h20skibum

Congratulations on your 53rd anniversary. Wishing you many more. 🎉

Great picture of you and your family. I hope it is a quiet time, while your family is there, so you can enjoy.

Dani, so glad you were able to reunite with your grandkids, during these crazy times. I hope you have a joyous Passover.

I agree. I think it is better than any other sports playoff. Too bad our Pens are not in the mix

Oh, that would have gone nicely with the party theme.

The Harry Potter theme party was a hit. Since we had a few items left over from my California grandson’s party last fall, they could be used for this one. Before last summer, I knew nothing of Harry Potter. Never read the books or saw any movies. That changed as we prepared for our Universal Studios trip. So, unless you are familiar with them, some of these decorations may not mean anything. My daughter went all out with this party. There were floating envelopes. And floating candles that were remotely controlled by a wand. And the cake table was set up with several wands, and an iPad streaming a train scene. Entertainment at the party was this kids magician. He did an excellent show, and kids and adults were thoroughly entertained. He had one bit, where he had three adults, then three kids shake a die in a cup. They would then look at the number that came up. He wanted to see how good they were at lies. They had to answer NO, as he would ask if it was 1, 2, etc., and he would then tell them what the number was. He was 6 for 6 in reading each adult and each kid, and guessed their number. Lots of other tricks, but the kids faces were like my granddaughter’s when he did this with her. IMG_0989.mp4

Yesterday was the Harry Potter theme birthday for my granddaughter, so my task Friday night was to make chocolate wands. Some of the ingredients. A mall crock pot to melt some half price Easter bunnies, and sprinkles for the top of the wand. It takes a while for the pieces to melt. This part was easy, because I just got chocolate covered pretzel rods from our local specialty candy store. Next was to figure out how much melted chocolate and sprinkles for the tip. I dipped the first one and swirled it in sprinkles, and…… It looked remarkably like those lighthouse cookies. 😂😂 Ok, use a little less. The finished product.

iSkate 2.0 has been around for a while. We saw it in December. Good show, and no reservations required. No reservations required for open skate. You do need to fill out some forms before getting your skates. Long pants are required. It has never been real busy when we have skated.

Reading all these moving posts, and my back is aching just thinking about it. Last time we moved was 39 years ago, and it was a short one with a rental truck and lots of friends. I did help my son with a couple of cross country moves, NY to California, then California to NY. Both of those, he used PODS. They set the pod in front of your place, and you pack it full of furniture and boxes. The trick to reduce the chance of damage is to pack things tight, with little room for shifting. Both of those moves came through with no damage. I was glad, that when he made the third cross country move from NY back to California, that his company paid for the move, plus they paid for the movers to pack things for them.

Every time I have had a flight out of Cleveland, the lines have been insane. Safe travels. Will be enviously following along.

I made the mistake of following one of the Japanese restaurants on Instagram, and now I have food pictures with yum yum showing up every day. Makes me hungry. I am sure there are subliminal messages in there.

Thank you for her birthday wishes. Thank you. She is looking forward to her party. Thank you. Thank you for her birthday wishes. Thank you. Talked to someone last night, who will be at the party, and they are looking forward to it too. I will be working on those Friday. I have an altered plan, so will see how it works out. Photos on Friday of how it turns out.

You can find that yum yum sauce at Walmart. We always have a bottle or two in our house.

Nothing like hibachi for lunch Today is my granddaughter’s 9th birthday, but the party to celebrate will not be until Saturday. She is having a Harry Potter theme, so we still have several items we used for my CA grandson’s birthday last fall. They plan to have a magician to entertain. Susan and I will put together a large fruit tray, and we are making chocolate wands. My prototype sign for mason jars that will hold the wands. Maybe some pictures on Saturday. More than 50 will be at the party at her house.

Yesterday, I had the unenviable job of taking Ricky to the vet. Time for another blood test to see how he is progressing. He is still on steroids and antibiotics. Yeah, he doesn’t want to leave the carrier at the vet’s office. Time to rest after getting home from the ordeal. He does still seem to be improving.

Happy belated birthday to you. Drinking deserts sounds good to me. 😁

Painting is done, and cleanup is done. Looks good so far. Now, to get cleaned up and pick up our grandson from school. He would much rather spend time with us on Mondays, instead of watching his sister at gymnastics. Not many comments today, or did they have the same fate as the other day?

We found Agreeable gray not so agreeable for our master bath repaint. We had to find the perfect new wallpaper border to go around the room about an inch from the ceiling. And all the colors had to go with other accent pieces. So our color choice is Opal Silk That is my task today. To paint. Taping and covering is done. Why is it that taping and covering things takes longer than it actually takes to paint?

Our squatters are back.

Look in to International Friends. We booked a post cruise tour with them that took us from the ship and dropped us at our hotel in London. It included stops at Salisbury, Stonehenge, and Windsor. It was a small, 15 passenger van, but I think we only had 8 people which was nice. You may be able to coordinate a pickup with them. They do have stops at some of the places you list. This is their current pricing.

The sun came out yesterday, after several days of heavy rain. We are still under a flood watch thru tomorrow with a few roads closed due to high water. We were able to walk to this part of the campground, but water level is up another 1 foot + this morning, so the access road we used to get to this point would be under water this morning. Our water levels are up, since they are trying to reduce the amount of water reaching Pittsburgh.

@dani negreanu and @BonTexasNY I was watching the news this morning, and was glad to see the defenses were 99% effective. Continued prayers for you and your families that are in harms way. Hopefully things will be resolved soon.

@dani negreanu +2

I hope you are bringing them luck for a win. They are in the driver’s seat for a playoff spot. All they have to do is win their final 3, but all three are good teams.

Demand may be a regional thing, but we certainly are not seeing it in our area. My guess is that it will be 10 to 15 years before the technology is refined to the point where the average consumer would consider them. We didn’t even consider electric when we bought a new car last month. My son in California has had two electric vehicles, a BMW i3 that had a very limited range, and a Tesla Model X that he has had for six years now. California has a better network of charging stations, but all I see are trade offs and downsides. He has a charger in his garage, and is able to charge for his daily commute, without waiting in line. He has taken it on a longer trip, They are just returning from a trip to LA (about 400 miles). They had three stops for charging, with charging times of 1-1.5 hours each. Two of those you could combine charging with meal time, but the other is wasted time, in my opinion. The one Tesla charging stop has a ton of chargers, but the electric grid can’t handle that many, so they supplement with diesel generators to power the chargers. Not seeing how that makes sense. I am fairly confident I will never have one in what remains of my life. Sorry, I am not from those countries you asked about, but just thought I would add my 2 cents.