We are back in Florida.
It was a great trip north even though I was fretting about missing the house construction for so long and fretting about Hurricane Irma going over our RV lot in the Florida Keys, our motorhome, and our new house in Leesburg, Florida. We were busy. I sang a couple of songs at a Bluegrass Jam that brother-in-law Tom goes to every Friday night. Sister Barbara put me up to it. On Saturday, we attended the wedding of Son Christopher’s childhood friend, Joey Cumberland at the Calvert Marine Museum. Christopher was the best man.
Here is the wedding venue. It was perfect weather for a wedding.
We had not met the bride so this was our first look at her.
You know how the kids who are in your house so much you begin to think of them as one of your own? Joey introduced me to some guests as his “other mother”.
My son Christopher is the tall one with the skinhead. Mama has not been able to convince him to grow his hair. He was an excellent best man.
On Sunday, Andy and I took Christopher up to Annapolis for a visit with his grandmother. At 93, she was having a good day and recognized us. She snuggled with Christopher the whole time.
We also stopped at the Naval Academy to visit Grandpa Moulton.
Fortunately, someone else drove Christopher to the airport on Monday morning so I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night for that. We drove up to Rockville, MD to visit Son Andrew and his family. Since they were all at work and school, we stopped to visit Laura Bender aboard Kindred Spirits at the Gangplank Marina in Wash. DC on the way. It sure was nice to sit on a boat again. We had a great visit, including a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant. Andy slipped and fell on (not off) the boat as we were leaving. By the time the kids came home from school, I decided that someone should have a look at Andy’s swollen knee. So we went to a local Urgent Care clinic rather than to watch baseball practice. The x-ray revealed no break. They put Andy in an “immobilizer” and prescribed elevation and ice.
On Tuesday, we went to visit Susan and Richard during the day. Richard is recovering nicely from open-heart surgery and was looking well and rosy, if not robust. It was not enough time to catch up with all the chatter Susan and I needed to accomplish. We returned to Sister Barbara’s house on Wednesday. She has started back to school, I think this is her last year of nursing school. On Thursday, we visited one of Daughter Jennifer’s childhood friends in Solomons. Kelly’s baby boy Liam is ten months old and as happy a baby as you are likely to meet. He loved Andy, as all children seem to do.
A highlight of the trip was my 50th high school reunion, which will require a separate post. I had so much fun squealing and hugging childhood friends. I talked about it for most of the drive back to Florida. We saw more than a hundred electric utility trucks heading north, their hurricane clean-up work done,
We drove straight to the house when we got back to Leesburg. There is a lawn, shrubbery, and some trees. And shutters, which I had not noticed until I got the pictures on the computer. There are also screens in the windows.
The sod is multi-colored. This is the west side of the house.
We have a house number.
And baseboards. It is beginning to look finished. There were two or three painters inside putting another coat of paint on the walls and touching up scuffs, chips, and scratches. The walls no longer look as blue.
The master bath has medicine cabinets and a mirror.
I watched two men install the glass on the shower stall.
We have a laundry tub and a dryer in the laundry room but there was no washer in sight.
We solved the mystery of a small PVC pipe sticking out of the outside wall of the garage. This is the irrigation system controller on the wall.
The guest bathroom also has a medicine cabinet and mirror.
The big excitement was in the kitchen. The dishwasher was installed, but I did not take a picture of it. The cabinet over the refrigerator finally got doors.
I have a stove with five, count ’em, five burners! I’ve been trying to cook four-burner dinners on three burner stoves for seventeen years and am beside myself with excitement.
Here is a better look with tiles on the wall behind.
The pantry has shelves. I can’t wait to get my food out from under the sofa in the motorhome.
Someone drilled a hole in the countertop for the sprayer, which is now under the sink.
The clouds were pretty across the golf course.
This will be a flower bed/ veggie garden. Notice the downed tree in the background, a victim of Irma.
My herb/kitchen garden has a little erosion from the hurricane rain. The small tree in the background looks dead to me. It is a dead Live Oak.
The misplaced outside electrical outlet has been removed.
We probably should not have been surprised to see a downed tree next to Sao in the RV park. It had been standing on a neighboring property. We were lucky, it fell between us and our neighbor.
Dinata Misovec 
Glad to hear from you. I was wondering how everything fared through the storm.
So glad Andy’s knee isn’t worse off.
Thanks for your post. Sharon
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I was wondering about you too. Do you know whether you’ll have a slip in Marathon this winter? There is a very good chance that we will not have an RV site. Our neighbor’s trailer is sitting on it and, with the hurricane, there is no telling when they’ll be able to get it back on their site. They are going to keep us posted. I feel so sorry for them, I can’t even fuss at them to get it moved.
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Relieved to finally be receiving updates again. T’was a long dry spell w/o construction updates. It’s looking good and looks ready to be moved into.
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Not much left to do at all!
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Oh Dinata, I am so excited for you! Your house is looking beautiful! And it has been so much fun watching the progress right along with you! Can’t wait to see all the finishing touches. 😊
Sent from my iPad
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Let us know when you are in the area and come get a live tour! Will you be coming to Florida this winter?
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Good to see you safely back, having had a great time it would seem. I’ve missed the house updates. Probably nowhere near as much as you have I bet. Hope Andy’s knee is well on the mend now.
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I did miss the house updates terribly! And, we were anxious about the hurricane too. We thought about hurricanes when looking for a place. That is why we chose inland with a high elevation rather than on the coast. It seems to have paid off this time.
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Glad your new house and motor home wern’t damaged. I viewed the NOAA aerial of the Keys and it looked like Marathon took a lot of damage. Have you talked to anyone about your lot? Sounds like you had a good time here in Maryland.
Wish us well. We leave tomorrow on our 50th anniversary nine days cruise out of Baltimore up the New England coast and on to Saint John /Bay of Fundy and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Hope Jose and Maria don’t mess with us. 😦
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Congratulations on fifty years!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you have a wonderful trip. It is beautiful up there.
There was a lot of damage in Marathon. I think most of the RVs in our park were either totaled or flooded. Some of them are simply gone. Most people I’ve heard from have had serious damage. Even if the house if fine, everything inside is ruined do to the storm surge.
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Dinata,
I have enjoyed so much seeing these pictures of Christopher and Joey Cumberland. These cute 5th grade kids do grow into handsome guys, don’t they, and it was nice to see them looking so happy. I enjoy the pics of Jennifer’s family when you have them too.
So, you are going to be living in a house for a change! That will be new and different. Hope all goes well.
Life is very good for me, in the active retirement community, Cypress of Charlotte, in Charlotte NC with my partner Tim Timson. I have recently undertaken the editorship of a newsletter here. I have never missed owning a house and like not having to cook too. The free lifestyle and easy companionship suit me well.
You were lucky on your RV. My niece’s vehicle was hit by a tree when she was in it, in Gaithersburg MD of all places, during the hurricane’s arc northeast as it waned. Fortunately, she was aft in the RV and the tree fell more forward. The RV was totaled however.
Would love to hear an update on Jennifer and Christopher.
Ruth
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Ruth!!! I am so glad to hear from you! I lost contact with you several years ago. I see that you don’t check Facebook very often! Is Cypress of Charlotte the place we visited with the Oreo sheep? I have lived so long in tight spaces that I really wanted a house again. I wanted acreage took but have settled for a small lot in a retirement community. I am looking forward to the kitchen as I like to cook. But, I am not a very good housekeeper and may tire of that in short order. Do stay in touch via blog comments or email. (dinata@gmail.com)
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You have been busy! What a great time with family and friends. I am glad that your motor home and new home were not damaged. It is looking lovely. Would love to have five burners!
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I was not thinking so much about five burners when I chose the stove. I picked the one with a”single” grate. It is actually in several pieces, but you can slide a pot all over the stove without tipping it off the burner. I have that on my little three-burner stove in the motorhome and it really comes in handy when a pot is about to boil over.
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For us, that is an unheard of house number
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If you are referring to the length of the number, I have had a longer one. I think it was 23550. There must have been some significance to the digits because the development certainly did not have that many houses in it.
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I was. 🙂
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Wow, what a trip! Wedding. Christopher. Grandmother. Andrew & family. Bunged up Andy knee 😛 50th HS reunion. You sure do know how to pack a lot into small spaces. Surprised that you had so much harm done from H-Irma. Glad Sao didn’t didn’t take a big hit from the fallen tree!
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About half of the Key RV sites have been wiped clean. The rest of the trailers were flooded. I don’t think anyone escaped disaster. ALL the contents of our shed are ruined. Patio furniture, grill, tools, Christmas lights, pressure washer, etc. The shed is still fine. Bikes are ruined. We still made out better than most.
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