Fri Feb 7th – Wed Feb 19th - Settling in and healing

Fire lit for Karaoke night

A quick review of our first 12 days in Austin. The first day was spent getting water hooked up to discover a leak in the toilet… so after his usual thorough examination and research, Derek pin-pointed the faulty valve and went out to North Austin to get a replacement from a place that claimed to have sold 100 so far this year (guess this model of toilet doesn’t take well to cold weather… note to self!!!) The first Saturday we attended the usual Karaoke night at the Freddy Powers Pavillion in the RV park and reconnected with Lisa and Mike who we met and became friends with last year. No we didn’t sing… admired the bravery of others. It was great to see them and catch up on all the news and meeting their new grandson Brody… cute as a button.
Although we are in Texas, Janice is still not too keen on venturing out as the hand/wrist is still pretty painful. But Derek has managed a couple of golf games with a large bunch of people from the Park who have formed a regular golf group. He had a great couple of days and his golf was pretty good. We have not been taking many photos as we really haven’t been out exploring much… hopefully over the next few weeks.

Lisa- "The Wind Beneath my Wings"

Amazing Brisket and smoked chicken.

Red white and blue retirement from Military

   The second weekend we had a fun and busy time. Valentines day on Friday was spent relaxing, and in the evening we went to the Valentines dinner and dance here at the resort. Lots of fun with Lisa and Mike and a few others from the park. Very well attended. The following night we had been invited by another friend from last year to his retirement party … he had gone to great trouble to fly his whole family in and many of his Army friends were there to give him a ‘roasting’. It was a ‘red white and blue’ evening with a great meal of smoked chicken, brisket and lots of sides… yum… After the meal the ‘roast’ happened and we were all entertained with stories of his life, both as a family man and a warrant officer and his 39 years of army service… wow!! Quite the character, lots of laughs and a few tears. Karaoke afterwards with dancing… and even the two of us managed a valiant ‘rock n’ roll’ (very carefully)!!!

Retiree Travis (Center) with his Dad.

Mike... let the good times roll!!

As a ‘valentines’ gift for Janice, Derek booked for her to go to see a hand/wrist orthopedic specialist here in Austin, so we went on Tuesday… what a great gift… After x-rays the Dr. spent well over 15 minutes examining her hand carefully explaining the injuries and showing us the 4... yes! 4 breaks in the radius and 2 in the ulna… also explaining that the ligament in the thumb has taken quite a beating. He injected cortisone into her wrist and has given her a 6-day course of Prednisone and arranged for a physio appointment for the next day (today). Janice finally feels like she knows what is going on and what to expect (a long recovery!).
Today (Feb 19th) we drove back to the office for the physio session, and although we were not uber-impressed with the physiotherapist, she was quite thorough and we left armed with many pages of exercises and good explanations of what we can expect. It has been a quiet couple of weeks here, much of it spent with general chores, cleaning the rig, reading and visiting friends in the park… but it has been good to kick back especially as it has warmed up radically since last week … 75-80f most days… but variable. Just nice to be in shorts and t’s…

Head table - Listening to the 'roasting'

Looking forward to catching the USA/Canada Olympic women’s hockey final tomorrow … GO CANADA….  we are surrounded by Americans but we are known as 'the Canadians' in the park.. so I am sure no one will mind our enthusiasm. 
We will try to keep the blog up to date from now on... but maybe once a week until we resume our major adventures.