August 30-31 & September 1-4, 2019 - Dean's Hometown of Garnett, KS

August 30-31 & September 1-4, 2019 - Visiting Dean's Hometown of Garnett, KS - Family Reunion, Visiting with Family and KC Trip to see Oswego Friends

Friday, August 30, 2019 

We left Salina at 9:32am and arrived at Garnett's North City Lake RV Park at 1:16pm.  We will be here for several days - first and foremost to attend a family reunion - Dean's mother's side of the family.  His mother's maiden name was Peters.  This will be the second reunion we have attended.  I remember some names from two years ago and I've friended a few.  Hopefully as time goes on I get to know them all better.

I reserved a site several weeks ago since this is Labor Day weekend.  I'm glad I did as by the weekend all of the sites were full.  Unfortunately we have a 30amp site (we had forgotten that's what they had here) and it was a challenge to remain comfortable with only one air conditioner running for the next six days. (Fortunately we had a few days of nicer temps).  In addition there is no sewer hookup here - but we can deal with that.  We can easily go a week using our holding tanks just by being careful with our water usage.

We needed to go to the grocery store, so once we were set up and we'd had lunch, that was next on our to do list.  Dean loves 4 layer dessert with butterscotch pudding.  That is the way my sister Crystal always makes it and it is also our family's favorite flavor versus chocolate.   I'll also make Mexican chicken casserole.  I haven't made it in a long time, and it's an easy dish.  

We stopped by Dean's older brother Larry's to visit with him and Sandi for an hour or so before we returned to the RV for the evening.  We were glad today was much cooler than the temperatures we've had the past several days.

After dinner, we watched a little TV and I made the crust for the dessert and then we were out for the night.


Saturday, August 31, 2019 - Peters Family Reunion

This morning I was up early as I had a lot to do.  I finished making the four layer dessert, then showered and straightened up a bit before I made the Mexican Chicken casserole.  We left for Richmond, KS (north of Garnett) a little after 10.  We are supposed to eat at 11.  Brett and Emilee were coming and planned to arrive a little early.  They were there when we pulled up.  We had a nice visit with many family members before everyone arrived and we could finally eat!!!  

Oh my goodness there was so much food.  It was a great afternoon and somewhere around 6-6:30 we finally headed back to Bentley.  We were stuffed having snacked on things off and on all afternoon and early evening.  We didn't need anything for dinner - but I think we did have a piece of 4 layer dessert before we went to bed.

Brett, Emilee and Tucker waiting to fill their plates.

This little cutie was sitting across from us - her name is Analyse.  Her dad is holding her, and the man behind her is her grandpa, Dennis Peters.  Dennis' dad (who is also deceased) was a brother to Dean's mom.  

Dean's immediate family that was in attendance
Front row, seated on floor:  Jerry & Marie (Peine) Brock's grandsons Roark, Reed and Ridge
Seated:  Roanna Brock (Keith's wife), Larry & Sandi Peine (Dean's brother and wife), Marie Brock (Dean's sister), and Christie Smith (Marie's daughter)
First row standing:  Keith Brock (Marie's son), Brock Clifton and his dad Aaron, and wife and mom Tracy (Brock) Clifton (Marie's daughter); Les Florentin (husband to Tara--Larry & Sandi's daughter); Emilee, Me, Jerry Brock (Marie's husband) with Connie Peine (Dale's wife - Dean's brother who is deceased); Dean and Ron Smith (Christie's husband).
Back row:  JJ Peine (Larry's oldest son); Tucker (Brett's son) and Brett (Dean's son).
If everyone was here - it would have been more than twice this many in the picture for just Dean and his siblings families.

It was a great day.  Lots of fun, fellowship and great food!



Sunday, September 1, 2019

Since this was the first day we have not been busy or driving - we did nothing all morning.  We were both just wasted I think and it was nice to just regroup a little.  After lunch we took a ride around town (Dean enjoys this and I like to hear the stories he shares about growing up here), then stopped at Larry and Sandi's again.

I worked on the blog quite a bit today trying to get some posts done - knowing we are going to be busy in the next several days.  It was a pretty quiet day and we enjoyed it.



Monday, September 2, 2019

This morning I wanted Dean to look at the soap dispenser at my kitchen sink.  The pump for the container holding the soap quit working in the last several weeks.  I really have missed it.  

I have this great soap dispenser but I have to keep my soap container on the counter now.  If it can be fixed I'd sure like for it to be. 

We pulled everything out from under the cabinets beneath the sink and we soon realized what the problem was.  A portion of the pump was squirting the soap out and we had a pile of soap that had dropped below - fortunately I happened to have a pan sitting right here and 95% of it was in the pan.  What a mess cleaning up that much soap would have been.  

See how the soap is squirting out in the pump above.

This was just a smidgen of the soap that I had pumped out into the pan below for several weeks.

I wish I had taken a picture of this --- one side was about half full of soap.

We got everything put back together and I'll continue using my little bottle of Dawn.  I will call Pfiister to see if they can replace this part and hopefully it will do the trick.

Dean's sister Marie called mid-morning.  She was going to stop by to visit for awhile if we would be here.  We had no plans for the day, so we were very happy for her visit.  It was fairly nice outside, so Dean attached our sunscreen to the awning and secured it so we could stay in the shade.  With the breeze and the shade we were pretty comfortable.  If we are busy inside it's one thing, but sometimes you just want to enjoy the outdoors.

While Marie was here a man walked up and wanted to look at our stained glass window in Bentley's door.  I told him I really loved it; that we had bought it from a guy at a rally but I heard he was no longer selling them.  It was at that time he turned and looked at me and said - I'm that man.  Haha!  I said, you are Richard?  He said yes.  He told us he was in the process of selling the business to someone but it had not been completed yet.  He asked us where we were when we bought it.  Dean told him we won a gift certificate he had donated for $50 at the Branson Heartland Rally a few years ago.  He remembered us then.  How funny, that we would run in to him here in Garnett.  

Marie left not too long after that.  

Later this evening, we pulled out the Fire Genie and enjoyed a nice fire outside.  

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Our pantry and paper products were getting pretty low, so we made the short drive to Ottawa for some groceries at Walmart.  By the time we drove back and put everything away it was time for lunch.  


As we turned to head to the campground, I snapped this picture of the Auction they have every Tuesday in Garnett.  Dean said he used to go with his dad when he was a kid, so it's been going on for quite a while.  It's amazing the number of people that turn out for it every week.  Someday when we are here I want him to take me so I can see what all they have.

I really do not remember what we did the rest of the day - after all, it's been 9 days ago.  However, at 5:30 we met Dean's siblings and their spouses and Dean's sister-in-law Connie at El Jimador Mexican Restaurant in downtown Garnett.  Connie (Dale's wife) works at the Anderson County Courthouse (right across the street from the restaurant).  She had a table reserved for us when we arrived.  The bad thing about being one of the first to arrive - we ate way too many chips, salsa and cheese dip before we even ordered our dinner.  Lol!  There seemed to be some confusion on where we were to meet as one couple went to the Chinese restaurant a block away and my husband wanted to go to the Mexican restaurant where the Chinese restaurant was located - but we finally all made it to the right location.  We had a great meal and an even better visit.  Unfortunately Dean's sisters Joyce and RuthAnn were not able to be here.  We missed them and hopefully we can all get together at another time.


Wednesday, September 4, 2019 - A Trip to the City to see Oswego Friends

Many of you that read the blog know our good friends Donnie & Janie moved to the Kansas City area a few years ago to be near their son and his family.  Janie's brother also lives nearby so it was a great move for them.  We try to visit them whenever we are in the area.  We made arrangements to drive to their home, arriving mid morning.  It's only an hour drive and fortunately we hit the traffic just right and pretty much had an easy drive on I-35 to the turn off near their home.  We had a good two hour visit at their home before we headed out to eat lunch at our new favorite restaurant (thanks to D & J) in Overland Park - Burnt Ends.  Dean and I shared an order of burnt ends with two sides and it was just perfect for lunch.  The cheesy corn was delicious, but this time we also tried the baked potato salad and while it was okay (we ate it all) we probably would not order it again.  We thought it would be chunks of baked potato with cheese, bacon bits, etc. on the potatoes, but it tasted like mashed potatoes with all of those things stirred into it....not as good as we envisioned.  However, we would definitely return for the burnt ends!  Amazing!

We left around 2 to head back to Garnett.  

After resting for a bit we made one last trip to see Larry and Sandi before we left - and then we hit Dairy Queen for our dinner - ice cream of course!  Tomorrow we will be moving back west - so stay tuned.