HOME IMPROVEMENT

 We had never finished the underside of the porches at our rental, so we under took this project on these HOT summer days.

 With the break Larry was able to make a lot of the pieces we needed.

 After three days of work we finished the side and front porch just before a thunderstorm. Luckily we didn't have the hail and high winds for the storm went west of us. The last piece is always a challenge.

 Now to the upstairs porch.

 Being up on the scaffolding was a little scary, but most of the time Larry was the one on it.

 Finished at last, upstairs and down.

 On Friday we moved to Hershey Thousand Trails. Larry's parents live close so for the last two days we have worked on fixing their porches.

 We replaced the railing and painted the  back porch.

 We spent one day preparing the porches- sweeping ,scraping and washing them down.

 The front porch painted, flaked and finished!

 I got this puzzle for 99 cents at the Goodwill shop. It took me many evening to put it together, at least I was inside in nice cool air conditioning working on it.

STORM

 Before leaving Delaware we traded our Outlook and purchased a 2011 Travers.

 It was very crowded at Circle M for the 4th of July. We had to wait on Sunday for someone to leave to get a site. We had a nice 4th of July at my sister's with my son cooking shrimp and burgers on the grill. On Friday my sister came up to spend a few days with us. The weather has been very hot and on Saturday evening we had a strong storm. Many tents and easy ups were blown over, but Larry had ours tied to the picnic table. We watched it lift up and down but it held fast.

The storm lasted less then an half hour but we lost our electricity during it. When we went outside we saw large limbs had fallen from the tree behind us. They just missed our car, the fifth wheel parked by the tree and a tent.

 We soon heard sirens and saw fire trucks in the camp ground. We saw a tree on a cabin below where we were parked, but we think it was empty, so no one was hurt.

 The next day we walked around and realized how much damage had occurred. These are the cabins before the golf course when you drive in.

 Two women were trapped in this cabin when the tree fell on it. We heard 5 or 7 people went to the hospital from the campground.

Two days later this tree still closed this road down to the lower campground, although saws have been going ever since the storm. We didn't have electricity from the time of the storm. Since they weren't sure when the electric would be back on, Sunday afternoon they told us we could leave or stay. We can dry camp for a few days with no problem, so we chose to stay, but my sister decide to go home. We had given her enough excitement. We did get electricity at 10 Sunday night.  Slowly people are starting to come back ino the campground and it should be back in full service by this weekend.

FUN WITH GRANDSONS

 We headed north to stop at Killens Pond State Park in Delaware. Larry has decided we have out grown state parks, even though the site was long enough for our rig, it was really hard manuving some of the roads and the dump station.

  Saturday Larry's son Brian brought his boys to camp with us for the week.  My son, Bob drove down on Sunday for the day and we all went kayaking.

 After all that exercise we fed them a healthy meal of ice cream.

 Chase had to have Grandpa help finish his half gallon. Brady ate it all!

 We took  a 3 mile hike around the pond the next day.

 The weather was really hot and one day we cooled off at the water park that is on the other side of the pond.

 We took a day trip to Delaware beaches, Cape Henlopen and Rehoboth. Brady did the 15 year olds thing of getting a tan, Chase dug a hole and I buried him in the sand.

 After being buried it was a good thing Chase loves the water.

 Even with the temperature in the 90's we had to have a cook out for a hot dog dinner.

Thursday we went to  the Air Mobility Command Museum at  Dover Air Force Base.

 We got a guide to show us around but it was so hot most of the airplanes were closed.

 We got to go inside this one and our guide even took us into the cockpit and showed us where he use to sit when he flew this plane.

 There is an old air control tower we were allowed to go in. Some C-5 planes were practicing taking off and landing. Those planes are huge.

CAMP OCCOHANNOCK

 This is where we were parked from June2 to June 22 while we worked with the NOMADS at Camp Occohannock in Belle Haven, VA. A beautiful view, but our Verizon had very poor service so I have been out of touch with everyone. I haven't been able to get my pictures to post until today, so here is an update.

 Our crew was small but we got a lot accomplished in the three weeks. Don  on the left and his wife Mary were the leaders.Some of you may recognize Mary because she taught with me at Octorara School. Bob rounded out our group.

 The dining hall was our main project. We scraped, cleaned and painted it, inside and out.

 The floor was the big challenge.  It had to be cleaned and degreased before we could paint.

 Larry worked a lot harder putting the paint on then this picture shows.

 I had the fun job of being the flake fairy and sprinkling the flakes on the paint.

It was epoxy paint we were using.. It had to be mixed,  sit for 30 minutes and then used within two hours. We used 6 cans and when we were done the dining hall floor we had a lot left over so we did the nurses room and the entrance porch to the residency. It was a long hard day's work, but the results look great.

 Larry and Bob worked a few days repaneling the shower stall in one of the bathrooms.

 Now to the outside of the building. Bob had power washed it all one day, then I even got into the act.

 But it was back to the scraper to get that chipped and peeling paint off. I scraped window frames, floors and wall!

 We primed and painted the walls and then there were the doors. The metal doors were sanded, primed and then painted. I think there were 14 of them!

 The day before we left we tackled the window frames on the residency house, where Jerry the camp director lives. Thanks heavens Bob was getting very fast with a paint brush. The last two days were very hot and we were wilting.

 We had fun on the weekends exploring the area. To commemorate the War of 1812 and the Star Spangle Banner the tall  ships were in at Cape Charles, so we went and enjoyed the festivities.

 The next weekend we took a boat to Tangier Island. We even got to ride in the cabin with the captain. It was an hour and half boat trip. Going over wasn't too bad but coming home was quite choppy.

 You have to go to Tangier by boat and there are only a few cars on the island. It was an interesting island to visit. Another way of life that is slowly disappearing.

Our last night we went to the Island House Restaurant and had  another delicious seafood dinner. Bob spent every free minute he had crabbing and fishing. He was ready for a chicken dinner. We were glad that Jerry the camp director was able to join us for dinner.