*OFFICIAL* CC Group Cruise 02/15/2014 Cupid's IV Southern Caribbean - Carnival Breeze

[Cruisin Dave]

Good afternoon Cupids,

 

It's cool here today. We will only get into the low 50s.:(

 

Sue, glad to hear that your Ducks won. The Frogs are probably out for the season. Their QB was arrested on a DUI last week and has been suspended from the team.:(

 

Heidi, we are also flying on AA in February . Also, we are flying on AA this Thursday. Our return flight was canceled but we got another flight the following morning.

 

Cat, enjoy your day off.

 

Renee, I've never seen that brand but will keep an eye out for it.

 

Hope everyone has a great day.

Dave

[walkswife]

Renee, I've never seen that brand but will keep an eye out for it.

 

Hope everyone has a great day.

Dave

 

Dave it's a local cheese factory .... you won't find it in stores by you.... you would have to go on line and order and we ship it UPS...

[momofzeke]

Just wanted to say I will be joining you all on this cruise!

 

WELCOME, WELCOME!! Is your name Minnie? We are happy to have you!

 

Another GREAT win for my Ducks on an absolutely GORGEOUS night in Eugene! I can't believe how lucky we've been with the weather for all 5 home games so far. Eugene gets a lot of rain, but we have had beautiful weather so far.

 

Heidi ~ we thought of you Friday night; ate at O.G. In fact, we talked about you...Dave was wondering how many tables each server has, and he wanted me to text you and ask. LOL! I told him it's probably different for each individual restaurant. Our service was great and I had the good old standard Tour of Italy and took half of it home and had it again last night.

 

Renee ~ oh, great, just what I need is another online food addiction! ;) We order Lou Malnati's pizza all the time now, and I love cheese too so will have to check out the website for Renard's.

 

Dave ~ yes, I knew that the TCU QB was out. I see they lost Saturday. What a shame. Kids are so dumb sometimes, but then we have to remember they are kids. They are so young! It's sure too bad, though.

 

Rick ~ glad to hear you are making progress with the backpack project.

 

Cat ~ yay, Kenny is on the mend! So glad to hear it. Good grief, I have never LOST weight on a cruise in my life! :p

 

I am waiting for Dave to come get me for the corral project. He has some other stuff to do first this morning. After being gone over the weekend, a couple cows got into the neighbors so he had to go get them out. Always a few chores to catch up on after being away for a couple days.

[HeidiHo]

Heidi ~ we thought of you Friday night; ate at O.G. In fact, we talked about you...Dave was wondering how many tables each server has, and he wanted me to text you and ask. LOL! I told him it's probably different for each individual restaurant. Our service was great and I had the good old standard Tour of Italy and took half of it home and had it again last night.

 

 

Sue - it's my understanding that the company standard is 3 tables per server. It was the same when I worked at Smokey Bones. Now, that being said, there are times when we might not have a lot of servers working but we get a little busy so we might have to ask servers to pick up extra tables rather than go on a wait. This happens during times of the day or night when we are usually slow and that's why we don't have a lot of servers on duty like after 9:00 PM or when we first open at 11:00 AM. When we are fully staffed during busy times the servers will only have 3 tables each. Sometimes we get unusually busy when we don't have many servers on duty and even after giving all the good servers an extra table or two we have to go on a wait and our guests don't understand why they have to wait when they see empty tables. They don't understand that we aren't always fully staffed. At least not during times that are usually slow for us. If we just kept giving servers extra tables the service would be lousy because they wouldn't be able to handle all them all. We only give extra tables to strong servers who we know can handle them too. We just can't predict when we might get busier than usual.

[walkswife]

 

Renee ~ oh, great, just what I need is another online food addiction! ;) We order Lou Malnati's pizza all the time now, and I love cheese too so will have to check out the website for Renard's.

 

.

 

And Wisconsin cheese is the best!!!

[walkswife]

Sue - it's my understanding that the company standard is 3 tables per server. It was the same when I worked at Smokey Bones. Now, that being said, there are times when we might not have a lot of servers working but we get a little busy so we might have to ask servers to pick up extra tables rather than go on a wait. This happens during times of the day or night when we are usually slow and that's why we don't have a lot of servers on duty like after 9:00 PM or when we first open at 11:00 AM. When we are fully staffed during busy times the servers will only have 3 tables each. Sometimes we get unusually busy when we don't have many servers on duty and even after giving all the good servers an extra table or two we have to go on a wait and our guests don't understand why they have to wait when they see empty tables. They don't understand that we aren't always fully staffed. At least not during times that are usually slow for us. If we just kept giving servers extra tables the service would be lousy because they wouldn't be able to handle all them all. We only give extra tables to strong servers who we know can handle them too. We just can't predict when we might get busier than usual.

 

We have 4 to 6 tables each depending on the night.... that is the whole restaurant with 2 or 3 servers.... I love the people up here who get mad on a friday or saturday in the middle of summer in door county who can't believe we have a 45 minute wait for a table then get mad when its another half hour or so before they get their food once they order...... come on people can't you see the full tables and 50 people at the bar waiting for one!! If they never worked in a restaurant they don't get it.....

[momofzeke]

Morning!

 

Heidi, Renee ~ thanks for that explanation! I've never worked in a restaurant, but I know how it works from friends like you 2 who do. Anytime we are in Eugene, we just assume it will be at least a 45 minute wait in any of the popular restaurants...might be longer, might be less time. If it's longer, oh well. If it's less...YAY! But seems like there are always people grumbling and grousing about it that just don't "get it". Clueless people bug me, but seems there are a LOT of them in this world!! :p

 

Yesterday was kind of sad for me. I realized that it was Columbus Day, which was the day I lost my very best horse 8 years ago. :( I still miss him so much. He was the coolest horse...followed me around like a dog. He would chase the other horses away from me if I tried to brush or pet them ~ he was a bit of a jealous fellow. If I was standing near him and not petting him, he would put his head on me and nudge me like "hey! I'm here and you need to pay attention to me!". I loved that horse so much, it was really hard to lose him. He's buried here on the ranch, on a knoll in one of our hayfields. Every year when we cut in that field, I have to stop my swather and go over to say hi to Ernie and cry for a while. Dave always knows when he sees my swather stop in that place what I'm doing. I sure miss him. :(

 

Corral is coming along nicely. We got the posts set yesterday so the poles can go in on 2 sections. Got a couple more gates hung. It's starting to look like a corral again.

 

The big corral is attached to 5 smaller corral/pens that makes up the whole corral system. The cows go into the big corral and then we push part of them into the smaller ones to sort them, then push them towards the squeeze chute if they need to have any work done (vaccinate, preg test, wormer, whatever). The poles we put in today will complete 2 of those 5 smaller corrals.

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning.

 

We have 4 to 6 tables each depending on the night.... that is the whole restaurant with 2 or 3 servers.... I love the people up here who get mad on a friday or saturday in the middle of summer in door county who can't believe we have a 45 minute wait for a table then get mad when its another half hour or so before they get their food once they order...... come on people can't you see the full tables and 50 people at the bar waiting for one!! If they never worked in a restaurant they don't get it.....

 

I know. That always kills me too. I just don't get why people walk in with a party of 10 on Mother's Day and then are shocked when I tell them the wait is an hour and a half. Helllloooooo, it's Mother's Day. LOL. Or like you said, even on just a normal busy night, like Saturday night they are surprised when the wait is 45 minutes to an hour, even for small parties like 2-4. These people must only go out to eat about once a year and usually on non busy nights because ALL restaurants in our area are busy on Saturday nights. Another one that I love are the people that I hand a pager to and they say, "What's this for?" Again, apparently they must never go out to eat.

 

I'm a little worried about one of our kitties this morning. You might remember about 3 weeks ago I told you that she had this ugly cyst on her check but that it fell off. Well, I knew it would grow back but that at least for now it was gone. Well, this morning I noticed that her cheek where the cyst was is all bloody and raw. :( I haven't been able to catch her to take a good look at it though. I need to wait until she's sleeping somewhere. She really doesn't like to be picked up and she REALLY doesn't like to have the cyst touched. I'm hoping that she just scratched it and that it will scab over and heal back up. I hope it's not infected. She's 16 years old so any kind of surgery at this point would probably be more dangerous than just leaving the cyst there. I just don't want anything to happen to her before Eric comes home. She's his cat (sort of anyway). When we got them the kids each claimed one. Anyway, when Eric was in Argentina 2 of his grandparents died and his pet lizard so I don't want anything like that to happen again or the poor kid will be afraid to leave the country ever again. He'll be home in 16 days. :D

 

Activity has picked up at bit on my Princess cruise roll call. Actually, another mom from the Chicago area posted that she will also be cruising with her 22 year old daughter and another woman from the UK posted that she'll be cruising with her "mum." I don't know how old they are though.

 

Have a great day. :)

[Flick]

Heidi, read in this morning's paper that Darden Corp. (Parent of OG) is experimenting in four locations to make their employees part-time instead of full time so they can avoid high fines in 2014 when Obamacare goes into effect. Are you full or part time?

We go later today to get free bread for the kids and then we pack backpacks tomorrow instead of Friday because Friday is a teacher in-service day and no kids in school. Next one isn't until the week before Thanksgiving. When you have volunteers and they commit to a certain day (such as Friday) it's difficult to get a whole crew together on Thursday which makes a lot of work for fewer people.

[momofzeke]

Morning!

 

I'm on a "sleeping in" cycle right now...most of the time in spring, summer and early fall, I seem to wake up very early, like anywhere from 5 to 6, or sometimes even earlier. I've been sleeping until 7-8 the last couple weeks.

 

Of course, this morning, I had a little "help" waking up...my cat came in and woke me. Dave swore he just "forgot" to close the bedroom door when he got up, but I am suspicious! He knows I won't get mad if the pets are the ones to wake me...and I know he needs me to help him on the corral this morning. :rolleyes:

 

Heidi ~ sure hope Eric's kitty is ok!

 

Rick ~ good luck getting a crew together for tomorrow.

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

Heidi, read in this morning's paper that Darden Corp. (Parent of OG) is experimenting in four locations to make their employees part-time instead of full time so they can avoid high fines in 2014 when Obamacare goes into effect. Are you full or part time?

 

Rick - I am only part time and don't receive any benefits. I don't really need them because I get good medical coverage through Dave's company

 

Heidi ~ sure hope Eric's kitty is ok!

 

 

Sue - she seems OK today. Just a few minutes ago she was chasing her sister. I finally got a look at it late yesterday and it didn't look as red and raw as it did in the morning. I also saw blood on one of her back paws so I'm pretty sure she just scratched it and it bled. Up until now she had never scratched it so that's why we just left it be. The one she had removed from her neck a couple of years ago she was scratching all the time so we had to do something about it. I hope she'll leave it alone now. I really don't want to put a 16 y/o cat through surgery.

 

I am off today but lots to do. Have a great day. :)

[Flick]

Yesterday was a quiet day for us chatters but now comes today. Because Friday is an in-service day for teachers (no students in class) we have to pack our backpacks and distribute them today. Then this afternoon we shopped for food to re-stock.

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

I work lunch today. My one lunch per week although this week I get 2. I actually requested Sunday night off because we were going to go to Dubuque, Iowa for my nephews son's birthday party but we have decided not to go so I picked up a lunch shift. It will be nice to work but not have to close like I normally do on Sunday.

 

The weather here is nice but cold. Only 44 degrees right now but it's supposed to get into the mid 60's.

 

On Saturday we are going to the Tobler Family reunion. The Tobler's are my mom's side of the family. Two years ago my cousins decided that we needed to get together more often. Their dad and my mom had just passed away and we realized that we only got together for funerals so we should try to get together for happy occasions so this is the third annual reunion. We are not a huge family and everyone still lives in the Midwest with the farthest one living in Columbus, Ohio. The rest are in Illinois but a couple are in Southern Illinois so it's still a bit of a drive for them. It will be held at a volunteer fire house about an hour and a half from here. It's always nice to get together.

 

Have a great day

[momofzeke]

Morning!

 

I just love Fall weather! It has been getting very cold at night...usually below freezing. But then it warms up so nicely during the day. Yesterday it was in the 70's and was actually kind of hot working down at the corral.

 

Got another line done on the corral yesterday, and another gate hung. I had said earlier that there are 7 gates to be replaced, but there are actually 11. Not sure how I missed 4 gates! :p It's looking really great.

 

Rick ~ good luck with the backpack-packing! ;)

 

Heidi ~ family reunions are fun. Nice way to spend a weekend!

[Cathy p]

Good morning, Breeze buddies!

I got up this morning and went on the Lanai to read the paper and have coffee. Burr must of been in the 60's with a slight breeze. I know I am such a dork. I guess I lost all my blood when I moved to Florida so now I get chilled.lol

 

Heidi, I hope the kitty gets well so she will be all excited to see Eric.

 

Sue, I probably asked this but how many head of cattle do you have? Oh and how many horses? Sounds like your project is coming along fine.

 

Rick, I know you must be all excited everytime you get to deliver those backpacks. Great job!

Kenny is feeling fine now and back to my chief cook and bottle washer. Wow I forgot how much hard work that is and working also. I am so spoiled.lol

I finally got an offer on our condo in Virginia. OMG to think of not paying for that is like another job. I hope it goes thru without a hitch.

Well that is about it for now so will chat later.

 

Oh I forgot, Renee, I looked at your cheese website and it looks great. I may order some for the holidays. YUM! I love cheese.

Edited October 11, 2012 by Cathy p

[Cruisin Dave]

Good morning Cupids,

We are headed to Virginia this morning. Going to work on Mom's house Friday then I have a HS reunion Saturday night. Will return Monday. Had our return flight canceled by AA and moved to Monday morning at 6:30 am.:(

Dave

[Flick]

Well I'm back...absolutely exhausted but back. Having to do everything in one day rather than spreading it out over a couple of days is tough. However, I just had a Happy Hour (senior nap to the rest of you) and am ready for a meeting tonight.......Our daytime temps here on the coast are still in the 80's but our nights are now cooling off to (gasp!) the upper 60's.

Dave have a good trip and enjoy your reunion........

Heidi, enjoy your Sunday Sabbatical......

[momofzeke]

Morning!

 

Got another section of the corral done yesterday. Today will finish the big corral, and then we can tear out the back corral that is smaller. That one will go pretty fast.

 

Cat ~ we run 450 cows right now, less than our usual 500. We have had to sell of quite a few old girls in the last few years and haven't built the herd back up. Now that we're probably putting 3 of our pasture fields into hay production, we'll most likely need to trim the herd down to about 400 because there will be less spring feed without those pastures (but lots more hay to sell).

 

We only have 3 horses right now, and 1 of those is an old, retired mare that just hangs out. That's why we've been looking for another horse for me, but haven't had much luck finding one. When Dave and I got married, they owned at least 20 horses, but they also owned a lot more land at the time, and ran close to 1000 cattle. Over the years, we've sold off 12,000 acres (we now own 5,600 acres)....sold off a forest permit and a desert permit....and trimmed the herd down to about half what it was. But we are totally out of debt (which Dave's dad never was able to do) and we make more money than they ever used to with less land and less cattle.

 

Dave and I run the ranch alone, with occasional help from neighbors for working cows and a couple of hired hands for summer haying. When we got married, there was Dave's dad and his 2 brothers plus a brother-in-law plus Dave...5 men. When their dad retired in 1990, we were DEEPLY in debt (the amount would make you wet your pants) and on the verge of losing the ranch. Dave and I are pretty proud of how we turned it around and made the ranch into a viable business again. We had help from some VERY faithful bankers that really believed in us and went to bat for us (our operating loan bank that we still use today). We bought out his dad, brother and sister and now we are buying out his other brother, so it is just the two of us. And that's how I LIKE it!! :D

 

Wow, that'll teach you to ask a question, won't it?? LOL! That's today's history lesson on the Valley Falls Ranch, Inc. :D

 

Rick ~ glad you got the backpacks done. Now you can relax for a bit!

 

Cat ~ good luck on the sale of your condo! Glad Kenny is back to feeling good.

 

Dave ~ enjoy the trip to Virginia. Sorry about the flight, that is such a pain when airlines do that.

 

Have a great day, everyone!

[HeidiHo]

Got my flu shot today. :D Now my arm is a little achy. :( Usually don't feel anything after the shot except maybe a tiny bit of tenderness at the injection site. I think this was a different type of shot though. It was still the dead virus but instead of the old fashioned hypodermic needle that I have always had it was more like an instant gun type or push a little button and it injects you instantly type. I didn't even feel it at the time. I was surprised that my insurance covered it 100% for a change and since I got it at at Dominicks (grocery store/pharmacy), they also gave me a coupon for 10% off my next shopping trip. Too bad Dave didn't get his there. I could have gotten another coupon. He gets them free at work but they don't give out shopping coupons. I think this is the first time our insurance has covered it 100% though so he wouldn't have known. At least I am good to go for my cruise in January now. I would hate to get the flu on the ship.

[HeidiHo]

Today is my family reunion. I hope all my cousins who live farther away can make it. I know one of them is expecting a baby soon but she lives in southern Illinois so maybe she won't want to travel. My niece who lives in Chicago is coming to our house first and then riding with us. she has a little girl who just turned one. Her husband can't make it to the reunion and she didn't want to drive all the way alone with the little one.

 

My arm did not bother me for long after my shot yesterday. They aching went away after a few hours and now it's just tender to the touch near the injection site but not bad enough to bother me. I might take Staci to get one when she comes home next weekend as long as our insurance covers it. The kids don't normally get them but I would hate for her to get sick on the cruise.

 

Gotta go start getting ready for the reunion. Have a great day.

[momofzeke]

Heidi, hope you have a great day at your reunion today!

 

Thanks for the reminder about the flu shot...we usually get ours a little later in October so hopefully it will last a little longer. But I have gotten sick in October the last few years, so I guess that is not the best idea...need to get the shot earlier.

 

A friend took a picture of what she thinks was a wolf across the highway from our ranch, in the neighbor's field. Just what we need is another predator to go along with the coyotes, bobcats and cougars. :mad: The picture sure looks like a wolf. The neighbor went out and found a very large coyote, so he thinks that is what she saw. I hope he's right. I don't want a stupid wolf around.

 

The corral is done!! Boy, my arms and shoulders are sore this morning from shoveling dirt back into the holes for the posts. Now we have one more small corral to tear out and replace the poles with metal panels.

 

Might rain here today, and it may have rained in the night. It's cloudy, and when I let the cat out this morning, it did smell like rain a bit. We do need some rain, and it would be nice to settle the powdery dust in the corral.

 

Happy Weekend, everyone!

[HeidiHo]

 

A friend took a picture of what she thinks was a wolf across the highway from our ranch, in the neighbor's field. Just what we need is another predator to go along with the coyotes, bobcats and cougars. :mad: The picture sure looks like a wolf. The neighbor went out and found a very large coyote, so he thinks that is what she saw. I hope he's right. I don't want a stupid wolf around.

 

 

I may have already mentioned this but a couple of weeks ago there was a report of a cougar or mountain lion spotted just a few blocks from our house. For years there were reports of them being spotted in the Chicago area but no proof until one day a couple of years ago one was shot and killed in Chicago. At least, I think it was killed. It may have just been drugged and taken away somewhere. So anyway, it's definitely possible that there is one in our area. Wild life has made a HUGE comeback around here. They have just adapted. We see fox and coyotes frequently. A fox ran in front of my car one night just last month. When I was a kid these animals were unheard of in this area.

[Flick]

Believe it or not we have not only coyotes, we also have to contend with wild boar here on the coast. That's not even taking into account the many alligators, snakes and various other critters who round out our ecosystem.......

[HeidiHo]

Believe it or not we have not only coyotes, we also have to contend with wild boar here on the coast. That's not even taking into account the many alligators, snakes and various other critters who round out our ecosystem.......

 

No boar or alligators here. Too cold for the alligators. Every once in a while they find a small gator in a pond somewhere but that is only because someone got one as a pet and then let it go when they couldn't handle it anymore. The ones that aren't found don't survive the next winter.

[momofzeke]

Morning!

 

Yesterday my Ducks had a bye, so no Duck football. I did watch several other games when I wasn't down helping Dave at the corral. Today we start tearing down the smaller back corral.

 

No boars or alligators here, but we do have bears. I have only seen a couple of bears, crossing the highway at a high rate of speed, but there are bears all over the forest near us. Hopefully Mr. Wolf, if that's what it was, was just passing through....