How We Spent Our Summer....

As full time Rver's one of the things that you do when you go back "home", usually your last stick and brick house, which for us is Homewood, Illinois, is to

 1. Visit Family

As any full time Rver will tell you, the number 1 thing that you miss when you are in your RV is seeing your grandkids on a regular basis. So when we are back in the area we always find time for them.

I always love the chance to see Samantha and Spencer.

2. Geocaching

We have several caches in our old hometown that need to be checked on and maintained. So being back in the area is a good time to do it. We were also trying to compete the 31 day challenge, which was to find a cache every day during the month of August.  We did good for awhile...

3. See your doctors...One of our favorite is Doctor David Looyenga.

He is a GREAT cardiologist that the Gold's have been going to for over 20 years.

We did a lot of both this summer. Our original plan for the summer was to spend a few weeks visiting family, going to the doctors and our daughter Jennifer's wedding. Then we were heading to Branson Missouri for a second season of camp hosting.

The family visits were great, the wedding was wonderful, the doctors visits....not so good.

Fred had his first heart attack in January of 1996, since then he's had several stents, bi pass surgery in 2003 and lots and lots of doctors visits. The one thing that he insists on every year is a Nuclear Treadmill Test. This is where they inject you with dye, have you walk the trend mill and look to see how the blood flows. He had this test done on June 19th and it showed an irregularity. He had a follow up test done on July 3rd that confirmed that something wasn't right. So on July 24th, he had an angiogram. During this procedure they discovered that one of his bi-passes was 100% clogged, so they put a stent in it. However, they also noticed that he had an aneurysm in his aorta.

A normal aorta is 2 cm wide, they estimated that Fred's was 5 cm, but they were looking at it from the inside so it's hard to accurately determine from that angle. They normally like to operate when its 5 - 6 cm. Because of the dye that they used for the angiogram, he had to wait a few weeks for the dye to dissipate before he could be tested further. So on Monday, August 19th he had a CT scan which showed that the aneurysm was almost 10 cm!!! This type of aneurysm is 95% fatal...

 He was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday and had the surgery on Thursday. What was to be a five to six hour surgery ended up to be twelve hours long, He had to be resuscitated on the table and he received 19 units of blood. He spent twelve days in ICU and another six more recovering in the hospital. We truly believe that Fred has some good guardian angels that were watching out for him.

 After his discharge, we stayed at his parents house while he recuperated. We rented a hospital bed and set it up in the den on the first floor so that he didn't have to climb stairs and would be more comfortable. We truly appreciate his parents for letting us interrupt their lives for us.

4. Fall Colors

We definitely did not think that we would still be in the upper Midwest to see the fall colors. If you've ever tried to camp in the Chicago area, you know that the options are limited. We joined the camping group Thousand Trails in 2006. On our trip up the East coast this summer, we upgraded so that we would have more options.  Thank goodness that we did. There is now a TT campground only 77 miles from Fred's parents house. So during the time of Fred's surgery, we were able to keep our RV in Michigan for three months and it only cost us $57!!!

Once Fred was feeling better, we did go out to the RV for a few days at a time and we got to see some beautiful fall colors.

We didn't get to do exactly what we wanted to do this summer, but we are so grateful for the way that it turned out. Fred is recovering nicely and its time to get back on the road. Branson here we come!!!

The Wedding!!

On June 30, 2013 our daughter, Jennifer Patricia Totsch married Zachary Ellsworth Witkowsky in a beautiful ceremony at Emerson Creek Tearoom and Pottery Barn in Oswego Illinois.

The festivities started early in the morning back at the hotel where we had a hair stylist and make up artist working on the girls (and mom) so that they looked their very best. Last minute touch ups were done in the Bridal Coop. I love the fact that the flower girl Samantha (my granddaughter) was putting on lip gloss while the bride (my daughter Jen) was checking out facebook, emails or whatever!!

We could not have asked for a more perfect day in the weather department. Our guardian angels sure put in a good word for us. The ceremony was outside by the gazebo. It was a picture perfect setting.

The bride was escorted down the aisle by her father, Jim Totsch.

The wedding ceremony was presided over by the officiant, her step father Fred Gold. He did a wonderful job, you would never have known that this was the first wedding ceremony that he officiated over.  However, I keep telling him that it's not proper for him to tell everyone that he recently married his step daughter....rather, that he officiated at her wedding!!

This is one of my favorite pictures. It is the first time that they saw each other on their wedding day.
















Immediately following the ceremony, we went into the barn and adjoining tent where we had a wonderful buffet of heavy hors d'oeurves (mini Angus beef hamburgers, pulled pork sandwiches, teriyake chicken, fried mac and cheese balls, BBQ meatballs, cheese, fruit, canapes and bruschetta).

The bride and groom had a small two tiered cake that they cut and then an assortment of cupcakes in six different flavors, so that everyone could find one that they liked.

The toasts to the happy couple were nicely done and when the father of the bride, Jim was giving his toast he acknowledged that he was not the only father to have influenced the bride and requested that Fred join him in giving the toast. It was very touching to see how all the different families joined together in honoring the couple.








The DJ played a great variety of music and the new couple danced their first dance to Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender.

Fred and Jen danced a father-daughter dance.














The proud parents of the bride.

It was fun to watch everyone out on the dance floor, including the bride and the flower girl.

The most fun though was when the bridesmaids and the bride all wearing their cowboy boots were dancing to Cotton Eye Joe. I wish I had a picture or video of that!!!

Here are some more pictures of the wedding:

It wouldn't have been Jen's wedding if she didn't have something "cow" in it. The picture on the table was taken in Deadwood, South Dakota last year when they were living in South Dakota.

Lots of love, fun and happiness to Jennifer and Zachary Witowsky.

Stanley Family Reunion

On Sunday June 23, 2013, the Stanley family gathered together to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary.  This was the first time in a very long time that the Stanley clan was together. We came from far and away to partake in this monumental occasion.

My dad (William) was to marry my new mom (Jean) on June 15, 1963. Her brother Bill, who was a priest was to marry them. However, he could not get away on that date because he was to have a special visitor at his monastery (Cardinal Cushing of Boston). It seemed that the only date that would work out for them was on May 18th. So Bill, Jean, Bill's three young children (Susan, Kathleen and Bill), Bill's brother Chuck and his wife Shirley, Jean's sister Carolyn and her husband Frank and Bill's mother Helen attended the wedding in Racine Wisconsin on a very pretty, but windy spring day. After the wedding Mass, the family went to the Elk's Club in Kenosha for lunch. They then went back to Bill's house and started calling their friends to join them for cake and champagne.

Family members came from Gurnee Illinois (Susan, Brian and Beth Buehlman) Seattle Washington (Michael Buehlman), Lake Villa, Illinois (Bill, Julie and Reid Stanley) St. Charles, Missouri (Cara and Matt Cushman), Whitewater, Wisconsin (Amanda Stanley), Deerfield Illinois (Carolyn and Jim Barry), Kenosha Wisconsin (Jim, Jeni, Nathan and Rachel Stanley and places in between (Fred and Kathleen Gold) to celebrate this special day.

We had a wonderful dinner at Twin Oaks Inn in Wilmot Wisconsin. The cake was a replica of their wedding cake, but with a picture of the bride and groom on top.

It was a great time and a wonderful way to see the family and celebrate a special day.

We love you Mom & Dad.

150 Years Ago

The first week in July this year will mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle at Gettsyburg in Pennsylvania. The battles, and there were several of them, occurred over a three day period from July 1 to July 3, 1863. It is a very moving and emotional experience to walk through this area and recount what happened here.

We stopped at the fairly new and very beautiful visitor's center which is operated by both the National Park Service and Friends of Gettysburg. You can tour the area by car and by foot on your own and there are several ranger led walks that will give you a nice overview of the site that are free of charge. However, if you want to see the movie or the museum that's located in the Visitor's Center, there is a charge as this is run and maintained by the Friends Association. You also can take narrated bus tours or hire your own tour guide for an additional price. They even have segway tours.

We opted for a combination of the two. We did see the movie and the museum which were excellent and filled with a large amount of great information. We then went to two of the ranger led programs. The first program was a cemetery tour where we learned that this was the first National Cemetery established for soldiers. Ironically, no Confederate soldiers are allowed to be buried in a National Cemetery.

The ranger did a wonderful job of setting the stage up to the battles and the need to bury the dead, and the selection of this site for the cemetery. She also spoke of the dedication of the cemetery on November 19, 1963. President Lincoln was not the key note speaker and his presence there was really just a gesture at the time. The keynote speaker was a great orator of the time and he spoke for over two hours. When Lincoln got up to speak, his speech was so short (272 words lasting roughly 2 minutes), that the photographer didn't even have a chance to set up his camera equipment and thus there are no pictures showing the President giving his address. The story goes that when President Lincoln sat down, the keynote speaker (Edward Everett) leaned over and said, "Mr. President, you said more in 2 minutes, than I did in two hours."

It is a beautiful cemetery and a fitting tribute to future generations of American soldiers.

The second ranger program was not as good. It was about the battle on July 3rd, Pickett's Charge. After reading the park brochure, seeing the movie and the Cyclorama, I thought it was a bit repetitive. Fred listened to the program while I wandered around the battlefield.

I ran across a very interesting individual.
This union soldier, walked up to the "line", looked around, posed for a few pictures and walked away.







It is a humbling experience to look across the fields and imagine what it must have been like to be a soldier or a townsfolk back then. The Park Service has done a great job preserving this site and telling the story for future generations to continue to learn and appreciate our history.

AHHH Chocolate

What better way to spend a day than surrounded by chocolate...












You can't spend four days in Hershey Pennsylvania and not think about chocolate. It's everywhere. It's on the name of the streets Cocoa Road and Chocolate Avenue.

It's on the street lights in town.  It's in the name of so many stores in town. The one place it wasn't, was in the air. I thought that the whole town would smell of chocolate. (Those of you who have been through Burlington Wisconsin and the Nestle factory know what I'm talking about.)

Our first stop in Hershey was to the visitors center to find out what to do and how to do it. We wanted to get a tour of the factory and learn how they make all those delectable treats. We were also hoping for some free samples!

Much to our dismay, there are no actual tours of the factory. However, you can go to Hershey's Chocolate World Attraction. Here you have your choice of five different tours that you can go on...all for a price. As we were walking toward the building, we noticed these two lines of people. They WERE giving away free samples!!!

One line was to get samples of two different types of cookies (chocolate chip or cookies and cream), the other for two different types of cupcakes (chocolate or choco/peanut butter). You got to pick two for your tasting. The other line was giving away the mixes that you used to make the above samples. Each bag contained two box mixes and a can of frosting. We each got a bag, so I guess I'll be doing some baking when we are in Branson.

The first thing that we opted to see was  the Hershey's Great American Chocolate Factory Tour Ride. This is Hershey's version of Disney's It's a Small World Ride. I'm surprised the workers don't go crazy hearing the same silly song all day long. The ride lasted all of fifteen minutes. You sit in a car and are taken through the steps of making chocolate, mostly narrated by a trio of singing cows. It was during the ride that they puff the smell of chocolate to you.

After our tour we had a 45 minute break before we could see the 4D movie. As we were exiting the tour, a person approached us and wanted to know if we would like to participate in a market survey. I was the only one that could do it. It appears that Hershey doesn't care what the over 64 year old's think of their product. Though they were nice enough to let Fred join me while I did the survey.

It was such a hard job, but someone had to do it. I had to test three, count them three different types of chocolate syrup over ice cream. That means I HAD to eat three scopes of ice cream with chocolate sauce. The first thing I had to do was to determine which of the three samples poured onto my ice cream differently. Then I had to determine if the one that poured differently tasted different from the other two samples. Once I  answered the questions from the survey, I could eat all three dishes of ice cream. Now, the whole time that I was doing this Fred was watching me. I could not stand the sad puppy dog look that he kept giving me because he was to old to participate in the survey, so I actually let him finish one bowl of my ice cream.  See, I am a nice person!!!

We both received a full size Hershey Milk Chocolate Candy bar as a thank you for doing the survey.

Our next adventure in chocolate was to see the 4D movie. (normal 3D but with smellavision!!!). It was really a movie for children, but since we are all kids at heart (and it was part of our package) we went to see it. The movie was cute, the special effects good and the smell of chocolate was    w o n d e r f u l.

The last thing that we did was "Create Your Own Candy Bar". Fred made a candy bar for the Wang grandkids and I made a bar for the Knapp grandchildren. Because this was a working factory, we did have to wear the appropriate clothing. Once properly attired we proceeded into the factory area to begin production. The first step was to select the base for the candy bar. The choices were milk chocolate, dark chocolate or white chocolate. Then we selected a filling: nuts, chocolate chips, pretzel pieces, and a few other choices I can't remember. All bars get a chocolate glazed topping and finally, the biggest decision with or without sprinkles. Once selected you watched the computerized machinery make your candy.

While the candy bar is in the quick chiller, you go to the computer and design the packaging. It was fun, except when we bought the ticket, they misspelled the Knapp's name, and there was no way to correct it on the computer, so I couldn't use their name in the packaging. But it was still a lot of fun, and I really don't think the grandchildren minded. The chocolate was/is the most important part!!

It was lots of fun.








A tour of any place is not complete without a trip to the Gift Shop, and Hershey has a BIG gift shop. We could have bought t shirts, sweatshirts, caps, nightgowns and every type and size of Hershey candy that you could imagine, but we did use some self control and did not leave our life savings to the Hershey Company.

What do you do when it's hot??

The days that we spent in Lancaster County PA were the hottest days of the summer thus far. We were suppose to go and visit Gettysburg today, but neither Fred nor I wanted to spend the day outside walking in the sun on a 90 degree day. So instead we went on a little road trip. As I mentioned earlier, we are on a quest to geocache in all 50 states. For those of you who don't know what geocaching is, I will give you a short explanation.

Geocaching started in 2000 when then President Clinton de-militarized the GPS satellites, allowing us to utilize this technology in our cars and in hand held devices. When this happened some nerdy guys decided to see if they could find a box that one of their other nerdy friends had hidden in the woods. And thus geocaching was born: treasure hunting in the twenty-first century. The object of the game is to find containers (caches) that other people have hidden using the posted GPS coordinates. These containers can be as small as the eraser from a pencil to as large as a jumbo plastic tub. Inside the container is a log that you must sign when you find the container and if it's a big enough container there might be treasures to trade for (things like prizes kids might get in a happy meal, to coins, books or other interesting stuff).

We have found that this is a great way to see parts of the country that we might not normally see. In addition, we have learned some very interesting facts and history.

So on this hot Saturday afternoon, we traveled into West Virginia to cache in our 48th state. We drove to Harper's Ferry WV and saw some beautiful scenery along the way.

We've all heard of the Potomac River that flows past Washington DC, but did you know that it starts in the mountains somewhere around Harper's Ferry??
We didn't either, but this is one of the interesting things that we discovered while going to our geocache.

We found two caches in West Virginia. One was in a small park in a residential area of town off the beaten path. The other cache was a bit unusual. It was hidden in an old dilapidated building with an unusual creature inside!







As of today we have found 998 caches, we are planning on finding our 1000th cache once we get back to Homewood Illinois. We thought it would be nice to find a cache by the same person who's cache was our first one back in April of 2006.