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. 😁

Well just like the rest of the year, this Thanksgiving has been like no other. First off, it was just the 4 of us today as Nana and Gung Gung celebrated their Thanksgiving in Virgina. Secondly, it seemed like it took us 3 hours to make dinner and we were done eating in about 30 minutes or maybe even less. Then, of course, another hour to clean up and we were done with everything before 2pm. We originally had planned on having dinner at 2pm, but the turkey cooked quicker than we calculated and so we had to scramble a little to get all the sides done. On the menu was roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade Mac n Cheese, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberries and green bean casserole. To wet our whistle, we had apple cider mimosas. We do have lots of side dish leftovers, but honestly not much turkey. Whoever said that you should plan on 11/2 -2 pounds per person of turkey if you want leftovers, clearly never met our boys. Never the less, we are thankful for the good meal and a day or two of leftovers.

We’ve had a fairly cool fall so far, so it was kind of unusual for Raphael to drop by… or was it Michelangelo? To be honest, we don’t know which of the Ninja Turtles was in our yard a couple of days ago, but we are sure it was probably headed for higher ground as we have had a little over 4″ of rain the last 2 days. Raphael didn’t seem too worried as he made time for Sam to snap a couple of photos of him before he wandered off.

Well not something you would normally find in your shed… an opossum sleeping in a bag of dirt. Judging by his size he couldn’t have been too old, because we have seen much larger ones wandering around in the past. He seemed nice and snuggled up in the bag, but Dad wasn’t really too keen on leaving him there so Mom dragged the bag out onto the ramp and coaxed him out. As you can see, he wasn’t really very happy about being woken up in the middle of the day either. Alex, Sam and Mom all stood around and watch him walk off while Dad was questioning the logic of standing so close, but in the end he wandered off to hopefully find his family. At least he didn’t go into catatonic shock/play dead because we’re not sure what we would have done with him then. Later, when Dad was pulling the lawnmower out to mow the front yard, he realized that the little critter managed to poop on the lawnmower too – seems he had a busy night.

Later for Family dinner we had Bangers n’ Mash and Fish N’ Chips… seems Dad was watching Sky News in the workshop and thinking about all the pubs that would be closing on Thursday. Mom, of course, opted for oatmeal.

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Considering it was a Saturday night, Halloween, a Full/Blue moon and in this twin year 2020, it was pretty uneventful. Mom cleaned out some closets and filled a couple of trash bags with clothes for donation. Dad worked on the computer and changed some light bulbs on the Freelander, while the boys did the usual, absolutely nothing, unless you consider playing video games and watching YouTube videos something? We did decide to splurge and we ordered out for dinner at Cheddar’s. The boys had hamburgers, Mom a salad and Dad a very uninspired chicken dinner. A quick stop at Farm Fresh grocery store for some candy and everyone is now at home in a very dark house. Realistically we doubt we are going to get any trick or treaters coming through the neighborhood this year, although we did see several of the neighbors with young kids next door. Just a few neighborhood kids will probably/hopefully be the extent of things this year. We do have a wild and crazy night planned as we have The Great British Baking show and Mandalorian for Mom and Dad, while the boys will most likely be in front of their computers playing video games the rest of the night. Since Alex and Mom both have to be at work in the morning at 6am and Dad has a lot of little projects planned the next couple of days, we will probably be in bed early tonight.