the record-breaking October ice storm in that state. They can say that the only thing worse than getting the worst symptoms of the corona virus, is getting them during the 14 days that their house was without electricity because of that ice storm. We are glad to report that they are once again healthy, and they are thankful to finally get to meet Eli.

Luke has to wear PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) at his job at the clinic. Even though he sees sick patients every day, he tested negative on a COVID test this week. Jordan has been home with a baby for the last month. So we are the poster family for a safe Thanksgiving gathering in this crazy year of the Corona virus. We are thankful that we got to spend four days together with both our sons, daughers-in-law, and our two grandchildren. This was a great time to snap the annual Christmas card picture. But without any extra people at our gathering, we had to use a cell phone on a timer, perched precariously on top of a box that was balanced on top of a trash can. Now you know that it is a miracle that we got everyone smiling and their eyes open--including two little ones. Well, maybe Eli wasn't smiling, but that's understandable for a one-month-old baby.

We did a lot of cooking in preparation for the Thanksgiving meal, and Gram was thankful to have such a cute little helper in the kitchen. Carter kept sneaking tastes of the crumbs we were using for the crust of our cheesecake.

We were also thankful that Luke volunteered to cook the turkey this year. He is quite the chef with his green egg smoker.

That was the best-looking and best-tasting turkey we ever remember eating! Denisa was glad to have everyone pitch in to help with the meal!

While Luke was preparing the real turkey, we are thankful that the rest of us could have fun decorating turkey-shaped brownies.

One of the decorators (Mark) was a little heavy handed with the frosting. Another decorator had evidence on her face that she had been taste-testing that frosting.

Blake and Claire brought the ingredients for chocolate-dipped-peanut butter balls, so Carter got lots of experience making Thanksgiving desserts.

We are thankful that our family likes to play games together, both indoors and out-of-doors. We were also thankful that we had good weather to play some pickleball. Our games are less competitive now that we have certain distractions.

If we zoom in on the court we see that one player has to keep the stroller moving to keep Eli happy, and all the players have to dodge the two-year-old walking randomly on the court. That's not to mention the distraction of grandparents that are trying to play with people half their age.

We are thankful that we got to spend this fun time with our closest family during this pandemic Thanksgiving. It's hard to think that we spent last year's Thanksgiving meal with 48 relatives under one roof. With all the changes that 2020 has thrown at us, we're thankful that 8 of us had a safe and healthy holiday together!