10/14/08 An exciting Tuesday here because our friends, Mike & Marilyn Harrison arrived in their RV to spend the next two weeks with us! They are now parked on site 402 which is located in front of us and about 50 yards away. Of course, the first thing we had to do when they were set up was go over to see their redecoration job. It is FABULOUS! They did it all themselves, except for the new carpet installation. They even recovered the couch and the dinette seats and made matching pillows. Amazing. I will try to get some pictures of the inside and post them in the next few days.
This past weekend we drove down to San Diego to stay with Elaine's son, Darran, and his girlfriend, Marielle. Here is a picture of them with Elaine:

The reason we went was to attend the wedding of our friends Kathy and Sally on Saturday. Friday night Darran had to work so we took Marielle out to dinner at a Thai restaurant and got to know her a lot better. We think she is delightful, and a perfect match for Darran. Saturday morning we took them both out for breakfast and then had a nice walk along the boardwalk and over to the walkway along Mission Bay. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was great to be along the ocean. There were some guys there building a huge sand castle, and I didn't have a camera along so I took a picture with the phone. Not such a good one but you can get the idea.

Darran has worked on this same beach for a crew filming a TV show called Sandblasters where they have teams which build wonderful and huge sand sculptures and then they draw numbers to see which ones get blown up. Kathy and Sally's wedding was held at the beautiful new home of their friends Bridget and Sylvia in Escondido. There were about 20 people there and the ceremony was held out by the pool. Kathy's daughter had flown in from Idaho, and Sally's daughter and her family came from Santa Cruz, and her son and wife live nearby. Their best friends, Dan & Peter, were able to marry them because they had obtained a one day license from the state to do so.

The wedding vows were excellent and we asked them for a copy in case we wanted to use part of it for our upcoming wedding. Kathy and Sally did such a great job and seemed so happy through the whole event. After the ceremony there was a catered meal and the Hawaiian pork was absolutely delicious. Of course, lots of wine was flowing, and perhaps Brian had too much because right in the middle of eating, he jumped right into the pool! It would have been more understandable if it hadn't been a pretty cold day and the pool wasn't heated. It was so cold that Elaine and I were wearing our leather jackets! So everyone adjourned to the kitchen where coffee and cake were served. The cake was 2 tiered and was spice cake on top and lemon cake on the bottom. Yum. It was really fun to meet all of Kathy and Sally's friends, and see their kids again. We always have a fun time when we are with them, and wish that we could have had more personal time with them this weekend too; but they had other things on their minds!
Sunday we bought food at the market and cooked eggs Benedict at Darran & Marielle's apartment before starting our long drive back to Park Sierra. Haven't had that for breakfast for ages and it was delicious! Another sunny day and the drive back was uneventful and comfortable. We were back at our rig by 5 PM. Of course, we immediately were invited to our neighbors, the Rodely's, for Happy Hour because they had a visitor they wanted us to meet. It was Margaret, an English friend they have known for about 30 years, I think. Our other neighbor, Jeanne Taylor, was there too. What a wonderful neighborhood we have here!
Yesterday the big event was that we were meeting Diana Bohn, the Methodist minister who will be marrying us, for dinner in Fresno. The intent was to go over our vows and for her to coach us a bit on what should happen at the wedding. We met her at BJ's Alehouse and Restaurant on Shaw Ave. where we had eaten once before and loved both the food and the beer. This time the beer was still excellent but the rack of ribs and the baked potato were a bit disappointing. They have a huge and varied menu and we would recommend them anyway.
This week there are lots of things going on here at Park Sierra because it is time for the annual meeting. So there will be a meeting Thursday, a dinner on Friday, a flea market in the parking lot on Saturday, and a breakfast on Sunday. Then the craziness leading up to our wedding on the 25th will start. We are getting lots of calls from people who are coming and also who are offering to help. It is shaping up to be a bigger event than we had thought, so we are packing our shed with cases of beer and wine and planning to buy lots of food at Costco to appease the masses.