Moving day and beyond.

One of the main reasons that we came to Phelan is the health condition of Katie's Dad, Ken Brungardt.  As you know from my last posting, he was living at Sterling Inn in Victorville, but it wasn't quite to his liking as it wasn't quite as near to his yorkie, Boomer, as he wanted to be.  So last Saturday, we set out to find a place that was closer to Boomer.  It wasn't all that hard of a thing to do as the internet made the job so much easier.  In looking up assisted care facilities, we saw a list of several, of which only one stood out that would be where we needed it to be, Sierra Vista Retirement.  Katie called and scheduled an appointment for a tour later that day, and we were off to see it.  

After meeting with the nice lady who gave us the tour, Kimberly, we found that Sierra Vista would indeed be the place where, not only would Ken be nearer to Boomer, but we felt that he'd feel more at home as well.  Tentative arrangements were made for a move in for Ken on Tuesday.  We went to tell him about what we'd found, and arrived at dinner time.  At that point, Ken wasn't feeling too good, so we told him the minimum and left, which was kinda a letdown as we were rather excited about what we'd found.

Sunday, we went to worship at Harvest Christian Center, then had lunch at the local der Wienerschnitzel in Phelan, then headed home for some relaxation time.  

Monday saw us heading down to Riverside early enough at 8 AM for our day of errands with Jeff.  Our first stop was at Garcia Farms fruit stand for oranges.  We found this fruit stand by accident in early spring of 2013 after spending Sunday worship time with Jeff at Benedict Castle Teen Challenge.  When we left Clearfield in March of 2013, we'd been eating some fairly good Cuties that were juicy and sweet, but small as they're only mandarin oranges.  We couldn't believe our luck getting oranges that were sweeter and bigger to boot at Garcia's then, and it was so good to have them again.  Yummy in the tummy!  And on top of that, they're good for us!  If anyone is in the area of Riverside, I urge you to check out the oranges there at Garcia Farms fruit stand, you'll find the address and a map on the link above.

We then headed to see Jeff who needed an updated identification from DMV of California.  While he was doing that, we headed over to the local salad joint, Souplantation for a much needed salad bar experience like we haven't had since we went to Utah.  When we were done, we picked Jeff back up, fed him lunch, did another errand for him, and recruited Karen & Bill, Katie's sister and bro-in-law, to show us around the local disc golf course and play as well at El Dorado Regional Park, which is a great place to throw them discs around.  Had an excellent round getting 10 pars, a high for me at this course.  The park staff must've move the baskets closer to the tee's as I don't think that my throws are getting stronger.  Then again, maybe I'm wrong, ya think?  We spent as much time as we could into the evening with Karen & Bill, but around 8 PM, had to leave so we could be home for a good night's rest before moving Ken on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning arrived with more than a little trepidation for us.  When we left Ken Saturday evening, we weren't quite sure how he'd take to the idea of moving, although that is what he'd said he wanted previously.  After praying about the task ahead of us, we went to see him.  Ken was a little hesitant at first about making this move, although we told him again that we'd be closer to his dog.  After getting reassurance from a friend that it'd be better, he acquiesced by saying he'd try it out.  With thankful hearts, and a large sigh of relief, the move took place quite easily from there on out.  While his new apartment is smaller, it provides everything that is needed as you can see in the photo below.

The move in continued on Wednesday with Katie and myself bringing Ken back to his house to pick up a few additional items that he wanted to make his apartment more to his liking, along with clothes that he wanted.  Thursday found Karen coming up to spend some time with him and helping to finish the moving in process.  She and Katie were so excited to be able to spend time with Ken that they posed pretty good, doncha think?

They even got Ken to pose pretty good as well.

So our plan for the day is do laundry and maybe hit a movie at one of the Cinemark theaters in the Victorville area.  It's hard to beat a day of laundry and movies, huh?  What a way to start the weekend!

Have a blessed day!

Life in the last week.

So we left Amanda's house in Clearfield, Utah only one week ago but it seems more like it's been at least two weeks.  This departure was interesting in that it was done in too much haste to put what we'd taken out of the moho back in it.  So in thinking about how much stuff we had moved into Amanda's house, I was drastically wrong, especially when it came to the amount of kitchen stuff that Katie had moved.  Although we got up around 7 AM and started taking stuff back to the moho, the scheduled leaving time of somewhere after 9 AM became quite awhile after 9, closer to 10:30 as I recall.  Aside from repacking the stuff in the moho in a manner which didn't lead to us knowing where all that was when we tried to find it later on, the moho entrance steps didn't come up quite like they were supposed to when the engine was started, and were damaged when I tried to move forward.  Yep, oversight on my part.  Luckily the stairs still work although they're a little bent backwards.

After filling the moho up with gas while Katie and Jeff went to get lunch for us, it was about 11:20, and we were finally able to hit the road.  Our stopping point for the night was 1000 Trails in Las Vegas, where we'd get gas as well.  The 444 miles between Clearfield and Las Vegas took the better part of eight hours going at moho traveling speed, about 60 mph for us, but since we were gaining an hour going from Mountain Time to Pacific Time, it was good that we had that hour to use.  We ate at Cane's Chicken Fingers near UNLV, Katie's favorite.  I was going for the Macayo Vegas on Charleston, but Katie had had her hopes up for weeks now, and Jeff chose to support her rather than me so we went with the chicken fingers.  They were good anyway, and the fries were great!  I'd forgotten about them!

The remaining 200 miles or so were done the next day, Saturday, with us leaving around 10 AM and getting to Katie's Dad's place shortly before 2 PM.  At that point, I did the normal setup, including leveling the rig, extending the slides and connecting the electrical power and the water.  But before I could turn on the water, I had to plug in the hot water heater element which was taken out when the moho was winterized at the beginning of October upon arrival at Amanda's house.  That being completed, and everything else being presentable, we got in the car and headed for Katie's sister's house in Lakewood, Ca where we'd be spending the night.  By the time we got there, it was dark, and I was tired, so I went to bed shortly after we got there.  I was also feeling a little under the weather, with a slight tickle in my throat, so I thought that my rest would alleviate it.

Sunday morning, we left Karen & Bill's house to take Jeff to Teen Challenge Ministry Institute for worship, and for Jeff's admittance into the institute.  The worship service was outstanding, although the music was entirely too loud.  Regardless how his old parents felt, Jeff felt the the music was great still the same!  After worship, Jeff moved into his assigned space and we left to go to El Torito at the Redondo Beach Pier for the last meal we'd have with Jeff for a little while.  We had the Sunday Brunch which had a good variety of Mexican entries and a couple of American ones as well.  Overall, the meal was quite good.  But all good things must come to an end, so we took Jeff back to TCMI, and then headed back up to the moho in Phelan, Ca., getting there late and going to bed shortly after we got there.

Monday morning, we started finding things in the moho that were thrown into it in haste just days earlier.  After visiting with Adrian, Katie's nephew who lives in Katie's Dads house at the property, we left to visit Ken at his convalescent home, Sterling Inn, in Victorville, Ca., about 18 miles away.  We visited with him for a couple of hours, and headed back to the moho for the evening.  Tuesday and Wednesday, I don't remember what we did, but we went places and did things, I'm sure.

Thursday, Katie's sister and bro-in-law from Lakewood, Karen and Bill came up to spend time with Ken and then spend some constructive game time with us playing Tenzi, a dice game that we got from my sister, Elaine, as a Hanukkah gift while we were with her for Thanksgiving.  While the game is a fun fast paced game, we did mostly individual scoring as we didn't know what else to do.  In addition to keep the brain sharp by scanning the die after each throw, it's also physical as the die have to be picked up continuously and thrown again in a small space (unless ya wanna take more of your time doing your scanning!), so we viewed the evening as a real good time for the four of us. 

Friday, we had an errand to run with Ken and took him to lunch.  Took a little while to get back to Sterling Inn so it was kinda late when we left when we dropped him off.  But we'd been talking to him about the phone he has which seems to be awfully quiet when it rings, so he never knows when someone is calling him.  Both Katie and I tried unsuccessfully to make the ringer louder.  Then Ken even tried to do the same thing with the same results.  So while he was getting his dinner, we took his phone to the AT&T store so a professional to do what we couldn't do.  When we got there, the first thing the salesperson did was try to sell us a remote detection and alarm system which could be accessed through the phone.  After we interrupted the salesperson and firmly told him that we didn't want to hear about this system, but only needed the ring to be louder, the salesperson proceeded to find a ringtone on the phone that Ken would notice at a volume that may get the attention of more than just Ken.  This is exactly what we needed, so we took the phone back to Ken and Katie showed him (and several people around Ken) how well the ringer worked now.  The day's chores were done, and we went back to the moho.  Katie made fried potatoes with onions, peppers, and italian sausage to which my tummy was very happy.  Hers too!

Ok, it's Saturday morning already.  There's, once again, a couple of errands that we've got to do so we're gonna head out shortly. 

Have a blessed day!