Another lovely day in Oklahoma. . .

[NFLDERS]

Kitty: The pool is now open!

We are waiting to see how our Covid variant numbers pan out after Easter gatherings, before we book.

 

[Micca]

Happy Easter Y'all! Love and Peace to all of the ALDIOANS!

 

[ronandannette]

Yay! It’s Covid test, er, I mean Cruise day! Here in not-quite-sunny-yet California and excite to board our first cruise in 3 years. Finally using up the last of our travel credits from our cancelled 25th Anniversary trip that was to have taken place in May of 2020.

We flew yesterday and had to take a Covid test prior to boarding the plane (a requirement to enter the US). We also need to test within 24 hours of boarding the ship (a cruise line requirement). We couldn’t make the timing work with a single test so off again today for another nasal brain probe at the port - this one costs $100 USD per person. Wish me luck.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Yay! It’s Covid test, er, I mean Cruise day! Here in not-quite-sunny-yet California and excite to board our first cruise in 3 years. Finally using up the last of our travel credits from our cancelled 25th Anniversary trip that was to have taken place in May of 2020.

We flew yesterday and had to take a Covid test prior to boarding the plane (a requirement to enter the US). We also need to test within 24 hours of boarding the ship (a cruise line requirement). We couldn’t make the timing work with a single test so off again today for another nasal brain probe at the port - this one costs $100 USD per person. Wish me luck.

Enjoy that well-deserved and postponed cruise! And no worry on the COVID swabs here. They quit that brain probe style way back in the beginning, a pretty simple swab now, mabe 3/4 of an inch each nostril.

Enjoy!! .

 

[Kitty 34]

Ronandannette.....enjoy your cruise and lots of sunshine!!!

Jane.....it would be fun to meet you at Soaring Eagle. You're going in June, correct?

DH and I are on our 2 week countdown to flying out of Detroit for Charleston, SC. Haven't flown anywhere since 2016! We will be visiting our middle son, Michael and wife who, as you know, moved down there last summer. Can hardly wait but yet nervous to travel.

 

[NFLDERS]

Ronandannette.....enjoy your cruise and lots of sunshine!!!

Jane.....it would be fun to meet you at Soaring Eagle. You're going in June, correct?

DH and I are on our 2 week countdown to flying out of Detroit for Charleston, SC. Haven't flown anywhere since 2016! We will be visiting our middle son, Michael and wife who, as you know, moved down there last summer. Can hardly wait but yet nervous to travel.

Hopeful we are watching Covid variant numbers, and how travel across the border goes.

Gotta admit after reading Annette's cruise news now has me wishing for bigger fish!

 

[NFLDERS]

Yay! It’s Covid test, er, I mean Cruise day! Here in not-quite-sunny-yet California and excite to board our first cruise in 3 years. Finally using up the last of our travel credits from our cancelled 25th Anniversary trip that was to have taken place in May of 2020.

We flew yesterday and had to take a Covid test prior to boarding the plane (a requirement to enter the US). We also need to test within 24 hours of boarding the ship (a cruise line requirement). We couldn’t make the timing work with a single test so off again today for another nasal brain probe at the port - this one costs $100 USD per person. Wish me luck.

So happy for you girl! Enjoy!!

 

[NFLDERS]

Ronandannette.....enjoy your cruise and lots of sunshine!!!

Jane.....it would be fun to meet you at Soaring Eagle. You're going in June, correct?

DH and I are on our 2 week countdown to flying out of Detroit for Charleston, SC. Haven't flown anywhere since 2016! We will be visiting our middle son, Michael and wife who, as you know, moved down there last summer. Can hardly wait but yet nervous to travel.

So happy for you on your upcoming trip!

 

[PollyannaMom]

Happy Easter!

 

[Kitty 34]

Apparently our Christmas Day was almost 10 degrees warmer than our Easter this year! Good 'ole Michigan weather.

Happy Easter to all of you!

 

[NFLDERS]

Good luck, guys, with all the new appliances. I seem to think we must be on borrowed time with some of ours. We did just replace our furnace a few weeks ago.

I held my breath when the posts were about appliances. Then, our 34ish years old refrigerator quit!

Leebee: We shopped at the stores, but we were told to order online. But, shipping issues would have had us wait until June 22nd!

So.. back to in person shopping, and managed these.

We had fun getting them out of our van, and into the house. Dh had a devil of a time switching the door from right hand open to left.





We are getting too old for this activity!

 

[Dan Murphy]

I held my breath when the posts were about appliances. Then, our 34ish years old refrigerator quit!

Leebee: We shopped at the stores, but we were told to order online. But, shipping issues would have had us wait until June 22nd!

So.. back to in person shopping, and managed these. View attachment 667501View attachment 667502View attachment 667503View attachment 667504

We had fun getting them out of our van, and into the house. Dh had a devil of a time switching the door from right hand open to left.



View attachment 667510

We are getting too old for this activity!

They look nice, Jane, beautiful. I could not imagine us trying to move stuff like that anymore. Enjoy.

 

[Dcgc28]

I’m in OKC for work. Over at Topgolf. Been here this week, nice area!

 

[Dan Murphy]

Looking back over this thread as I tend to do at times. Hoping @King Schultz and @Octoberbeauty are both doing well wherever they may be.

 

[Micca]

Jane so glad you're chillin' with the new fridge

Just got back from WDW on Wednesday...sick but not Covid. Turns out it was just a garden variety bronchitis with a bonus ear infection.

Next Wednesday we return to WDW to attend a wedding of some dear friends who have a Disney wedding! It's gonna be awesome, I'll share what I can.

 

[Kitty 34]

DH and I just got back from Charleston, SC. First time we have flown since 2016!
We had a beautiful time visiting with our son and wife and grand dogs. Weather was 88 and sunny which was great for the beach and pool and for me and my mood. (It's been a long two years!!)

 

[leebee]

Hi everyone! I think it's finally spring up here. All my daffodils are in full bloom and the tulip leaves are about 6" high- about tall enough for the deer to eat them down to the ground! I am NOT loving my new appliances. I ordered online from the "local" place rather than a big box store and it's been... not the customer service experience I'd been hoping for. They installed the dishwasher but cracked the pump doing so, so we had to wait for a replacement. They installed the replacement with screws that were too short, so the dishwasher literally rolled forward out of the space. DH did the final installation, but we'd PAID $175 dishwasher INSTALLED. Grrr... Also, while it runs and washes nicely, the dry cycle is a waste. Everything is wet all the time. I also don't love the new fridge. It's small; 17.5 cubic feet isn't as big as I thought. Also, the freezer door pops open about 1cm every time we close the fridge door. Another Grrr... And the stove? Don't know, it's not here yet!

Summer session at UMaine starts on Monday and I'm already anxious and stressed. We teach an entire semester of organic chemistry in four weeks, with labs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I'll have 14 students. I have to do all the lab set up, clean up, waste removal, as well as teach a pre-lab, give/grade quizzes, and grade the lab report for each of 12 labs. Reports need to be graded and returned at the next lab session, meaning that lab reports turned in on Fridays need to be returned by Monday, giving me about 12 hours of grading to do each weekend in addition to 24 hours of grading, 12 contact hours, and writing quizzes and prepping for 3 lab lectures a week- and all the set up. I'll be crazy by the end of the 4 weeks, but it won't stop there... O-chem lab 1 ends on June 3 and we start o-chem 2 lab on June 6. It's crazy and stressful and I should be a hot mess by the time it's over on July 1st!

We are still experiencing adjustments as we grow into our multigenerational household status, but it's going pretty well. It's fun to have a 5 year old ("I'm 5 and three-quarters!") around and his dad is pretty good about not considering us the built-in child care. Actually, we'd take the little guy more often than they willing let us; they don't want to impose, which is great, but with 4 adults in the house there is no reason we can't tag-team the child care. Our biggest adjustment right now is the dishes. DH and I don't like the thermal travel mugs (like my Disney resort mugs), our crystal glasses (NOT fine crystal by any stretch of the imagination), or our plastic storage dishes to go in the dishwasher, but that's not often remembered. YES, I'd play dishwasher Tetris most nights anyhow as I hate to run a less than full dishwasher, but it's irritating that they can't remember not to put my POP Century mug in the dishwasher. Still if that's the biggest issue we have, well, we are doing FINE!

I'm finishing up vacation planning for this summer. We'll be in Colorado July 11-18th and then DH and I have rented a cottage at the shore in southern Maine for the last week of July and first week of August. I don't really want to go to CO but it's important to DH that I go, so I will. We are taking the ashes of one of DH's oldest friends to scatter in Estes Park. DD will go with us, and we'll meet the friend's son, DIL, and granddaughter. Our friend didn't know this son existed until about 5 years ago. Thanks to AncestryDNA (or whatever), the son showed up on our friend's doorstep and the rest is history. DH's friend was about 14 years older than DH, so DH and the son get along well, as do DD and the granddaughter. It'll be a fine trip... I just know how wiped out I'm going to be after 8 weeks of teaching. I am excited to be going away, just wish there was more time in the summer, in general!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the (finally) warm weather!

 

[ronandannette]

Oh @leebee - if you've just replaced fairly "old" appliances with new ones, I fear you are in for disappointment on several levels. They simply don't make them like they used to. In my work I deal with issues all day long from people who bought the brightest and best with the most whiz-bang features possible for their new homes and then are unhappy. They are sure the machines must be "defective" because they don't work as simply and reliably as their old ones used to. It's one of the top, if not the #1 complaint we hear. Don't lament too hard about the selections you made; it's likely you'd be having some sort of problem no matter what you got. I experienced it myself when I went with a higher-end Kitchen-Aid set about 3 years ago.

We're also in similar circumstances with having to adjust our household but instead of young people and a child, our addition is my elderly, widowed sister and her dog. We're 6 months in now and realizing there are simply going to be kinks that never get worked out, but the centre is holding.

DH and I returned two weeks ago from our first cruise, post-Covid. For the most part it was as we remembered and enjoyable, except for the $100 USD/pp test we had to take in the terminal before boarding. That was necessary only because the tests we'd taken here at WalMart in order to enter the States were 10 hours out-of-date on a 24-hour clock and that couldn't be helped due to flight schedules. {{sigh}}. I've got another short cruise planned with a BFF leaving May 16 out of Los Angeles that I'm actually looking forward to more. It will finally use up the last little bit of travel credits we had when all our pre-pandemic plans fell apart. Canadian law did not require travel providers to give cash refunds and even the credits issued had time limits - 24 months in our case.

 

[NFLDERS]

Hi everyone! I think it's finally spring up here. All my daffodils are in full bloom and the tulip leaves are about 6" high- about tall enough for the deer to eat them down to the ground! I am NOT loving my new appliances. I ordered online from the "local" place rather than a big box store and it's been... not the customer service experience I'd been hoping for. They installed the dishwasher but cracked the pump doing so, so we had to wait for a replacement. They installed the replacement with screws that were too short, so the dishwasher literally rolled forward out of the space. DH did the final installation, but we'd PAID $175 dishwasher INSTALLED. Grrr... Also, while it runs and washes nicely, the dry cycle is a waste. Everything is wet all the time. I also don't love the new fridge. It's small; 17.5 cubic feet isn't as big as I thought. Also, the freezer door pops open about 1cm every time we close the fridge door. Another Grrr... And the stove? Don't know, it's not here yet!

Summer session at UMaine starts on Monday and I'm already anxious and stressed. We teach an entire semester of organic chemistry in four weeks, with labs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I'll have 14 students. I have to do all the lab set up, clean up, waste removal, as well as teach a pre-lab, give/grade quizzes, and grade the lab report for each of 12 labs. Reports need to be graded and returned at the next lab session, meaning that lab reports turned in on Fridays need to be returned by Monday, giving me about 12 hours of grading to do each weekend in addition to 24 hours of grading, 12 contact hours, and writing quizzes and prepping for 3 lab lectures a week- and all the set up. I'll be crazy by the end of the 4 weeks, but it won't stop there... O-chem lab 1 ends on June 3 and we start o-chem 2 lab on June 6. It's crazy and stressful and I should be a hot mess by the time it's over on July 1st!

We are still experiencing adjustments as we grow into our multigenerational household status, but it's going pretty well. It's fun to have a 5 year old ("I'm 5 and three-quarters!") around and his dad is pretty good about not considering us the built-in child care. Actually, we'd take the little guy more often than they willing let us; they don't want to impose, which is great, but with 4 adults in the house there is no reason we can't tag-team the child care. Our biggest adjustment right now is the dishes. DH and I don't like the thermal travel mugs (like my Disney resort mugs), our crystal glasses (NOT fine crystal by any stretch of the imagination), or our plastic storage dishes to go in the dishwasher, but that's not often remembered. YES, I'd play dishwasher Tetris most nights anyhow as I hate to run a less than full dishwasher, but it's irritating that they can't remember not to put my POP Century mug in the dishwasher. Still if that's the biggest issue we have, well, we are doing FINE!

I'm finishing up vacation planning for this summer. We'll be in Colorado July 11-18th and then DH and I have rented a cottage at the shore in southern Maine for the last week of July and first week of August. I don't really want to go to CO but it's important to DH that I go, so I will. We are taking the ashes of one of DH's oldest friends to scatter in Estes Park. DD will go with us, and we'll meet the friend's son, DIL, and granddaughter. Our friend didn't know this son existed until about 5 years ago. Thanks to AncestryDNA (or whatever), the son showed up on our friend's doorstep and the rest is history. DH's friend was about 14 years older than DH, so DH and the son get along well, as do DD and the granddaughter. It'll be a fine trip... I just know how wiped out I'm going to be after 8 weeks of teaching. I am excited to be going away, just wish there was more time in the summer, in general!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the (finally) warm weather!

The love your post, is sans the appliance woes!

 

[NFLDERS]

Oh @leebee - if you've just replaced fairly "old" appliances with new ones, I fear you are in for disappointment on several levels. They simply don't make them like they used to. In my work I deal with issues all day long from people who bought the brightest and best with the most whiz-bang features possible for their new homes and then are unhappy. They are sure the machines must be "defective" because they don't work as simply and reliably as their old ones used to. It's one of the top, if not the #1 complaint we hear. Don't lament too hard about the selections you made; it's likely you'd be having some sort of problem no matter what you got. I experienced it myself when I went with a higher-end Kitchen-Aid set about 3 years ago.

We're also in similar circumstances with having to adjust our household but instead of young people and a child, our addition is my elderly, widowed sister and her dog. We're 6 months in now and realizing there are simply going to be kinks that never get worked out, but the centre is holding.

DH and I returned two weeks ago from our first cruise, post-Covid. For the most part it was as we remembered and enjoyable, except for the $100 USD/pp test we had to take in the terminal before boarding. That was necessary only because the tests we'd taken here at WalMart in order to enter the States were 10 hours out-of-date on a 24-hour clock and that couldn't be helped due to flight schedules. {{sigh}}. I've got another short cruise planned with a BFF leaving May 16 out of Los Angeles that I'm actually looking forward to more. It will finally use up the last little bit of travel credits we had when all our pre-pandemic plans fell apart. Canadian law did not require travel providers to give cash refunds and even the credits issued had time limits - 24 months in our case.

The love for your post is, sans Canadian Travel refunds.