July 2023- Summer in NC

​Returning to the States

We are back and super excited to get a week with Lilia.  She is coming to spend some time with us the week of July 4th.  We can’t wait to explore the world with her.  From Ducks and the lake, horses, and boat rides just to name a few.  But watching her personality shine is the best!  July 4th is a hot one but we head out to the lake to spend some time. Lilia is a trooper and enjoys the lake, food, water, and toys provided by Brody.


After a very important phone call, Lilia needed to make, it was time to see the horses.  She loves her neigh neighs.  This would be a memorable experience now for Dee and I,  as Fury passed in the Fall of 2023.  As you can see she enjoyed exploring Farm Life at Bill and Lisa’s house and the cats., We did not know then that when Sugar would come back to live with Hannah and Aldo Lilia would fall in love with her.  We should have seen that coming.


We always enjoy spending time with our lake friends, especially When Chef Mark prepares dinner on the Blackstone.  The sunset with friends is something we miss about North Carolina summers.


After a visit to Alexandria to see Jesse and experience 5 hours of worship at National Community Church in July which was a great experience.  We also keep Harley for a long weekend while Jesse goes on a Bachelorette weekend.  And use these times passing through Durham to begin building Hannah and Aldo’s gazebo.  I believe they finally had to finish it themselves.


Busy Busy Busy we are.  Mom and Dad purchase a new camper so we buy theirs and set out to sell our motor home.  Which included a 24-hour round trip to Florida to tag the new one and get the title for the motor home but she is sold.  Also while we are home, Dee’s insurance agency becomes a true independent.  Finally breaking long hard ties with an aggregate company, Now, he and Stormi have so much to do.  and I try to help as much as possible to keep this new endeavor off the ground.  This coming year will be a difficult but rewarding one we pray.  Wild times!


Dee and I also spent a night in Durham painting Hannah and Aldo’s garage floor which turned out great, but the Airbnb we stayed in was a different story.  What I learned is to take pictures this is what helped us get some of our money back.   dirty with trash left in bags in the living room. We had no sheets on the bed, and no towels in the bathroom.  Crazy!  We endured.  And enjoyed these last few days with Lilia and Hannah. As they returned to Mooresville with us for our final weekend which included another sunset boat ride with Hannah and her friends and a boat ride for Lilia.  I think she liked it except for that life jacket.  


Just as we were preparing to leave and spend the final day with Hannah and Lilia,  We learned people were on Dee’s property preparing to move the mobile home.  That was just a chaotic story that I have already written a blog post about titled Whirlwind, but I am using it to prepare this video.  Before I get into that remember that gazebo, well the night before we take off back to Mexico, a storm takes it out!  Heartbreaking.


During this entire trip home we continued to try and find out what was going on with Derwin’s cousin’s mobile home on his property. She said she was having it torn down, but then we found out it was being sold.  So much we need to know about moving a mobile home, but she will not talk to us.  Dee and I sadly had to post signs on the property hoping to encourage people to call us so we could find out what was going on.  Some of the signs were just torn down.  This story culminated on our final weekend while Lilia and Hannah were visiting...
Its Saturday morning while having coffee the neighbor who is a renter called to tell us a lot of people were on the property.  Dee flew out of the house and asked her to call the sheriff's office because he did not know who was there.  When he arrived it was the new owner and moving company who failed to read signs and just moved the barricade at the driveway.  The deputy explained everything to them about how they could be arrested and why didn’t they call the number on the sign, but Dee said give us a minute to see if we can work this out.  While discussing with the moving company why they had not contacted him they continued to say they just assumed the owner of both was the same.  They ignored the sign.  He told them he needed their insurance before they could start.  His cousin shows up and the company then pings her for money because she was not forthright with anyone and had stopped their work.  After lunch, we met back to get the insurance and she paid them the extra money.  Dee spent most of the weekend out there telling this company what they were going to run into and continuing to have to ask them to correct mistakes like a broken water line which caused the other renter to be without water for hours, and not realizing how embedded the mobile home was in the ground after so many years.  He made sure it was done right with little damage to the property and they cleaned up and dressed the lot which they did not want to do, but when you are almost arrested then you conceded a little to correct your mistakes.  The worst part is that Dee spent almost all day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday on the land watching this “shit show”.  If it had not been for one of their contractors (it was a family business) then it would have been really bad!  As I said before everything he predicted in the email to his cousin happened, and it cost her more money.  Let’s see you sell for $1,000 and then have to give the moving company $800 for your lies.  Seems like a lot of work to be deceptive for nothing.  But now we can look forward to having a great little spot to put the fifth wheel and have a place for us here in NC.


We have to end this all on a good note and that is All About Lilia or Sunshine as we call her.  She lights up our life.  She loves animals and is curious about the world around her.  Her smile lights up the room, and she is quite the comedian.  She is really understanding that I am Meems (Allie).  Well, right now she thinks we are both collectively Meems, but we are working on it for Capi (Dee).