A flight, a really short visit, some shopping, and . . . .

On Friday Sharen and hubby Jack, as well as Keith and I, headed north - not to Alaska - but it might as well have been!  It was the coldest weekend on record in Orlando.  But we braved it - Had a great ride up, and stopped at Keith's favorite pit stop, the Lone Cabbage at Coco.  We had lunch and watched for gators.  Since it was so cold, we were totally out of luck for this trip!  Sharen and I had stopped before and this is where Ladaria, Brayana, and I took the air boat ride when they came out to visit a few years ago.

We made our way to Orlando and Sharen came up with a wonderful place to visit on this really cold night.  So we found our way, I love my Tomtom!,  to Gaylord Palms Resort where we toured the atriums.  There is an atrium for each of the seperate venues in the great state of Florida.  Key West, St. Augustine, Emerald Bay,  and the Everglades are featured in an amazing array of live plants, foggy bottoms, calypso music, live alligators and even a statue of Hemmingway gracing the banks of one ot the many koi ponds.  I could probably have toured for hours - but flights don't wait and the Rea's had an early one.

We had a good flight to Seattle.  Our flight was a bit late arriving at DFW so we had very little of a wait before taking off again.  Sweet S'te met us, timed absolutely perfectly, and took us back to thier home to spend a day before heading down to peruse the water damage.

On the day we were to leave, she and I decided to go window shopping.  at Lowes.  I was looking for replacement ideas for the damaged items and ended up with 4 new exterior doors (I said I was going to get a new front door someday!) and 3 storm doors.  We will be the best dressed house on the dirt road! LOL

So, then Keith and S'te had to take the pick up down and load the doors, that, of course, didn't fit just quite right, and it was pouring rain, and the doors had to be wrapped in plastic, and then we had to put our luggage on top of the plastic, and, guess what!  It all worked out wonderfully.  When we stopped at Woodburn for the night, I backed the pickup right up to a fence - so all was safe and hunky dory!

We made it safely to Coos Bay and saw some of the water damage, and then some more damage, and smelled the dank mold, and I am still trying hard to keep a cheerful thought in my head.  So the meetings with the contractor are done, the insurance adjuster meeting is over and she has all sorts of lists, receipts, and pictures, and I've spent my days on web sites trying to find the really neat things that we saw at Lowes in Bremerton.

Yesterday saw Tim hustling around and getting one of his doors hung.  I love the look of a window'd door.  They look so much more inviting than the solid styles.  So one of those doors is already up!  Yay!  and last night S'te and I shopped together.  Between us (mostly her) most of the items that I liked were found and are now on a list waiting for the contractor to approve before sending it off.

So a full week has already gone by - and I've still got loads to do before we head back out!