7-26-14 Saturday (Werning: Speling Unda Construkshun)

This past week was Restaurant Week.  Oh, how we love it.  This year, we only went to Melting Pot with several friends.  Jim was funny this year.  I asked him about going to my favorite, Chima, or perhaps Ruth’s Chris.  He said that he was bored of those and wanted to try something new.  Neither one of us got what we wanted.  That’s fine though since we’ve been dropping $$$$$ twice a year on Restaurant Week for the past few year.  $30 a person plus tax, plus tips, plus drinks = a lot of money especially when we do 2-4 restaurants in one week.  Extravagant is what it is.  I mean, hey, we’re worth it though.  I digress.  So we went with Melting Pot since Beth and her family had never been.  Melting Pot is freakin’ fun.  Jim and I have been there many times.  There were 7 of us.  Jim and I, Jim’s coworker Ann, Beth and her siblings, David, Annie and Angie.  We were there for nearly 3 hours and had such a great time!

Above: An amazingly fun time!

Work wife, Jessica, found this recent news clip regarding a typo on a local interstate sign.  She knew I’d appreciate it and shared accordingly.  While I make my own fair share of spelling and grammar errors, “professionally” printed ones are always the best and always go noticed by me.

Media excerpt:  BALLANTYNE, N.C. -- Drivers getting on the new Johnston Road flyover in Ballantyne will notice a spelling error.  The new sign on the flyover leading to I-485 has 'Pinevllie' instead of the correct spelling of Pineville.

Similarly in recent Charlotte news:

Media excerpt: If you're traveling the Interstate-77 southbound off ramp to exit 28, you'll notice you can "NOLY" turn right.  After a weekend construction project, a right turn lane was incorrectly misspelled in permanent paint on the road.

We’re having Thanksgiving company this year.  The last time Jim’s family was here for the holidays was Thanksgiving 2011.  See here.  So far we have confirmations for Grandma, Jim’s Dad and Julie (favorite step mommy).  Jim has been approved the time off making for a 5 days weekend.  We’re waiting on his brother’s family to confirm.

This weekend we went to Augusta.  Shocker, I know.  We put the finishing touches on the motorhome and took it to CSRA Camperland for consignment.  The General Manager, Bob, was optimistic about the price.  He said it was in fantastic condition, and low mileage at 64k for a 1997 coach. The only con was that it will be hard for a buyer to get financing at this age.  We’ll leave it to the experts to sell it for us.  Send positive vibes… or money.  Money would work too.

Back in March, during our RV setup, Jim found a leak underneath.  It was purchased as-is but Jim gave it a shot and asked for repair assistance.  They kindly agreed adding to our already high opinion of Peco Campers.  It’s been an ongoing coordination for this repair since they’re a few hours away from us.  Late Saturday, a repair guy from Peco came to the campground and repaired the broken welds and reinstalled in underbelly insulation.  Yay! 

The last minute late repair ruined dinner plans but the new plans of chipping in with friends for pizza went well.  Again, we had a great time.

7-20-14 Sunday (Going Batty)

We spent this weekend at home.  I had to work Saturday.  This week, I put in gobs of overtime, 8.13 hours to be exact.  It’s a good thing I love my job.

On Saturday, Jim and I went out for lunch, did some grocery shopping, went to the mall and other boring activities. 

A part of our shopping was for shoes.  I got new work shoes and new sneakers.  I’m really picky/sensitive on shoe comfort since I tend to get a lot of foots pain.  Be it the way I walk, my posture, my right foot seems wider than the left, the Plantar Fasciitis that I’ve been diagnosed with and do nothing about or perhaps my huge belly/weight that puts strain on my feet?  I tried on a pair of Skechers gel top memory foam sneakers.  It’s like walking on a gym mat.  It’s sooooo cushy!   This particular line is called “This Way”.

 

Disney update: Nothing really new.  They send us a lot of stuff in the mail.  Most recently was a magnet with customized important dates to remember for our trip.  We’re flying my mom and Aunt Donna up here from Florida for a visit and to dog/house sit while we’re gone.  It’s kind of the same scenario as when we went to Alaska.  Mom and Aunt Donna came for 2.5 weeks, one of which we were in Alaska.  It’s a vacation for everyone! 

Jim is setting up his typical spread sheets in Excel to keep us organized.  We’ll typically have our day planned out.  Some people like that, some don’t.  Obviously we do.  It really helps to avoid the “what do you want to do?” “I don’t know, what do you want to do.”  It’s worked for us in the past and should be just fine.

 

Sometimes while letting the dog out back, we stand outside and watch him run around, or watch the rabbits hopping along our back gate or listen to all the night critters (frogs and crickets) make noise from the depths of our heavily wooded back yard.  The other night Jim came in and yelled for me to come out and see something.  Bats.  About 10 bats intermittently flew over the house and back yard.  It was well into dusk with just enough light to tell they didn’t have tail feathers and their wings had that unique bat shape to them.  It was really cool!  We watched them for a while.

7/18 >>> back to Augusta.  On Saturday we worked on replacing the motorhome’s awning fabric.  I was the lovely assistant, fetching things, holding things, etc.  It was raining on and off all day.  Several times, it poured on us but we kept working.  Eventually, after being drenched, we were done.  We got cleaned up and headed out for dinner.  It was 9:30 at night so options were limited. 

We got back to the RV and pretty much crashed.  We went to bed at about 11 which is early for us when we’re here.  We had a full day.

Next weekend we’ll need to get the RV to CSRA Camperland for consignment.  We might just sell this thing eventually.

2 pictures I’ve been meaning to post:

Above: Does anyone really like this song? 

Above: Wabbits in our back yard!

7-6-14 Sunday (Butter My Butt)

On Tuesday, the 24th, my Aunt and Uncle cooked us an awesome meal.  T-bone steaks, baked potatoes, fresh broccoli, biscuits and a side salad.  Yum!

On Wednesday, the 25th, I took my Aunt and Uncle to the airport.  I only had to get up 30 minutes earlier than I normally do for work so it wasn’t a big deal.  I dropped them off, came home, took a shower and got ready for work.

As you may remember, my birthday was on the 23rd.  Here’s what my zany friend Alix made for me.  She’s been obsessed with making goofy videos.  Enjoy.

Wasn’t that a hoot?  She’s crazy.  She used a picture of my friend, Carolyn and me.

I keep forgetting to mention… DISNEY.  This years big vacation is for Disney in the fall.  Even though we lived 3 hours away from it, Jim has been wanting to go.  We haven’t been to Disney in several years.  What do I think?  Sure, sounds fun, count me in.  Jim worked on planning it our.  We were going to get a travel agent to plan everything but he didn’t want to wait and he wanted to coordinate it all himself.  So… that’s what he did.

We wanted to be able to stay on property.  We’ve never done that.  Our first choice was The Contemporary.  The one with the monorail right through it.  That place is way expensive.  A no go.  Jim looked at some other options, and some available deals.  We thought about staying off property.  Pros, cons.  What if…  Well, we settled on Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort.  The price was OK but they had a meal package deal going and we signed up.  A free counter service, 1 free table service and 1 snack per day on Disney property reeled us in. Hey, we like to eat AND Disney food is crazy expensive. 

Disney sure goes out of its way to make the experience awesome.  We get customized mail, DVD’s to review, and eventually some bracelet thingy that I’ll mention again later.  I’m sure I’ll mention lots of Disney stuff later.

Grandma left the weekend of the 28th.  She wasn’t feeling 100% so she decided to skip her class reunion and head back to Georgia and then eventually home to Florida.

For July 4th, which was on a Friday, Jim and I took a half day Thursday to get a head start on the 3 day weekend!  Off to Augusta.  What an amazing weekend. 

We were having a great weekend and then Saturday, this happened:

The right side tires lost a duel with a curb.  2 tires popped, $275 later.  One rim is chewed up a little on the edge.  We’ll worry about that later.

We got the RV cleaned on the inside.  I vacuumed, wiped everything down and then steam cleaned the carpets.  Here’s the last personal thing we removed.

This was given to us at our send off party in August of 2008 by our friend, John Anderson.  It was sad to part with it.