More luncheon pics 8-30

Here are a couple more pictures from Lori’s fun lunch/dessert party on Monday. Lori, Jennifer, Me and Joanie before dessert and after salad…truly no alcohol, even though we all look like we are being silly. Just having fun!





This is the wonderful, FROM SCRATCH apple pie that Lori baked. Me, I am good at opening and baking the Mrs. Smith’s and Sara Lee pies.













Last night, Tuesday, my sister plied me with drink and this is the “spacey” result. Doesn’t she look happy and relaxed?!

Cooler, rainy, cloudy and humid. Haven’t seen the sun in awhile. And it is official, our departure date will be this Wednesday, September 6th. As of tomorrow we will have been here 4 weeks.

Fog and Bundt Cake 8-28

Just a quick entry so you can see our “warm” fog. Looks like it should be cold, but it is in the 70’s and no ocean anywhere! Miserably wet today, rained off and on and just humid the rest of the time. Everything; furniture, papers, books, is damp. Yucky.






Today Lori was in Martha Stewart mode again. She had a couple lady friends over for lunch and we ate lunch in the kitchen nook and then had dessert in the dining room on the antique dishes. These Chocolate/Kahlua Bundt cakes were wonderfully decadent! A lovely light salad for lunch so then we could slam the calories on with dessert! After all that leaded coffee (I usually do decaf) and sugar I was full of energy so I gave Lori a massage. Now she knows what a GREAT massage feels like. I am whipped, haven’t given a full body massage in quite awhile, at least I burned off some of that cake!

Some of the trees in Lori’s yard are starting to turn orange at the tips already. I’d like to stay longer, but the weather is telling us we need to hit the road soon. We want to hit the Carolina coast, but that will depend on hurricanes. We’ll keep you posted.

Shopping and mowing 8-23

Not much new going on. Lori and I spent the day in Columbus at the huge mall there on Monday. We had a lot of fun. We shop the same way. We spend a lot of time deciding between things, choose, walk around and then put it all back. Lindsay joined us for lunch and we all enjoyed that a lot. I bought some new jeans…in a smaller size…YAY! We were pooped by the time we got home.

Larry had just continued working on the scanning and cataloguing of photos. He gets full credit for this very large job. I’ve helped but he has done the bulk of it. We’ve played the, when do you think this picture was taken, game a lot!

Yesterday we went to the mall in Mansfield. Lori had to exchange something, I needed to get something at VS and then we went to the show. Larry went with us. We saw the DaVinci Code. Ron Howard did a great job! We had all read the book and thought he had stayed very close to the book and did the movie in such a way as to not incite dissension as much as the book did. This was at the $1.00 theatre. What a deal, only a dollar to see the matinee showing of a movie that is current, $1.50 for an evening movie. I suspect we’ll be back.

Today we lazed around and visited. Then Lori and I mowed again. Takes a couple hours even with both of us. We haven’t had much rain lately and the grass was really dry so we were getting dusted in it, yuck. Sure looks nice when its done. So then we had lunch and Lori took a nap and I cooked dinner. Now she is off to work.

Its been humid and cloudy, hoping for rain, but it is looking like it has moved off. We will probably be here until after the Labor Day weekend so entries may not be daily if nothing is going on. I may just post pictures of past places we’ve been like I’ve been doing off and on. If you have any requests drop me an email. I'm sure you have figured out that these are pictures of the Grand Canyon. For me, it was the best thing we've seen on our trip so far! There is just nothing that compares.

Blah, Blah, Blah 8-20

Sorry to leave you hanging! There just hasn’t been anything worth sharing. I kinda think you all would be bored…all we’ve been doing is visiting, working on the computers, shopping and eating! We get in our workouts in the morning and then my sister the food-pusher starts cooking and its downhill from there. Larry wouldn’t even go up to the house this morning…had to stay away from temptation. Not me, I just jump right in…it’s only temporary, right? Breakfast is every kind of breakfast meat imaginable, country potatoes, omelets dripping with cheese and avocado…ummm-ummm.

Not being together in ten years, it has been cracking us up how everyone instantly knows we are sisters. We really don’t think we look that much alike, but apparently we are wrong.

This morning Lori dragged me out of my trailer to take a walk with her (I had been considering taking the day off). We were walking along the narrow country road when I saw a very large ground hog in the middle of the mowed field. As we got closer he started running towards us and at the same time I heard a car coming up behind us…I wasn’t sure if the groundhogs’ intent was just to attack or if he was going to make us human road pizza by shoving us out in front of the car. I could see the headlines…Attacked by Crazed Groundhog…Groundhog seeks road kill revenge! He actually just disappeared into his hole, but you can see what all this food and country air has done to me…… O.K. so that’s just me, what can I say. It was a very BIG groundhog. They are very large rodents, that are kind of cute. I hate taking pictures of things that move so you may not ever see a picture of a groundhog here on my blog!

So that’s it for the last few days. Oh, another near death experience, we decided to go to the show and we hadn’t gotten far when Lori was hearing her rear tire making noise. She had it repaired on Friday, it had a screw in it. We were telling here how our Suburban had nearly lost its left rear tire WHILE towing a large U-haul trailer and that it had sheared off a couple of its bolts before we figured out what was happening. So we decided she should stop and check out her tire AND sure enough all the lugnuts were loose. Very glad we weren’t on the freeway to Columbus.

Today the weather was lovely. Cooler with a nice breeze, which kept the humidity down. Gorgeous!
These pictures are where we were two years ago. The first one with the yellow flowers is Fort Rock in central Oregon and the other two are of the Steen Mountains in south-central Oregon. Stunning country!

Early 20th century pics 8-17

This is my paternal grandfather when he was about 17 after he had enlisted in the Canadian army during World War I. All the rest of these pictures are all somewhere between 1916 and 1920. I haven't had time yet to match up dates to the pictures. He had written a wonderful narrative for an English assignment in college that covers these years. It is wonderful to have all this technology today to make it easier to share stuff like this. Both my father's parents were born Canadian. They came to America in the very late 20's.

More baby goddess pictures 8-17

I love these pictures because I had such happy eyes. For so many years after my Dad was killed my eyes always had a shattered look to them.

Still scanning 8-16

These are photos of my Dad, Ian Campbell that we scanned into the computer today.
















Today was a lovely weather day. We didn’t spend much time outside. We worked on getting more old photos scanned into the computer. Loose photos that are very small and no dates or names on most of them. Sadly there are a few people in the photos that we’ll never know who they were.

Lori worked last night and works tonight, so we saw very little of her.

Andrea emailed a new picture of Ian. He has to quit growing until we get back there! He has lost his “baby” face and is growing into a handsome boy.

More Birthday pics! 8-15

Here I am with Lori and her girls. Look how short I am with these women and I am about 5' 8"!

Me with my lovely cake before we torched it and melted the frosting!

Here I am with my "little" sister! Aren't we precious!

A Great Day for the Universe 8-15

Once upon a time, in a land far far away there was born a beautiful angelic princess who later became a stunning Goddess! (Remember, MY BLOG, MY STORY.) Today is the anniversary of that most wonderous day! PARTY!!!! Yeah, right. We had cake last night near midnight, practically burned the house down with this little cake-torch! Received some lovely gifts.

Lori has to work tonight so we are going to DO Bellville today. That means walk down its one street and check out the few antique stores that are there. Wooo-hooo, are we wild or what!

Thanks for all the Birthday Wishes!!!!


Does it mean something do you think, when you are laying on the floor on your 47th birthday doing yoga and you look out the window and see this guy??!!!! Maybe I was moving too slow.

Maybe he was celebrating WITH me and doing his yoga too!!

Scanning the past 8-14

Today we spent most of the day scanning 110 pictures into the computer. The pictures of my Parents wedding and pictures of my Aunt Joyce’s wedding. My grandmother had every picture taken at my Mother’s wedding so it took awhile. Black and white photos last forever, sadly color doesn’t.

We have only just begun! This is a BIG project and one we’ll have to continue when we get back on the west coast. I have thousands and thousands of pictures I want to get scanned onto the computer and my Mom’s slides. Has to be done. It is the only way we really remember our past seeing as we have swiss cheese for brains when it comes to us remembering certain years. We have given ourselves a brain cramp trying to remember some stuff and we are still spring chickens!











This last picture is my Aunt's wedding and it was earlier than my Mom's. That is my Mom on the far left when she was a teenager.

"Past" weekend 8-13

All weekend we have been busy digging into the past. Working on photographing and scanning my paternal grandfathers stuff and trying to get a time line figured out. Fascinating to us, but not to most of you. He was a Physician and Surgeon in Valley City, South Dakota until his death in 1944. We have his album of photos he had taken during his service in World War I. This is a photo of his medals and the rug was made from his uniform. He had written a lovely story of his early life for an English assignment in college that I am going to transcribe. One thing has led to another and we are going off in all directions now. I’ll be calling my Aunt Millie to help me with my Mom’s stuff.

Can you guess who this cutie is? She isn’t yet two.

Mowing with my Sister 8-11

I love my sister and she would like it if we decided to move out here near her, but I don’t see it happening. Especially when she says things like 8 months of winter and every house has a basement in case of tornadoes (she didn’t say that about basements, just an observation we have made). It is wonderfully green, but the flip side of that is that it is awfully wet. The biggest down side is our girls and grandsons are waaayyyyy across the country from here and as we have decided we don’t like being long distance Grandparents. That is the clincher! So I just have to make it a point to get out here more often. It has been 10 years. She was busy and we were busy and then flying got to be a pain in the butt after 9/11. Like the saying goes, I will have to “Just Do It”!

I even actually like my sister. She used to be REALLY high strung, but now she isn’t any worse than anyone else who has two kids in college and has a high stress job. She is a nice, witty, conscientious, caring person who has a great relationship with her husband Mike, who contributes greatly to keeping her feet on the ground. She is also a tall beautiful Goddess. We are having a lot of fun. Nobody can share your history like a sister can and I miss that, especially with our parents being gone.

Lori works the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at Riverside Hospital in Columbus. She is an Oncology nurse. Her patients are all battling cancer and she is a very compassionate R.N. who doesn’t have a big head and puts her patients needs first as much as she can with the frustrations of bureaucracy and the egos of her fellow staff. I’ve learned a lot from her this week and admire her immensely!

Lori and I mowed the homestead today. It was a cool day with a nice breeze and pretty clouds scudding by. By far the best day we could have picked to sit on mowers in the sun! She takes a nap and then heads out to work. Her first day back is the hardest for her, because her schedule has to get flipped back around after so many days off. It takes her about 40 minutes to get down to Columbus from here on a good day.

Larry and I will miss her on her work days (she’ll be sleeping during the day) but we hope to lose the pounds we packed on this past week while she is busy and not fattening us up! Definitely a food pusher!

This is Lindsay (22) Lori's oldest girl, Lori (45), Val (46) and Larry (48).

Home day 8-10

Another dull day for blog readers. We rolled out of bed late. I did two miles on the treadmill and apparently over did it and was useless for the rest of the day. Lori had this “I am INVINCIBLE and can run uphill for miles” cardio music CD that I was rocking out to and got just a little too revved up!

Larry took the truck to Super Walmart to get the tires rotated and the oil changed and lubed. Then he spent more hours getting Lori’s computer cleaned up. Lori and I took a nap this afternoon for about an hour. We popped off the couches when we heard Mike’s truck get home from work, didn’t want to be caught being slugs! Lori fixed another fabulous dinner and we rolled down the hill to our home.

It was cloudy most of the day so it was humid, but didn’t get really hot. Very nice.

Since I didn’t start this blog until June most of you missed out on quite a few of our firsts! I didn’t have any photographic moments so I thought I would share this first that I had in New Mexico. Three and a half feet of disturbed reptile. He posed nicely for his photo op once I realized that he wasn’t going to chase me and I stayed out of his striking range. He surprised us by not just taking off.

Nice day 8-9

Last night got down into the 50’s. Humidity was high overnight, but it wasn’t too bad during the day. Lori had a meeting to go to early and came home with bagels. With her cooking fabulous dinners every night and the junk we have guilted each other into we are going to gain 50 pounds while we are here.

Lar changed the heating element in their hot water heater today. Earning our keep. I don’t know what I did, a lot of nothing. Yammering and eating just about covers it. I finally got a picture of a Cardinal.

Columbus, OH 8-8

A lovely day today. Low 80’s and low humidity. We did our yoga and then hit the road for Columbus. Lori took us to Riverside Hospital, she had something to deliver and we got to see where she worked. She really loves her job at this hospital. She is an oncology nurse and works the night shifts full time. She part times at another hospital closer to home sometimes.

Then we went to Lindsay’s apartment to see her home and meet her boyfriend Jared. Her apartment is real original looking, they kind of look like row Victorians from the outside. Her place is where the door on the left is. Lindsay then became our navigator to exciting places like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market. We then had lunch at a wonderful Mongolian BBQ restaurant. It was the best one I had been to. Then we headed over to the Polaris Mall. A huge indoor mall with a lot of class. Many of the stores had fountains inside them, and one store had a pianist playing a grand piano. Very clean and we walked our legs off. I only bought a few candles, such restraint! Lar spent the time sitting on the central couches making friends when he wasn't trailing after us. He only went because he wanted to see Lindsay and her place, the shopping he could have probably done without.

We got home around 6:30, had leftovers for dinner and crashed! The first day in a really long time that we weren’t stewing in humidity.


This is Jared with Lindsay. Lindsay is 22 and in her 4th year at Ohio State University in Columbus. She's going to be disgusted with me, but at this moment I can't remember what she said she is majoring in...something to do with Social Work I think. Jared has a degree in Psychology.

Jaclyn, whose picture was posted yesterday is 20 and in her 2nd year of Culinary College. Apparently whatever she is learning is top secret, because she hasn't cooked for us yet!

Rough day 8-7

HUMID. The humidity is still amazing to us. If you get all hot and sweaty it takes forever to cool back down. My book pages are starting to curl, yuck.

Today was a very exhausting, trying day. Lori and I each had a massage, then we had lunch with her friend who is a brilliant writer and then we went shopping in a couple of shops that were packed full of treasures and then we had our hair cut. What can I say…someone’s got to do it. It is the first massage I have had in almost a year, which is very sad for someone who was getting a few a month.

Larry finished putting together a job he was doing for someone and mailed that off. Then he played ball with Oscar the black lab until Oscar almost keeled over from heat exhaustion. Larry decided to stop even if the dog didn’t want too, he didn’t want to do CPR on a dog. He did some stuff on the trailer and dumped the tanks and sat under the awning to watch another spectacular thunder storm.

I forgot, we both started the day whipping Lori’s treadmill into shape. I did a couple miles and Lar did almost four so we weren’t complete slackers.

This is my sister Lori, her husband Mike and my niece Jaclyn.

My brain is mush from a combo of this lovely day, the cheeseburger/homemade frenchfries dinner and I’m not feeling at all witty, so ta-ta for now!

Computer day 8-6

Got up this morning at the crack of eight. Very damp again. Larry was good…again and did yoga, I went up and visited with my sister. After he was done we went out to breakfast.

We basically had a pretty laid back day. It was really humid so hanging around outside wasn’t appealing. We spent most of the afternoon getting Lori squared away on her computer and showing her how to do things with it. It is sooo much easier when you have someone show you rather than trying to read about it in some useless manual. Not that you ever even get manuals with stuff any more. Larry spent some time on the phone with tech support getting something reconfigured, but now the Walker’s are racing along with DSL.

Lori made us another fabulous dinner. Look at that…Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray eat your hearts out! This picture was sister-approved. She was highly DISapproving of the picture I had put on the blog yesterday.

After some sinful cheesecake we waddled down the hill in the wonderfully wet, visible air lit by the magical blinking of the fireflies serenaded by the songs of crickets. Life is GOOD!

Great Dinner 8-5

It is after 11 p.m. right now and I can’t remember this morning. It was a long time ago! Oh, now I remember, Larry’s ankle was better so we took a walk down Lori’s road. Kinda scary because people don’t slow down and there isn’t much of a shoulder to walk on, fortunately there isn’t a lot of traffic. It had gotten down to 60 last night so it wasn’t too steamy yet for our walk.

After we got home and had breakfast we went on a mission with Lori. We had to go to a neighboring Village to get steaks from a gas station…go figure. The last place you would expect to get great steaks, but it was true. We got to see a lot of the surrounding countryside, we felt like we were going to end up in Pennsylvania with all the twists and turns. Beautiful country, resembles the Roseburg area of Oregon, just greener if you can imagine it. It is as wet here as the Pacific coast.

Lori was having their friends over for dinner so they could meet us and see our home. Steaks, baked potatoes and fresh from the field sweet corn. It was all wonderful. Great food and great people, it was a nice evening. Way past my bedtime and I still have to get in the shower! Later!

The cat is Puma, the dog is Oscar, the view of our trailer is from Lori & Mike’s front porch and that sexy blond is my older sister Lori.




Oh, so you caught that. Hey, my Blog, my story! O.K., she is my younger sister by 18 months. I may be forever older, but the oldest is forever smarter!!! Tee hee.

Hanging out 8-04

Started the day off with a cup of coffee. It has been so hot the last week or more that coffee was not the drink of choice. The thought of drinking anything hot was not appealing. This morning was lovely, in the 60’s and low humidity. The whole day stayed nice. It got into the low 80’s but the humidity stayed down, it was nice to walk out the door and not feel like you were hitting a wall.

Larry sprained his ankle yesterday so no walk today. Fortunately it is just a little sprain, with just a bit of bruising and swelling and pain. He was kept busy getting my sister’s DSL set up on her computer. It was a day for visiting and hanging out and enjoying the lovely day. It is wonderfully peaceful here at their place and lots of birds to watch. The Cardinals have been fun to watch and listen to. They have a very distinctive song, hopefully I’ll be able to grab a picture of one. It might be easier than getting pictures of this family! They keep scattering like the birds do when I point the camera!

Bellville, OH 8-3

We had a quiet evening last night. We did yoga this morning and I gave Larry his haircut. Its been about three weeks and he was getting a little shaggy. Then we closed up and dumped the tanks and hit the road.

Today we traveled a ridiculous 35 miles. Such a day! It took us an hour along the windy back roads. We were at my sister’s around 11:35 this morning. We got a tour of the house and then Lar parked the trailer and we got set up. It was dripping with humidity today. Clouds building for a big storm. This is a lovely quiet place. Lori and Mike have 3 acres here and you can’t really see their neighbors. We are here in the front “yard”. Now our front yard too for a few weeks.

Both the girls, Lindsay and Jaclyn were here too. I felt like the pygmy person in this group. They are all taller than me and I’m about 5’8”. Pictures will get taken soon. Lori had about an hour of sleep, fortunately she has the next 4 days off. We just hung out and visited. The big storm came through and lasted about an hour. Heavy rain, thunder and lightning, but no big wind, hail, or twisting clouds!