Focht Family Blog

Last Friday we made it back to Statesboro. We haven’t done much this time around so I haven’t taken any pictures. Monday was my father-in-law’s birthday so we went to their house to celebrate. The children are enjoying seeing Nathan’s parents and Samantha has enjoyed seeing her friend Lyndsay again. She asks to play with her everyday so most days after her schoolwork is done and Lyndsay is home from school she is up at the office playing until dinner time. We will leave on Tuesday and head to Disney for our first two weeks of mouse time this year!! We will be there for Halloween again and already have our tickets for Halloween night for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. We will also be there for my birthday again. I am looking forward to being back at Fort Wilderness!! :)

We decided to change the sofa a bit while we were in Pennsylvania….

We decided that we needed more storage space and that the hide away bed doesn’t get much use…

Now we have lots of useable space! :)

After Indianapolis we drove to Charlotte, Michigan to go to Spartan for service. We figured since we had so many miles on our RV we should have the chassis checked out. They have a special inspection where they go over everything. We also needed an oil change on the engine and the generator. Since our service wasn’t until Monday we used the weekend to unwind a bit. The kids wanted to play with their new cars so they made good use of the big empty parking lot….

Charlotte is only about 30 minutes from Lansing, where I was born, so Sunday we spent some time driving around looking at all the places my parents lived and built. I wanted to drive by Sparrow Hospital since it is still there. It is the hospital that I was born in. Mom says it is a lot bigger than it was back then…

We drove by the student house that my parents managed at Michigan State University but it is now a parking lot for the police station that used to be across the street. Here is a picture of one of the first houses my parents built. It is actually for sale….

Then we drove by an apartment complex that my parents built. Here is a picture of a couple of the buildings…

I think my mom was enjoying the drive down memory lane. That night we went to dinner with old family friends, Al and Dorothy Hitchcock. They are semi retired from a family owned trucking business. My dad used to drive for them way back when. Here is my mom with Al and Dorothy…

Monday morning they took the RV in for service. Everything checked out great. Since I didn’t want the kids to run around crazy in the office my mom and I took them to the zoo and the science museum in Lansing.

Newmar was wonderful as usual with the exception of the alarm clock going off WAY too early. We arrived at Newmar on Monday and Tuesday morning bright and early the crew came to get the RV. Thankfully they were able to find some of the electrical problems although Nathan still thinks it is drawing too much. However they found an engine block heater that has been plugged in for 2 years that we never knew we had. The block heater draws 8 amps at all times. The other thing that they found was that one of the chassis batteries was dead so the charger was constantly running trying to charge it. Hopefully our last two weeks at Shenango will be more affordable now! :)

While the RV was being worked on we did our best to keep the kids entertained. Here are the kids at the big playground in Nappanee.

We also invaded Nathan’s peace and quiet a few times because we found out that they have DISH in the waiting room where dogs are allowed and the kids wanted to have more cartoons to watch than the PBS that mom could get with her antennae. Here is Josh lounging out watching TV.

Here is Timmy watching TV while my mom is immersed in her book.

For those of you who read this who also go to Newmar for service, you will be glad to see that Newmar has installed 3 washers & 3 dryers in the high line waiting room (open to all/pets allowed). They even have a laundry detergent dispenser and a change machine.

I can’t let anyone know how the machines worked because our resident laundress, my mom, said that it was still cheaper to drive to the laundry by the Pizza Hut so we went there to do our laundry while in Nappanee.

After the RV service was done we stayed one more day so we could do some shopping. We made our usual stop at the Little Nook Bookstore and we also went to the Farmer’s Market but we were disappointed to find that most of the stalls were empty. We thought it might be because of the bad economy but one of the stores I purchased from said it was because they have recently opened on Wednesday as well so when they increased the days it was opened for a lot of the stalls were being run by people who had other obligations for their Wednesdays so they are in the process of getting new people in. Here are the kids posing with a pig statue that they liked.

Saturday we drove from Nappanee to Indianapolis so Nathan could attend a user conference. Updates from Indy to follow…

Friday at lunch we made it back to our beautiful deck at Shenango Valley RV Park. All the kids had to go immediately to see Ms. Debbie and Mr. Dale (the owners) to say hello. They were glad to be back for a couple of days. We have spent the 3 days back for Labor Day weekend changing our decor over to fall, cleaning a little, and playing a lot! The kids have spent everyday at the activities and also playing at the playgrounds and the pool with their friends. I think they are a little upset that we are leaving again tomorrow morning! :(

Tomorrow morning we leave for Newmar. We will be having repairs done this next week. Something is pulling too much electric on the RV. Last month we beat the record at Shenango for the highest electric bill in their history. Somehow I don’t think that is the kind of award I want to win. :)