h20skibum

We have a couple rooms at the Townplace Suites booked for August. For January, we booked the new Holiday Inn Express. We usually try to stay at Marriott properties, but Holiday Inn Express was about $60 cheaper for that night. I double checked August, and HIE was more expensive than Townplace for that date.

Congratulations on Owen’s win.

My son, and his family made the drive yesterday, from San Francisco to LA. They plan to spend Thanksgiving week at Universal Studios, so our grandson will get to compare the California version with the Orlando version. Driving that distance takes a little longer, because recharging takes longer than refueling. They had to make a couple recharge stops. At least they have more of the stations built out in California. Thought it was unique that one of the stops was at a Tesla Lounge, where they sell you food and drink while you wait.

That is why I was up at midnight, last night. To get that early check in time. Since we are parking at the port for our December and January cruises, I want to be there early. Speaking of the January cruise, we have so many hotel rooms booked for various trips, I asked Susan if she had the one booked at Port Canaveral. Nope, she booked a couple rooms for August cruise, but not for January. So, had to book one yesterday.

I heard they are supposed to do that for old people. We will see if they consider us old, when we board next month. 😂😂

There was a restaurant in the little town where my daughter went to college. It closed a couple years ago, and some new owners bought it and renovated with plans to open next month. They were planning on it being a farm to table type restaurant, and there was just an article about them trying to figure out how to make that work in our area. The article was talking about the local beef supplier providing meat for an upscale restaurant in NY where a meal is typically $400-$500. They were also talking about their turkeys selling for between $5 and $6 a pound. I will be interested to see if the new restaurant will make it work. Susan and I did the leaves in our yard yesterday, and just finished doing our old neighbor’s yard today. I think this will be the last time. Even though we have a couple 95 gallon yard waste carts, we still end up with a lot of bags. Right now, there are 33 more for them to pick up on Tuesday. That makes about 150 bags this year, which is pretty typical for our house. Needless to say, I have more than one tree.

We spent $35 for the turkeys, but then we got two because one would not be large enough to feed that many people.

We must be doing something wrong. Just saw a news piece that people spend an average of $61 to feed 10 at Thanksgiving. Ok, that would mean we should spend about $85 to feed the 14 we expect. HaHa, maybe Royal can do that, but not us. We are already between $250 and $300, and that doesn’t include what dishes others are bringing. of course, we probably have many more “extras” they wouldn’t consider in their calculations.

Following along. We board in four weeks for this same itinerary. Are you getting paper cruise compasses? Curious if this tip I received works for Symphony. Once onboard & connected to the ship wifi, use this link… https://minio.rccl.com/compass/cruisecompass.pdf That should give you the daily Cruise Compass in PDF form and you can save them.

Since we were going to be gone, long before Christmas, we debated how much decorating to do. Initially, Susan said, “Let’s just put up the small pencil tree in the family room.” Ok, that is fine with me. Then she said, “Oh, since we will celebrate with the grandkids in a couple weeks, we better put up the living room tree. And put up the legos, because they like to play with those.” Ok, didn’t plan on that, but…. Then I said, “Stop, or pretty soon we will look like this” IMG_9360.mp4 Anyhow, decorating is done. I hope!

Lots to be proud of there. I hope your grandson’s play went well.

@helen haywood If nothing is working for you, why not just take a screenshot of the photo and post the screenshot. I believe screenshots are all in jpg format.

Try updating to the latest release. Go to General, then Software Update to download and install.

And if you really want to spend big bucks on a roof, and go green, you can always spring for a Tesla roof. My son was actually looking into one of these to replace his roof in California. I somehow got on Elon’s mailing list for these, after I toured the Tesla plant in Fremont. For me, it was a hard no.

I had to use up FCC’s, so using girl math, the cruise was free. 😂😂

Maybe it has something to do with the 15. I have a 12 Pro, and have been running iOS 17.1.1 without problems.

That could be a toss up. Do you have any large trees that could drop limbs on your house? Our neighbor behind us put in a new storage shed with a metal roof last year, and a large limb fell on it and crushed the ridge cap and a couple panels. They haven’t done any type of repair on it, and I imagine it would be more difficult than asphalt shingles. We had a large limb puncture a hole in the roof of our storage barn. It was pretty easy to repair, because I had shingles left over from when they replaced our roofs in 2020. That was the best time to have work done, because everyone wanted the work when they realized it would be longer than 2 weeks to stop the spread.

haha, no. Tip money is in ones. Just had to get some larger cash for Christmas gifts and moving some from one bank to another for our Holiday rental.

Yesterday was the day to print boarding passes for next month’s cruise on Symphony. Stopped at the bank to pick up some tip money. Think I can get any new, best friend bartenders with this? 😂😂

But then, I hear you will get bombarded with credit card offers on the RCI app. 😁

Yes, that is ranked, with Miami, Orlando, and Tampa called out for Florida. I guess that the Villages are close enough to Orlando to make the list. Either that, or there are things going on in the Magic Kingdom they don’t want us to know about. I thought it was interesting that California appeared underrepresented. The article said most people would assume that California cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco would be prominent, but claimed adulterous behavior is normalized in the Golden State. Oftentimes people want to equate the California lifestyle with a lack of morals and ethics.

I didn’t realize I live in the red zone. Everyone talks about celebrating the season this time of year. Not sure if this is the season they are talking about.

I am so far behind, that I am going to try and catch up this morning. Sorry if I miss anyone. @dani negreanu Dani, I was so sorry to read about Anthony. I am thinking of you and what is going on, and am glad to see you are still posting. @Ocean Boy Ocean Boy, remind me again what is in your Odyssey cocktail. It looks good. @taznremmy Pat, sorry to see that picture of your knee all wrapped, from your mishap on your Hawaii cruise. Hope it is not too bad by the time you get back to SF. @HBE4 Sorry to read it is the 1 year anniversary of the passing of your wife. And, @molly361, sorry to see it is 2 years since the passing of your husband. Strength to both of you. @George C Sorry to read about Joebob. @A&L_Ont congratulations to Owen for his academic excellence. It is always great to see the kids do well. ok, I think I am caught up now.

Blasphemy!! I just read this great line in the new Jack Reacher book….. ”And you know the two best words in the English language. Free alcohol. Not to be confused with the worst two words. Alcohol free.”

We did the same, except it was on the Grand out of SF. They did have a lot of Hawaiian culture things to occupy those fours sea days. Princess was doing their M&M’s different at that time, in that someone had to take the initiative to organize the group. I think it ended up being the largest M&M we were ever at. We met a great couple from the Bay Area, and he was the one who organized it. They sail that itinerary to Hawaii three or four times a year.