The Nomadic Neuman's
July 2006

How precious our time was with Laurel, Devon & Baby Olivia.
Mommy's gentle touch makes bath time a pleasurable experience.
(She even keeps my body warm with the washcloth, Olivia realizes.)
  
Everyone of us just beams when Olivia smiles at us!
Smiling, sleeping, discovering and even crying, she is a gift of God.

This next process is hard, but necessary. Laurel is an attorney and must return to work in September.
She begins pumping breast milk and tries the bottle. Not easy...for Mommy or daughter.
Olivia wanted nothing to do with it & wouldn't take it from Devon or Laurel until they found the right nipple.
Now, Devon feeds her once a day so that she can get accustomed to Mommy's milk from a bottle.
Hopefully, she'll be prepared for the nanny and it won't be a traumatic experience for any of them.


Pretty much all we did in San Diego was work on our rental homes and visit with our newest grandchild.
The homes are in great shape, with good tenants and we're off to cooler weather.

 July 20-21, 2006
We left San Diego after a 3 1/2 month stay.
"On the Road Again!"
Of course, LA traffic was horrendous.....then.....

OhOh    Tire Blowout on top of the grapevine! Dan did great handling the coach.
It was hard to find a replacement tire there at 9pm . But fortunately, we did find one.
They came to us and what a dirty job it was. Thank goodness someone does these jobs!
We were back on the road around 11pm. Long, hot, exhausting & scary day.
  
Next day we stopped at Canyon Creek RV Resort in Winters, CA about an hour north of Oakland.
Whew.....it was 110 degrees when we arrived! We had a nice spot looking out at the Putah Creek,
but the heat was unbearable, our air conditioners had a hard time cooling off the motorhome.
Sat. morning we went to visit Tara, Marc & Julia in Oakland for the week-end.
Hot or not....that was so wonderful!
  

Sat. 7/22/06
After putting together Julia's new backyard climbing toy, she discovers the driving wheel.
Daddy welcomes her on the hammock and then Julia just has to join Mommy who climbed the tree!
     
Bath/Bed Time for Julia
Let's try to blow this horn......oops, wrong end!
There you go, TOOT TOOT!                                          Silly Mommy, silly NaNa, silly Julia.
   
Gotta SPLASH!                         and brush my teeth.
 
The "Bedtime" ritual includes Daddy taking Julia to say "night night fishies".

Then she said "night night" to Grandpa and the rest of us and went off to bed like a trooper.


Sunday July 23, 2006
At the nearby Lindsay Wildlife Museum, Mommy shows how it works & then Julia share puzzles with another child.

Look at the mountain lion, Julia.  

Is this real?                Feels soft.             I like him!
  

At home again..........."I CAN DO IT", NaNa.......See?
      
NaNa brought "FiFi" a new dolly who dances to "LaLa..LaLaLa..".
  

 
Mon. July 26,2006
8:30am Sidney arrives then Nanny Hewitt and the new week begins.........
       

At 11am, off we go...NaNa & Grandpa take Julia in the wagon to meet Mommy for lunch.
     
At the restaraunt, Grandpa shows Julia how to get some sweet jelly on a spoon.
....hmmmmm........is this a good idea, or not?
    
After lunch, we head to the park. Julia says: "Oh Boy...the park, let's go!"
 Dan says "Tara, can you spin me?"..... "OK, here you go!" Then.....Down the slide you go, Julia.
       
Time to go home. NaNa takes her turn pulling the wagon back to the house.
  

Tuesday July 25th
Back on the road again heading north. Just south of Redding, CA we had ANOTHER Blowout (left front) .
CHP Officer Ken Tidwell was truly helpful getting service out to us in about 30 min.
Les Schwab came, with a new tire and temporary wheel rim.
After it was put on, we drove to their shop, but by that time they were closed for the day.

     

 
We decided to drive to a nearby RV campground for the night to return in the am for new rims & tires.
Unfortunately just a couple miles down the road we had our 3rd BLOW OUT once more on the right front tire.
What a shock that was. The gravel really tore up the rim. Talk about feeling unsafe!
This time we had no choice but to be towed back to Les Schwab at 11pm and spent the hot night in a motel.
  

 
Next morning, a mechanic came to re-hookup the drive train. Dan purchased 6 new tires from a shop down the road and 2 new wheel rims from Les Schwab. In a couple of hours & several thousand dollars,
our home on wheels was safe again. This time Dan kept a spare and put it on the back of our Jeep.

 

 Dan decided to keep the used tire we'd gotten from our 1st blow-out. It was in great condition and he felt safer carring a spare!

 By the time he'd gotten it tied onto the back of our Jeep, he was beat and ready to leave the whole experience behind us!

 
Enough of the Blues.....We're back on the road heading north.
Friday July 28-31
Coburg, OR
We spend a great week-end visiting with friends I met in TX,  Mark & Cindy
Below we chatted under their gorgeous & huge Sycamore tree.
It was fun to see & play with Wally(15 yrs) & Pita (4 yrs) again.

Sat. Cindy and I rode our bikes in town for the Annual Quilt Show.
New ones, vintage ones and even a selection of unique & artistically designed ones
which I was not allowed to take photos of.
They offer to assess the value of your quilts, so Cindy brought her's up.
Her great grandmother made it in the 1930's. It's still in excellent condition.

Unfortunately, I was so interested in the assessor's comments I didn't take a photo of it, but will ask Cindy to send me one to put here on the site.		 This was one of my favorites.

Reminds me of a birch forest filled with flowering shrubs & vines
on a bright sunny day.

Sun. July 30th
A trip along the McKenzie River.

First stop had a waterfall off the hillside on one side and the beautiful river on the other side.

Mark fishes along these banks regularly. Lots of trout!
Next stop was Belknap Hot Springs.
When we stepped out of the car we heard a beautiful orchestra playing on the patio
See what we discovered? It was really cool.


The hot springs feed right into the pool below.
Then, after you cross the bridge and follow the trail, you come upon this beautiful "hidden garden".
What a beautiful place....and there is even a campground where we can stay, next time!
  


 
Last stop was Sahalie Falls. Awesome.
I ran out of batteries for my camera so no more photos today.
Thanks Mark & Cindy for a great day & evening!
We arrived back home to a delicious meal Cindy prepared and relaxed while we visited.
Homemade soup from home-grown squash, home-grown lettuce & tomatoes for the salad, and a rice accompaniment.

Monday July 31st we left Coburg & headed north to Portland.

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