Wintering in Illinois

A combination of events conspired to keep us off the road Jan-May, 2013.  Primarily, our caretakers had moved out, and leaving a 4800 sq. ft. house empty all winter in northern IL isn't a good idea.  (We can't find a buyer for it!)  Second, our youngest was taking classes at the community college (and no, leaving a 19-year-old boy in charge of the house wasn't an option LOL), and we wanted to encourage him in his schooling.  Third, we each had medical issues (nothing serious, just needed time to take care of) to resolve. After having to come back early both of the last two winters, it was with great reluctance (read that disappointment) that we winterized the RV and hunkered down for the duration.

We took advantage of the time to haul out all of our totes and boxes full of pictures and scan them into the computer.  We saved a small photo box of pictures and mementos for each family member, and (GULP!) threw out the rest of the print copies, after making numerous backup DVD copies!  It was a gruelling project, but felt so good to accomplish!  We also organized the digital pictures already on the computer. We had over 130,000 pictures that we labeled with dates and locations and tagged each person for future reference.  What a job!!

We  wrote up a timeline of travel and major life events from 1981 (marriage) till present day.  (You can see that in the LIFE BEFORE BLOGS tab) and started archiving stories in the blog back from 1980 (yeah, that one will be awhile getting caught up!)  Hopefully, we will end up with a fairly complete journal of life and travels to give our children.  We also got some serious genealogy work done on Kent's family tree (I have worked on mine since the 90's, but there are always more discoveries to make.)

And we downloaded all the songs we wanted from our CDs onto the computer (and extra hard drives), and cleaned up boxes of those. (Anyone remember Spanky and Our Gang?  Well, Kent does, and wouldn't let me just pitch those!)  We wanted to do something with DVDs too, but never decided what.

Our winter entertainment

And now it's spring - at least on the calendar.  Mother Nature is not wanting to let go of winter, but we are more than ready to make some travel plans and get on the road!  For now, our 32nd anniversary is coming up..... hmmm, what to do??