Thursday, Feb 13th

A nice day in the valley.  The sun warmed the day up to about 66 F or 19 C.  Marg had a load of laundry in first thing this morning.  It was bedding so we took it down to the laundromat when it finished, to put in the dryer.
  We went to the coffee klatch this morning and it was a packed house.  People seem to be turning out in numbers lately.  Donuts were free again and our table was picked second, that's about as good as it gets.  The elections were announced for the association and the slate of candidates were acclaimed as usual.  In the 12 years we have been here we have only seen one year where there was an election held.  About midway through the coffee meeting Marg had me go out to check on the dryer.  Sure enough it was all dry so I put it all in the basket and took it out to the golf cart.  It seems I forgot one thing and never cleaned the lint filter.  Marg had a meeting of the entertainment committee after coffee so I went back to our place with the laundry basket.
  When Marg got back she had some things to do around here, so I went out, first to the bank where I bought rolls of dimes for each of the kids and one for us.  Then I went on to the Mexican barber and she cut my hair.  This was my 3rd trip to her this winter and she does a nice job with it.
  When I got back we had a bite to eat and I did some research for jokes to tell at the animal races then took my golf stuff out of the Az room and the truck box.  Marg dealt with a myriad of things from the laundry basket to the meeting and clean up from lunch.  By then it was just about time to leave for the airport.  We made pretty good time getting there, but traffic around the airport was heavy.  I dropped Marg off at a door, then circled the terminal to get back to the oversize lot where I left the truck.  It took a bit of time to get back to the terminal building, then up to the second level arrival doors.  We thought we had about a half hour, but to our surprise within minutes of getting there the grandchildren ran up to us.  It seems their plane was almost a half hour early.
  It took a long time for luggage to come out and when it did they switched the carousel, so we had a bit of running around.  Once the monitor showed the luggage was loading I went out to get the truck and pay for parking.  By the time I circled the terminal to the agreed on door, they were all there with the luggage.  Traffic getting out of the airport on to the 202 was very heavy, bumper to bumper.  It was complicated by a wreck in the curb lane about a mile or so down the 202.  I managed to get over to the HOV lane and then things went well. 
  We got to the golden Corral a little after 4 and it was packed.  Who would have thought all those people were eating so early.  It went pretty quickly and the kids were famished by the time we sat down.  It was a good choice because they got fed quickly.

  From there it was back to our place where they unloaded their luggage.  Then they went exploring around the park on the golf cart.  When they got back they knew where everything was including how warm the pool felt.  They said everyone seemed so nice and were waving at them. 

It wasn't too long before it was time to go to the animal races.  Each of the kids had a roll of dimes.  Kassidy & Kennedy did pretty well, Daniel only had a couple of winners.  A fun evening.