If you squint just right you can see a surfer in this pic. We rented a car and did some beach cruising Saturday. When I reserved the car I asked for a Chevy. When we picked the car up they said the Chevy was already rented and they would upgrade us to a Kia. Lee & I both were thinking,'You call this an upgrade'. It's not as bad as we had thought. I just would not want to pay several years for one.
We did some shopping Friday night and ate out.

This is at Pacific Beach in the San Diego, CA area. It was cool out so there were not too many people actually on the beach and even fewer surfing. It was busy along the beach front where the businesses were. I did manage to buy souvenirs for the granddaughters. We ate at Fatburgers and had fatfries. We figured we were suited for the theme . Pretty good burgers. Finding a parking space was terrible. We finally found a space and thought we knew which block we parked on. When we started looking for the car we couldn't find it. Not a great feeling. When we finally found it Lee said 'I never thought I would be so glad to see a Kia.'


We had a good time.
Blessings to all.

Easter Blah

We had an uneventful Easter. We went to church and ate at Burger King (ye hah). It was the first Easter we have not been with Julianna. I know there will be lots of firsts, but I was sad non the less. Julianna wanted me to send her some sea shells. I was asking people from church where the best beach would be to get some sea shells. They said that the tide flows to the north so the sea shells end up on beaches north of SD. One couple that has been in the Navy and all over the world said she had lots of sea shells from CA, FL and Guam and she would give me some. She said there would be lots of them in Kwaj. During the two weeks we had to move I was on my feet and walking way too much. My knee started hurting and has not quit. I went to a specialist here in SD and he said I had arthritis in my knee and only offered some pain pills. There is an acupuncturist in the shopping center next door and I have never tried that before so I went over there yesterday. I think my knee is a little better this morning, but I'm not sure about the rest of me. Back problems are very common with Fibromyalgia. It was the first problem I had that was associated with Fibro that I have never had anyone phase more than a little and sometimes for the worse. It was my first treatment, so I will reserve opinions for later. Gina accused me of converting to CA hippy stuff, but I actually had kicked the idea around in OKC. Lee went swimming Sat. and hopes to do more throughout the week. He has had a bad knee for years but is too stubborn to see a Dr. The pool usually helps his knee. Lee started a course that is 5 weeks long. I think it is his last one. He doesn't think he will have any problem with it and could finish early. We still have not seen any of SD but I am going to look into renting a car this week end and do some looking around. Going hippy and kneedy in San Diego, CA. Blessings to all.

SD Marines

I forgot to mention that I went on the Marine base in SD. I did not get to see anything except the commissary and MX (the Air Force calls it the BX) but they were very nice. Amber's husband is retired from the Navy and she can get on bases where ever she goes. She bought all our food on base while they were here. I thought while I was there, 'I know someone who lived and shopped here.' Blessings to all.

My sister, niece and her boys are going back home today. Virginia and I ended up not going to Legoland. Amber took her boys. She said it was a good thing Virginia and I did not go. There were a lot of hills, steps and walking. I need to go someplace called kneeland or hipland or skinnyland. Neither one of us would have made it through the day at Legoland. Amber said the park was designed for little kids. This week is spring break in CA and it was wall to wall kids. She said she was impressed by the landmarks they had made out of Lego's like the statue of liberty, the white house, etc. She said they had made a full sized car that you could sit in with remarkable details to it. Virginia and I did get to visit a lot. It was good to see them all. Lee is doing fine in class. The classes are for people who are keeping Xerox copiers running on the ships for the Navy. Some are Navy personnel and some are contract labor that live on the ships. I never realized the Navy had any contract labor on their ships. Today is laundry day. They have nice Wascomat washers and dryers that the hotel lets you use for free. Lee and I used to have a laundry in OKC back in the early 90's and Wascomats were top of the line commercial washers and dryers. Hugs for all our granddaughters. Have a wonderful Easter. Love and miss you all.

It's off to see Legoland

My sister, Virginia, made it to SD along with her daughter, Amber, and her two sons. Virginia has been sick with her COPD (lungs) and we have visited but not gone anywhere, which is fine with me. We were all supposed to go to Legoland Sunday but it was supposed to be cold and rainy Sunday. There were some storms that went through about 4:00 am but it was dried up by the time we went to church. It turned out to be a pretty sunny day. A little cool, but not bad at all. Amber took us to church Sunday morning. A lot of the churches here rent space in shopping centers or schools because property is so expensive. We found a small church of about 40 to 50 people that is within a few miles from our hotel. They are very friendly people and a couple has already volunteered to pick us up for services. Amber saw someone she thought looked familiar who turned out to be the granddaughter of a teacher of her boys and someone who I knew when I was growing up in Kingsburg, CA. Then Lee and I ran into someone who was related to a friend from the Edmond church we attended in OK. Truly a small world after all. The hotel here has gas grills on its court yard that they allow the guests to use. We cooked hamburgers last night and we will probably BBQ again tonight. There is also a little basketball/tennis court that one of the boys played on while we cooked. Lee took him back out to play some more after we ate. Lee is working today but the rest of us are going to Legoland. I'm not real sure what a Legoland is, but I think it is a mini Disneyland. The boys are really excited. I am going to be really tired since I woke up at 3:30 this morning. Blessing to all

Trip to San Diego

The trip to San Diego was an adventure. The bookings were done for us because we would not have picked a 6;55 departure. It turned out that the time changed on that same Sunday. That made us lose an extra hour. We ended up getting up at 3:00 am in order to get to the airport two hours before and that made for a really long day. Getting through airport security was a bit like going through a maze. I appreciate and understand the need for the security but I question some of their reasoning. They checked our boarding passes twice within 150 feet from each request. I had one bag with all my prescription drugs, narcotics and all and they never hesitated. In the second bag I made sure I had only three 3 oz bottles of liquid. Everything else was in cream form. They sniffed and ran that bag three times. We went to Denver first. We were extremely blessed there. It was about an hour between flights and it turned out we arrived and departed only one gate over. I was pretty happy I didn't have to walk from one end to the other for the next flight. Lee slept through both flights. It wasn't a deep sleep, but sleep non the less. We arrived in SD about 9:55 am. Our hotel does not run shuttles to the airport so we had to take a cab. The cab driver must have thought he was in the Indy 500. Every corner and curve Lee and I would be slung up against one side or the other. I checked behind us to see if the border patrol was hot on our tails. The man never said one word the whole trip but he knew how to say cash only, $56. OUCH! There is more than one reason why we never call a cab. The hotel room is really nice and the location is really good. It is a two room suit. We have a stove top, microwave, dishwasher, coffee pot, toaster, dishes, silver ware, pots and pans, free washers and dryers, etc. They feed you breakfast every morning and on Tue, Wed, and Thurs. they feed you dinner. So far it has been pretty tasty. There is a small strip mall next to our hotel with several eating places. There are as many foreign food places as American. Tia, Indian, and lots of oriental foods. Lee and I went into one BBQ place. Turned out not to be Southern BBQ but some kind of oriental BBQ. The side dish was rice. The meat tasted good but it was as tough as a leather shoe. There is an area where you can sit at outdoor tables. We were eating our tough meat and a lady walked buy with a little chow dog on a leash. Lee said, you better hold on to that dog tight lady (not within her hearing). The majority of people living in this area are Orientals and Middle Eastern. We found a church that we think will be along our conservative southern beliefs (no instruments). They were supposed to pick us up Wed but no one showed up. It was a short notice however. It is about six miles away. They may have a difficult time finding someone in our area that is willing to commit to picking someone up for six weeks. We will not have a car unless we rent it which we probably will do a couple week ends. I have a sister that lives in Hanford, CA and she will be down here today. Her and one of her daughters and her kids will be here about a week so you may not hear much from me next week. However, my body has not adjusted yet to the time changes and I usually wake up early and do these blogs. Happy trails to you until we meet again! You youngins won't know where I dug that up from. Blessings to all

OOPS

I oopsed on the time. I'm not sure I will ever get this right. I will have to reverse what I have attempted to learn when we get to Kwaj. With me being confused already....it should be fun. The time is 18 hours ahead of us (central time). That would make them 6 hours behind us, plus one day. If it is 9:00 am (central) it will be 3:00 am the next day in Kwaj. At least until Lee tells me I did it wrong again. Of course, that is the only time I have ever been wrong. When my family picks themselves off the floor.....and if God doesn't blow this blog up, we can all move on. We only had two weeks to get as many things gone through as possible before they came in to move us. I spent the first week shopping for things I thought would not be available on Kwaj. The second week I threw out stuff and gave away stuff as fast as I could. With my Fibromyalgia the week of shopping pretty much took every bit of energy I could muster. I would go through something until I could not stand it anymore and rest a few minutes and go through something else. We were attempting to separate everything that we wanted to take to Kwaj and what went to storage. We had been told stories of people getting to Kwaj and not ending up with what they needed. I know at one point they had the dinning room table on the Kwaj shipment and Lee caught it. Stay tuned, I'll let you know how it turns out. I know one thing for sure, KRS is paying for an awful lot of junk being stored for two years. We will deal with it when we get back. The first day the moving company only sent one lady to start packing us. She was a buzz saw! She almost got all of our Kwaj shipment packed and about half the kitchen in the first day. Lee was outside loading up things to take to a charity when she came to the door the first time. He pretty much had the back of the pick up loaded. She came into the house and he came behind her. He told her I'll have the back end of this pick up loaded and we can load it straight onto the trailer (we weren't storing any vehicles). Her eyes got real big and she started fumbling through some of her papers on her clip board. He let her fumble for a minute and told her he was just kidding. If we end up with things we intended for storage, we all know why. We gave our car to Gina and Damon and the pick up to Damon's parents who were without a working vehicle. Lee said our new names are Carless and Homeless. It is the first time in forty years Lee has been without a car. Ellis is buying our home for rental property. The good news is no payments, insurance, gas ($3.57 in CA), oil, tires, up keep and repairs, or property taxes, just to name a few. Carless and Homeless in San Diego signing off. More about San Diego next time. Blessing to all!

The Beginning

I never dreamed I would have a blog, but here we go. I have no idea what I am doing so I will change things as I learn. A word of warning.....I am not good at writing, spelling English, etc. so this will be hard on those who are prone that way. I is what I is, age spots and all. For those who have not heard, Lee & I are in San Diego, CA where Lee is training for about 6 weeks . He will be working on Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands (also known as Kwaj) on Xerox copy machines for a company called KRS that hires contractors to work for two years on the island. That is located south and mostly west of Hawaii. It is 5 1/2 flying hours from Hawaii or half way between Hawaii and Guam. The Island is 3 miles long and 1/2 mile wide. Not very big. There are no Wal-Marts (it would take up to much land) but there is a grocery, short stop and department store. The only vehicles are official cars and trucks used by the Army. Everyone has to walk, ride a bike or catch the bus that runs mostly during morning, afternoon and evening comute to their homes and work. There is a hospital with five doctors on the island. Their insurance is only a fraction of the cost we had before. Lee has been looking at this for about 3-4 years and it has finally opened up. Everything is furnished except our food and personal expenses. There is a gym, racket courts, golf course, swimming pools, tennis courts, snorkeling, deep sea diving, deep sea fishing and other things to do. We do not even eat fish, but I'm sure we will learn to do some of those things and eat some of the fishy foods. The hardest thing has been leaving the family and especially the grand daughters behind. We hate that part. I am in full blown Julianna withdraw. We love and miss you all! Our new address on Kwaj will be: Lee & Avis (our last name) US Army Kwajalein Atoll PO Box 1652 APO, AP 96555 We will have a regular land line telephone but I do not know that number yet. There are no cell phones on the island. Kwaj is 18 hours (central time)ahead of the US. So it is tomorrow there. If you count six hours ahead or behind your time and if you are in the am they will be in the pm. Or another way to say it, if it is 9:00 am here it is 3:00 pm tomorrow there. Kwaj is past the date line. Lee's work week will be Tues-Sat. which is the states Mon-Fri. He gets Sun & Mon off. That's a start on my blogging for now. I'll tell a little about our moving experiences and San Diego next. If anyone has any suggestions on some improvments or experiences on blogging, let me know. Blessings to all.