Sam started off the dive season last weekend going to Morehead City and diving on the Indra with Rum Runners dive shop. While Sam was diving, Mom had plenty of time to go shell hunting along the beach and it appears she hit the motherlode as the table at home was full when she laid everything out. Sam also brought back a couple of real nice shells from his dive too… unfortunately one of them was still inhabited even after Sam gave it a good shake in the sea.

This weekend he has a dive at the quarry lake in Raleigh. The quarry dives are obviously a lot easier since there is no waves to contend with and it is good time to practice on techniques. Sam is going to take the Go Pro camera and start practicing with it so that hopefully when he goes on the ocean dives he can bring back some good photos/videos. Later on in the summer he will be heading to Wilmington, NC with Rum Runners for his first dive in that area.

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Nana came down for a visit (Gung, Gung is still in the UK) this weekend and it was full of celebration. First off we celebrated Cinco de Mayo on Friday night – granted it was a couple of days late but we made the best of it with some Coronas, tacos, beans, rice and chips with lots of guacamole.

On Saturday, we celebrated two Graduations! Sam finished the last year of high school home schooled due to the pandemic – not to worry though as Mom and Dad didn’t have to do any of the teaching. Sam took all of his classes online at Pitt Community college and technically finished in December as he had all the requirements finished for high school a that time. He did go ahead and take some more welding classes in the spring and is taking a couple more welding classes over the summer as well. Sam finished his classes at JPII his Junior year with a 3.73 GPA (this was the weighted score as many of his classes were AP – Advanced Placement) and then finished his Senior year at PCCC with a 3.61 GPA and 31 credit hours of college under his belt! Sam opted out of a big party with friends, but we still had a nice small family dinner at home – burgers, hot dogs and all the fixings. The second graduation we were celebrating was for Alex as we didn’t really have a big celebration for him when he finished his Associates degree back in December of 2019. We had planned on having a nice dinner later in the spring of 2020, but the pandemic threw a wrinkle in those plans. Alex did take the last year off in 2020 as the next round of classes are going to be a little harder and he would rather take those in person than online. Alex plans on going back to get another certificate this fall and then hopefully move on to complete his 4 year degree at some point. Post pandemic his first degree/certificates aren’t quite as needed as before the pandemic – in fact, the local hospital actually disbanded that program entirely. Not to worry though as that will just give him a leg up on everyone else once he gets these new certificates.

Finally on Sunday, we celebrated Mother’s Day with a nice Salmon and shrimp dinner. Mom got some more flowers (she actually planted those on Saturday) and some garden tools while Nana got a gift card and the mother of all gifts…..vaseline lip balm. Apparently this is a ‘chick’ thing as Mom bought herself some too. Between the two of them they should now have enough to last until the next pandemic.

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“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbor: Winter is dead.”

A. A. Milne

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Well Easter weekend has come and gone, but not without a visit from Nana and Gung Gung! Since everyone has had a least 1 vaccine shot, they decided to make the trip down for the weekend. Mom, Dad and Alex all had the weekend off from work, so everyone was at home for once. We had a nice Pasta dinner on Saturday night, followed by the new Godzilla movie and for the first time in a very long time, Alex and Sam joined in on the family movie night too. On Sunday we had a typical Easter dinner: roast leg of lamb, roasted potatoes, Mac & Cheese, roasted onions and some lemon peas. We tried to convince the boys to try the Peas, hoping the lemon flavor would help, but alas there were no takers on the green vegetables. The onions were also a tough sell, but will probably be eaten with grilled hamburgers later in the week. Everyone got a little treat for the holiday as well, including some dancing Peeps for Mom. It was great to see everyone, especially before David goes over to the UK for a visit. Happy Easter!

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Just some Easter fun…..

Well it’s official…. everyone in the house has now had at least 1 shot!

Yesterday, Mom was checking to see if Sam had school on Thursday (built in weather day that they never used) when she noticed that all Pitt CC students were now eligible for the vaccine. She immediately went online and signed up both boys for the vaccine and they even had next day availability at the same time she was going for her second shot. The boys are now scheduled for their 2nd shot on April 19th at 10:45am together. Since they were all together and from one family, they all got to sit together at the table where they registered and received the shot. Unfortunately there wasn’t any string quartet playing like there was at Mom’s first shot, but nonetheless it was still a very organized and stress free environment where everyone was very friendly and encouraging. Dad received the J&J shot a couple of weeks ago, so he was already one and done.

Let’s just hope these new variants don’t cause a 4th wave before everyone can get vaccinated. North Carolina has already said that all residents 16 and older will be able to receive the vaccine starting next week. Hopefully by the end of this year or possibly early next year we can stop wearing the masks…. at least we are all crossing our fingers.

Just a safe tip… if you post your vaccine photo online you should apparently not show your number. Don’t know if this is true or not but apparently there are anti-vaxxers using numbers they find online to create their own fake vaccination record.

A few weeks ago we made the trip down to Gainesville, Florida to take Sam cave diving. Sam actually made the trip 3 or 4 years ago and really liked it, but he wasn’t able to go on all the dives because he was only certified to 60′ and of course, at the time he was only 14 or 15 years old. This time around however, Sam got to go on all the dives – 4 total in 2 days and went down over 100′ on two of the dives. Meanwhile Mom and Dad, drove to the St. Augustine beach on Saturday and relaxed a little on Sunday, although we didn’t get as much relaxation as we thought because the two dives were about two hours apart. We did get to stop at Myrtle Beach, SC on the way down and we hit Fernandina Beach, FL (very close to GA state line) on the way home, it was a little chilly at the beaches, but Mom did find a few nice shells.

One thing we did learn about Florida, was that anything can pass as a road in that state. There were several roads that both Apple/Google maps took us on that were not intended for normal driving – dirt roads with huge dips and holes. Luckily we drove the Rover, because we had thought about taking the Honda originally. The video at the bottom doesn’t do the bumpiness of the roads justice, but it gives you a little idea of their condition. The crazy thing is that people actually lived back there – quite a few of them. How did they get their mail? What happened if it rains hard? Why?? So many questions…

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Just for fun, some last minute holiday cheer.

Well another holiday season has come and gone and this one was definitely much different than past holidays, although still very merry. We got off to a good start with the decorating, but we still didn’t manage to get the Christmas wreaths, Nutcrackers and the Nativity scene out of the boxes this year. On a positive note, this means that taking down the decorations will, of course, be much easier this year. We also still had the now annual, Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve and a traditional dinner on Christmas Day. The difference this year was that we had a very relaxed Christmas Eve dinner in the kitchen and Christmas dinner was by the fire in the den. Some things didn’t change though as we always cook quite a bit of extra food and leftovers, as usual, were gone in just a few days. Everyone had some nice presents including at least one nice surprise that they weren’t expecting. Overall, even though it was a crazy year and things were definitely different than normal, we all had a very nice holiday.

Thanksgiving weekend was a really long one for all of us, except of course Sam, who managed to take it easy all weekend long – no work, no cooking or cleaning and no homework. That being said, we did finally manage to get around to picking out a tree on Wednesday. Most of these trees were just cut a couple of days earlier up in the mountains and still had snow on them as of Tuesday, so we ended up getting there at the right time. Hopefully we will have the house all decorated by the end of the weekend, but Tuesday seems more likely at this point. 😁