May 10, 2008 Ship of Thieves! Stealing the Magic..AGAIN!!! Panama Canal FL to CA!!! Part 4

[been2marceline]

Happy Easter everyone. We had a lovely day, marred only by the fact that DH is not here. He misses most Easters as he is usually sitting in Crawford, Texas. This year, however, he was working in Atlanta. So the boys and I do the Easter thing. We dyed our eggs yesterday, and this morning they were up bright and early to check out their baskets and look for eggs. It was only 20 degrees when they went on their Easter egg hunt. What is with the weather? At least we didn't have snow like John & Amy.

Beautiful church service this morning, followed by another egg hunt at church. Then I hurried home to cook dinner for us and my parents. With all the talk of parents who are ill or already gone, I am feeling really blessed the last few days. We moved back to Iowa to be close to our parents when we were ready to have our own family. Sure there are plenty of more exciting places to live, not to mention warmer. But it has been wonderful to have the boys grow up with their grandparents right here. I have always been grateful that the boys have wonderful grandparents close by. But the posts of the past few days have me realizing how much it means to ME to be close to my parents. I take their good health and close proximity for granted, but life is too short and unpredictable. I gave DM and DF extra hugs and kisses today. Sorry for the mush.

Lori,

It's so good that you recognize that you appreciate them! I posted (WAAAYYY BAACCKK) that it is so important to cherish them while they are still with you. I had always been close to my folks and appreciated them while they were alive, but I do miss them everyday!!

Hope you had a lovely (if chilly) Easter with your Family!!

Karen

 

[LiserAnn]

Soon it will be time to get ready for church - services start at 11:00, conclude at about 2:00 - tonight we go to receive the Light!

At midnight, the church is darkened, and the priest comes out with ONE lit candle, the light coming back into the world. When the entire congregation then lights candles, and the priest goes outside the front doors of the church, and reads the Gospel of the Resurrection to the world.

After Church, a fellowship meal to break the fast in the social hall. Alex has been fasting all of Lent - no meat for 40 days. It will be strange for me this year, because my mom is not with us - she would cook while we were at church every year, and we would go to mom and dad's for an Easter dinner until 3 am . . . no avgolemono soup for me this year.

Have a Blessed Easter and Pascha everyone.

Kali Anastasi! (Happy Resurrection)

For 40 days after tonight, all Orthodox greet each other with:

Christos Anesti! (Christ is Risen!)

and respond with:

Alithos Anesti! (truly he is risen)

John-Christos Anesti!!

Everyone....Happy Easter or Passover, or whatever religious holiday you might be celebrating during this season. We had a busy weekend with the boys YaYa (greek grandma) coming for the weekend and today we headed over to my mother in law's for a large family celebration (DH has four sisters), which also included my mom. It was fun...hectic, but fun. Now the kids are coming down from their sugar highs.....

Off to bed! Good night!!!

 

[been2marceline]

Just caught up, didn't take too long!

We had a lovely day. DH made cinnamon rolls and bacon AND emptied the dishwasher AND he and DD put out a very nice basket for MOI!! Quite a surprise as I usually am the only Bunny!!

We had a relaxing morning, then drove to my sister's house, which is down by our "real/everyday" house!

Had a fabulous and very filling meal, and watched some of the Planet Earth series on her HUGE DLP HDTV. I have to admit, it was really awesome. We had such a nice relaxing time there too!

Then we had to go to our wine shop as we had several orders come in, so I had to get them ready for shipping.

Then back to Bodega Bay where we are relaxing again!!!

Just a lovely day!! Beautiful drive, sunny around 55 to 60 degrees. Lot's of cows, sheep and mustard blooming...

I hope everyone's day was lovely!!

Karen

 

[granmaz]

Yum to both yours and Noel's version!!

We actually tried to grow Brussel Sprouts once, what a mistake!! They get HUGE and atract white fly!!

Karen

Need to eat them small!!

Just caught up, didn't take too long!

We had a lovely day. DH made cinnamon rolls and bacon AND emptied the dishwasher AND he and DD put out a very nice basket for MOI!! Quite a surprise as I usually am the only Bunny!!

We had a relaxing morning, then drove to my sister's house, which is down by our "real/everyday" house!

Had a fabulous and very filling meal, and watched some of the Planet Earth series on her HUGE DLP HDTV. I have to admit, it was really awesome. We had such a nice relaxing time there too!

Then we had to go to our wine shop as we had several orders come in, so I had to get them ready for shipping.

Then back to Bodega Bay where we are relaxing again!!!

Just a lovely day!! Beautiful drive, sunny around 55 to 60 degrees. Lot's of cows, sheep and mustard blooming...

I hope everyone's day was lovely!!

Karen

Lovely, lovely day!!!

 

[granmaz]

That last post was a very quick one, you can probably tell, but it was on the dot of the Dis going down and I would have been annoyed to be stuck!!

It was a quiet night(evening for you), so you were all obviously really enjoying your Easter Sunday whatever you were doing. We are all on holiday today, the weather isn't just as good, but not cold or wet.

Going for a walk, a trip out for a coffee and some more paint. The one we chose is quite a dark coffee colour and I think might look like we are living in a mud cave if we do the whole kitchen in it!! Need to add some cream in there somewhere!

All these coffees, scones, cakes and a couple of meals out are not doing my weightloss plan any good!! Only a week to lose about 21lbs! Ah well, I really want to be down for our November trip, so plenty of time.

I think I will need to be quite a few lbs underweight before the May cruise next year though!!! I want to really enjoy myself. I will have to take a suitcase of big clothes though.

Well, waffling to myself over now. We can't even get the Dec 2nd Wonder cruise meet thread going so it looks like that will be a quiet cruise!

By the way, Disneylover, your son is very handsome. I think the girls on our cruise next year are going to be lovestruck!!!

 

[granmaz]

Karen, just remembered - cinnamon rolls!!!!! Yummy!!!!! Mmmmmmm!

 

[been2marceline]

Good morning, Marilyn!

Was just waiting for the DIS to come back up.

Hope you are having a lovely Monday as well!!

It's raining this evening in Bodega Bay. It rained a bit yesterday (Saturday) morning as well and after a beautiful day it just started to rain lightly. I hope it makes it down to our other house as we really need the rain!!

Karen

 

[granmaz]

Hi Karen. This is late for you. I hope it rains in the right place for you too, not where you are at the moment though! I think we haven't had too much rain recently either.

Have a lovely day today. Are you going home or spending a few more days there?

 

[been2marceline]

Karen, just remembered - cinnamon rolls!!!!! Yummy!!!!! Mmmmmmm!

Yes they were very yummy!! As was the bacon!! And coffee, of course!! DH is a Tea drinker. He likes a hazelnut mocha every now and then, but coffee upsets his stomach.

Karen

 

[granmaz]

I love coffee, but restrict myself usually, and can't drink any after about 3pm or I am awake in the night!! I drink green tea and peppermint tea usually as a healthier alternative.

 

[been2marceline]

Hi Karen. This is late for you. I hope it rains in the right place for you too, not where you are at the moment though! I think we haven't had too much rain recently either.

Have a lovely day today. Are you going home or spending a few more days there?

Marilyn,

It's "only" 1:50 am here! Not really too "late" for me...

We will be up here until Wednesday evening. It's always so tranquile and relaxing here... so hard to leave!

We have DD's two twin friends coming up to stay a couple of nights tomorrow. Should be interesting... we probably won't see much of them for the two days!!

Watching a food Network cake challenge, but I am starting to nod, so I will be toddeling off to bed soon.

Have an awesome day!

Karen

 

[granmaz]

Last evening I passed some time over on the thread for the last westbound repo in 2005. I found the pages just before they set off and enjoyed the excitement as they were all leaving at various times to either WDW or the port. It was fun to read and helped the excitement at this rather flat time in our plans!

 

[granmaz]

Goodnight Karen. We will soon be going out now.(Coffee and a scone!! )

 

[disneylover5]

I used insuremytrip both times and used the side-by-side comparison feature. I just picked the $ amount of my whole trip (air, hotel, cruise) and did it for that amount plus a hefty $250,000 (or more) for emergency medical evacuation.

I have read posts recently regarding airlline issues. There are some issues with missing your cruise do to delayed flight. Do read up on the air portion, because MOST only cover CANCELLED flights or shut down airports as a reason for missing your cruise. If your flight is delayed due to mechanical reasons and you miss the ship and decide NOT to try and make the ship at a later port, there could be issues. I know there were a couple of recent threads on folks who missed the ship and had some problems. If I find it, I'll come back and post a link for your. Plus maybe some of our cruisemates will have a better (clearer!) understanding of the best things to look for in trip insurance.

Thanks, that is exactly what I am worried about. I found a phone # on the insuremytrip.com sight, so I am going to call them. I will let you know what I find out. When I did the search, the rates went fro $900 (for 10 of us trip value $36,870) all the way up to $3,000. I was thinking there has to be substantial differences for those charges. If anyone else has thoughts on trip insurance, I would really appreciate it,

 

[Jhalkias]

John-Christos Anesti!!

Everyone....Happy Easter or Passover, or whatever religious holiday you might be celebrating during this season. We had a busy weekend with the boys YaYa (greek grandma) coming for the weekend and today we headed over to my mother in law's for a large family celebration (DH has four sisters), which also included my mom. It was fun...hectic, but fun. Now the kids are coming down from their sugar highs.....

Off to bed! Good night!!!

Alithos Anesti!

 

[MrsMork]

Keep in mind the average person only gets 5 or 6 of those days actually off. Unless you work for the bank or post office.

Kim

Or any Federal job. I get them all.

 

[birkner]

It was a great place to grow up and if my folks were still there I bet we'd enjoy the summer visits now that our kids are old enough to "enjoy" the life too. All of my sisters kids did spend lots of time with their Grandparents at the lake. By the time my kids were born my parents couldn't take on the job of having them visit without us there to help.

We all learned to water ski at the Lake. My dad had the trick of always getting people up. He sold the boat a few years before he died, again, none of us wanted to handle the upkeep.

We do want to sell the house soon as we can use the cap gain exclusion and avoid the gain (she's under the 500K mark). It's also sad to have the house now that dad is gone. It was his baby so mom really is glad to be back here with us girls.

I'm sure you'd know which house was theirs. It's the barn shaped house across the street from rec 1. My dad also sat on the BOD for a few years. So you might even have known him (or his name) Don Dodson. I bet we even have family friends in common. The place is so small it just seems that way. What was your father's name? I'll ask my mom, she is sometimes still ok at remembering people. They lived there for about 20 years full time.

We also love brussel sprouts. Paul steams them then moves them to a pan with olive oil and toasted almonds...yum one of my favorite.

Well we have had a VERY lazy morning. (I'm still in jammies) the kids got us up at 7:30am to get their baskets and had fun finding the eggs in the house. We opted for less candy this year and hid cash in one special egg for each of them. Wilson is playing with his balloon animal kit and Molly was excited about the Bunicula books.

I have to get dressed and get rolling....it's cold over at the beach I'm not sure today is convertible day or not, it might be better to go in the comfort of the mini van.

I'll check in later....Happy Easter!

Nan:

Your kids might really love the Lake. If you do decide to go up this summer with the kids, let me know. I often take my GK's up and they are near both Molly and Wilson's age.

I sure do know which house you mean. Your Dad's name sounds familiar but I am not sure if our families were aquainted. My parents were Walter and Elaine Johnson.

Our house on Lassen View is located two houses down from the Princes old house, in between Stuart and Stewart and Rick Peters' house who next to Gil and Gayle Reel. You mother may know some of our neighbors.

The house was build by Dr. Brown and his wife. It was originally painted blue with brown trim. The house is directly across from the golf course and you can see the clubhouse from our front porch. We collect a huge bucket of balls in the summer. The rule is if the golfer doesn't pick the ball up in a hour, finders keepers.

Houses up there have been taking a very long time to sell. I know Stuart and Barbara had the house on the market for at least three years before they sold the property for near the asking price. Our house for probate purposes was valuated at $960K though their is no way we could get that price for the house in this market. Part of the high value is being lake front property although you need a tram or very steep stairs to get to the lake.

Strangely enough, my DH's parents lived in Westwood while he was in college from 1961-65. His father was supervising construction on the prison being built in Susanville when he had a heart attack. He is buried in the cemetery in Westwood.

What a nice trip down memory lane for me!!

Noel

 

[birkner]

Good evening everyone...and a belated Happy Easter to you all
We've had a busy day as we had Mark's sister (also a Rebecca) and her little boy over for the day (they live on the south coast near Portsmouth). She and her dh have just split so its a bit stressful for them just now, it was nice to spend some time with her and we had a long chat. DD and her bf also spent the day in with us, so we had a good family time I do miss doing things like painting eggs etc but it was lovely to have people around!

I can't remember if I mentioned that my family in the UK is from the Portsmouth area. My mothers second cousin, Roy Otley was harbourmaster for Portmouth for many years. I have family in Hayling Island, Waterlooville and Forestside, Rowlands Castle, Hants also. My great-grandfather was the "tax collector" for that area for many years after he left the Royal Navy. Small world...

 

[birkner]

Noel:
Thank you very much. I will have DH start with those (did I mention I don't cook at all! ) Have you made any of them? They all sounded so good.

All three and they are fabulous!! I love to cook but with just DH and I often reduce the portions.

 

[birkner]

Yes they were very yummy!! As was the bacon!! And coffee, of course!! DH is a Tea drinker. He likes a hazelnut mocha every now and then, but coffee upsets his stomach.

Karen

I was an avid coffee drinker myself until about a year and a half ago. Coffee started to upset my stomach also (as does chocolate). I now only drink tea. Love chocolate but have to be very careful to eat small portions.