2006

2006 was a fun year.   We started the year with a trip to Bryan, Texas, where Dick's cousin Margaret
was living.     We enjoyed being a part of Uncle Ben's 98th birthday party, and whereas we normally stayed with Margaret on these visits, there was so many relatives coming in for the party that Margaret and Ben had paid for us to all stay at the local Hampton Inn, which was VERY nice.

It was my turn to go to Britain again, and this time met up with Mair in London and spent a great time being shown some new sites again by our nephews that have always been so wonderful to us and so generous.     Among the highlights was Moltisfont Abbey:

A beautiful country home with magnificent gardens.    It is owned by the National Trust now and open to the public.

I had been to Hampton Court before (on the Thames), but it had been some time (actually when I went with Debbie in the early 1980's).     The magnificence of these rooms is amazing.

Martyn took us down the docks at Southhampton and wanted us to go up the new tower built there had has a glass-floored balcony at the top, but both Mair and I chickened out and finally convinced Martyn, that we would both be on our knees and he would have to carry us both down!!     I was really interested in the fact that our brother Gerald who was in the Royal Navy, did his submarine training here.    If you look at the picture just right of the middle you will see a square building.    That is a tall (deep) water tank where they trained how to escape from a sub under water.

Salisbury Cathedral was awesome and it was the first time I saw the original Magna Carta document that our legal system is based on.

The timing of this trip was so that Mair and I could attend the wedding of Ian and Liz.    It was a second marriage for Liz, but our nephew Ian in his late forties had never married.     Their wedding and reception was a spectacular affair held in one of the ancient manors.

Mair, Kitty and I thoroughly enjoyed being together and here we are singing a song from an old radio show,   "Enoch, Ramsbottom and Me".

40 years of marriage for us and we attended the wedding of Katrina's youngest, Joe and Debbie:

This year Dick started to really slow down and was experiencing a big problem with his hip.    Taking care of our property and acreage was quite a job, and he knew he would have problems building the house we had planned for the back of the property (to go with the garage already built), so we made the decision to follow up on something we had talked about for years and that was to 'retire to a condo on a golf course'.    I went on the web, we drove to a few that interested us and eventually settled on the Falconhead Golfing Community in southern Oklahoma, just 1/2 mile from the Texas border.    We made the deal, sold our single-wide and moved around New Year.

I'm sure these neighbors missed him terribly.    They had shown up at our house twice a day, to get their 'treats' from Dick and often just stayed hanging around with him:

   

2005

2005 started in one of the most difficult times we had gone through, in losing all four of our dogs in the space of about three months.    It was incredible.    First Willie (17) became totally 'lost' and 'confused' and as a result very afraid;  Samantha suddenly couldn't walk and was obviously miserable.    Emma became very ill, and finally Pedro died of a broken heart in losing all his friends.    He simply gave up and wouldn't move, eat or drink.

I hope you are able to read this poem.    It was sent to us by the vet who helped us pass them on to their next life.    Either Dick or I held them while they gently went to sleep.

Mair came again to visit us and she and I visited some of the local area, including the Spiro Mounds, where the ancient indians had lived.

Other than that, our whole year was devoted to building a spec house on the other part of our property.
We had the concrete poured, but Dick did ALL the carpenter work with the exception of the roof, and did all the electric and plumbing throughout.     I did the insulation, inside painting and some wallpapering.    We did have the sheetrock put up, but Dick did all the finishing.     He also laid the tile in the entry, kitchen and utility and bathrooms.     We had the carpet laid.     And hired the outside painting, the roof and brick outside.     The most amazing thing though is that Dick built this house WITHOUT any plans.     He simple did the whole thing from the plan he had in his head.

This was the front of the house.

The side of the house showing the deck coming out from the french doors in the dining area.

And the rear view of the house and deck.     It sold very quickly.    Actually it sold the morning after we gave the realtor the listing, but unfortunately they ended up not qualifiying for the loan, but nevertheless it was still a fast sale.

2004

2004 was mostly about building.     We didn't do anything major on the home place, except to get rid of two years of weeds and junk on the outside and bring the landscaping up to snuff again.

Dick's main effort was the house in Heavener - the one that was burned out.    If you remember the photos from the previous blog, you will see the transformation of the little bathroom:

and the living room.     We had to remove the fireplace that shows up on the prior photo.     The floor was damaged and the fireplace had actually fallen down slightly into a hole.

I was especially proud of the kitchen.     It was such an unbelievable mess that I never could have envisioned that we could make it look like this:

There wasn't too much to do on the outside, but Dick did put a couple of decks on it - a small one at the back and this one at the front.    The door led directly into the kitchen.

When we had Heavener finished, Dick turned his attention to the back of our property where we had decided to build ourselves a new home.     It had a great view of the hill.     He built the garage first  - a three car garage:

I did make a trip to England again.     Mair and I stayed with nephew Ian first and were joined by Kitty.   She stayed with us for our full trip and we stayed with Gareth and Jane in Southport and also Sarah and kids in the north.  For me it was the best trip I took in view of the places we visited.     Winchester Cathedral was one of the first, a magnificent builting seeped in history.    It houses the oldest existing bible in the world and we were privileged to see it.     It's a long story on how that happened as it is isn't open to general viewing, but we happened to get talking with one of the curators of the Cathedral and I think she was impressed with the knowledge that all three of us had on English history (especially Kitty), so she took us to see it.

I personally was fascinated withe stained glass windows at the front of the cathedral.    It was spectacular and yet didn't have the usual obvious depictions of saints, and biblical happenings.     It had the look of modern art.     I asked our 'guide' and it seems that when Oliver Cromwell was in power (the only time England was without a king or queen), he declared 'war' on all of the catholic churches and his 'army' went into them and caused enormous damage.     This particular window was smashed into tiny pieces.     The pieces were kept and later created into this wonderful mass of color.

While we were in Southhampton, Martyn was our main guide (the oldest of Kitty's children).     He was retired Royal Navy and still worked on the Naval Yards.    He took us on a tour of Nelson's ship which was fascinating, and also to 'work in progress' on the "Mary Rose".     This ship was Henry VIII's flagship which had been sunk.    It was discovered by divers and raised.    They are now working on it to restore it to its original condition.     We were able to walk along a platform in the building where this is taking place and see it in its recovered form.

Ian took us to Hever Castle - that was a special request from me.     Hever Castle was the home of the Boleyn family and Thomas Boleyn was part of King Henry VIII's court.    Mary and Anne Boleyn were raised in this house.     Mary Boleyn was the first of Henry's mistresses and bore one of his children.    But it was Henry's later passion for Anne that led to his break with the catholic church because they wouldn't allow him to divorce his first wife.     Thus the Church of England was established with Henry at its head and Anne became wife number 2.     My special interest in this family, is because Dick (and subsequently most of you readers) are descendents of Mary Boleyn and her husband (after the affair with Henry).

Later in the year Dick and I took a trip to California for Debbie's graduation (Masters degree in speech pathology)

and to go the 55th class reunion of Caruthers High.    Claydean is with us on this picture.