Halloween (in July)

Today was the final holiday in July--Halloween--complete with kids trick or treating and a costume dance at the pavilion. We wore our Halloween orange tee-shirts and danced one slow dance. I got in a conga line briefly, too, but mostly we talked and watched the dancing.

Tonight, after researching and talking about an Alaska cruise next July, we finally booked a cruise and put down a $250 deposit on the July 8 sailing of the Norwegian Pearl from Seattle. Now we still have to figure out shore excursions, but the NCL site does not list any for 2012 yet, so we'll look over the 2011 choices.

Chris and Annie are definitely joining us on the cruise. Ed and Julie have already been on an Alaska cruise, and Blake and Terri will probably be in Singapore. We're hoping that Rebecca and Cathy and Jeff and Tiffinie will be able to come. Of course, Jeff never knows where he'll be very far in advance, since he's in the Air Force, so he won't know whether the cruise would be an option for him until much closer to the date.


It was a beautiful day, but hot. Ken decided to turn on the air conditioning, and that's when we discovered that the park had lost power (again). The power company came out and had the power on within a couple of hours. This is the kind of situation that makes us glad we have solar power and a good inverter. Our fridge goes automatically to propane when the electric shuts off, so no problem there.

Eric and Chris, our neighbors when we first arrived, returned for a long weekend, bringing their son Ethan with them. They have bought a park model here, and we got the grand tour. It's very nice, with a four-season sun porch plus small deck. They introduced us to their neighbor across the street, Tim. He's quite a character and hosts a casual come and go party on Saturday nights, which we joined for a bit before going over to the dance.