Because we were in Ohio a week longer than usual, we were able to do some bathroom and dog sitting for John and Jackie.  They usually head for Florida about the same time we go to Georgia, but they are only gone for a week-long vacation.  This year, John and Jackie were actually planning on driving and stopping by St. Simons to see us.  Except we weren’t sure we would be there.

Finally, realizing the RV repairs weren’t going to be done until the first week of January, we offered to stay at their house and keep the dogs.  John and Jackie were glad to take us up on on the offer because the contractor had just started their master bathroom renovation.  By staying at the house, we could watch over the dogs and the construction.

Tom says staying at John and Jackie’s is like staying at the Hilton.  He gets a luxurious bedroom with adjoining bath all to himself.  I get the luxurious bedroom but with two dogs.  Because of the renovation, I had to walk next door to the bathroom.

John and Jackie have a very comfortable house.  When Tom and I stay with the dogs, we shut off the house and stay, almost exclusively, in the kitchen / great room.  We can close the doors and keep the dogs in there with us.  It makes us more relaxed to know where the dogs are and the dogs can let us know quickly if they need to go out.  We always have a learning curve while we are there as we get comfortable with the dogs’ routine and language.

John and Jackie left December 28 and returned January 5.  During that time the contractors were there every weekday.  They usually arrived around 8:30, which gave me time to get my morning walk in before they arrived.  This is the same crew who renovated our bathroom so we knew we could trust them to do the work without a lot of supervision from us.  At the end of every workday, I would send John and Jackie pictures of what they had done during the day.

During our week Tom and I went to our house a few times to pick up the mail and do some stuff we couldn’t do with the dogs.  Tom rode his trike on the nicer, warmer days and I did a little weaving while he rode.  We still made our weekly trips to see Mom and Dad.  The dogs are good in their crates for six hours.  So we didn’t feel too tied down.

We found out that the RV was finished and ready to go on January 5, the day John and Jackie returned.  We arranged to pick it up on January 6.  Our plan was to pack on January 7 and start south on January 8.  This worked out well.  Not only was it warmer during our packing and traveling, the traffic was lighter than it would have been if we left a week earlier.

We enjoyed our week at John and Jackie’s.  They enjoyed their trip more because they didn’t have to worry about the bathroom renovation or the dogs.  Tom and I were glad we could help them out in this way.