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

[HeidiHo]

Good afternoon.

 

Rick ~ I used to think Allegiant was a great airline, but when you start looking at all the extra fees they charge, not so much. The one that bugs me is that you have to pay extra if you want to choose your seat. Come on! I understand paying extra for an exit row seat because you get extra leg room there, but not just for the privilege of choosing a regular seat.

 

 

Spirit Airlines is like that too. You might get a low fare but they can nickel and dime you to death. You have to pay to pick your seats although they assign seats as soon as you check in on line so the one time we flew them I checked us in as soon as I was able and we were assigned seats together. A couple of other bad things is they charge even more for carry on bags that go in the over head bin than they do for checked bags. Carry on bags that go under the seat are not charged for though so we took back packs instead of the rolling carry on bags. As for checked bags, they only allow 40 pounds where most other airlines allow 50 pounds. We managed to fly without paying for any extra's except for the checked bags but we had to pack really light. I would not book spirit again unless it's A LOT than the other major carriers.

 

Dave will be leaving this Friday for a fishing trip in Canada. He goes with my dad and my uncles.

 

Have a great day. :)

[Flick]

Apparently Allegiant took a page out of Spirit's playbook.If I want to take a carry-on I can prepay $13.00 but if I wait to get to the airport it will be $50.00 each way! We are allowed to bring on 1 personal item if it will fit under the seat in front of us no charge. We are bringing Kay's laptop so she can do her work for the Lodge.Hope that works......Also we are limited to 40 pounds, not 50 pounds like the other airlines.Since we are both clothes horses you can imagine how difficult it has been to pack to these ridiculous standards. Fortunately, it is a non-stop flight so we can pack our meds and other necessities in our checked suit cases otherwise I simply wouldn't consider flying Allegiant.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Flick

[HeidiHo]

It was Cupid's 3 that we flew Spirit so we needed to pack for nine days. That was the trip I realized that it really IS possible to wear most of your clothes multiple times without washing. I just made sure I brought enough underwear for nine days. LOL. Usually I go home with a lot of clothes that I never even wore but on that trip I think I only brought home a couple of pairs of shorts that hadn't been worn and most things had been worn twice.

[Flick]

Later this afternoon starts a whirlwind of events for us until Sunday. It is the annual State Presidential visit and tour of Elk Lodges in our district. This means we get to "glad-hand" a bunch of people we do not know, tell them how interesting we think their problems are, and offer sage advice to those who don't want to hear it. Oh let's not forget laughing at poor jokes, watching how much I drink, and wishing I were elsewhere...anywhere, just elsewhere......

[Cruisin Dave]

Rick,

Be careful. Andrea is headed your way. Lots of rain.

[Flick]

Yeah, it rained all night and when I first sat down at the computer it wasn't raining but it now has started up again. We're on the Eastern or "dirty" side of the storm so they are predicting LOTS of rain and possibly a tornado or two. It actually will make landfall a little North of us but we expecty the brunt of the mess. At least the forecast for Illinois next week is much nicer than it originally was.

[HeidiHo]

Yeah, it rained all night and when I first sat down at the computer it wasn't raining but it now has started up again. We're on the Eastern or "dirty" side of the storm so they are predicting LOTS of rain and possibly a tornado or two. It actually will make landfall a little North of us but we expecty the brunt of the mess. At least the forecast for Illinois next week is much nicer than it originally was.

 

Rick -I hope you don't get too much rain or any tornadoes. It's rainy and cool here today but forecast for nest week IS pretty good. Mostly 70's and sunny with the exception of possible thunderstorms on a couple of days.

[momofzeke]

This is when our busiest time of year begins. Even without the added bonus of getting new hayfields up and planted, haying season is super busy.

 

Now that we know how much water we have in our irrigation well, we have a lot to do:

The power company guy will be here this morning to look at what needs to be done to get power to the well, pump & pivots.

Find a pump (we have a company looking for a used one for us).

Dave ordered 2 pivots (irrigation sprinklers) yesterday, they will be here in a week or two. Then they have to be assembled (major deal, we have hired someone to help us).

Will have to disc the fields (kind of like plowing) several times to get it smooth enough and get rid of all the sage brush and greasewood.

Order seed and go get it (have to travel 80 miles to get it) and get it planted.

 

We spent yesterday staking out where the pivot will go in 1 of 2 fields, the largest of the 2. The field is bigger than what the pivot will be, so we had to measure out from the center to find the outside boundary of where to farm and plant. No need to farm up land that won't be under the sprinkler! Dave has a wheel that measures distance, so he would walk from the center out 1105 feet while I brought the pickup with the fence posts and supplies. Set a post and then I would drive him back to the center. We did this about 6 times and it was getting HOT by then. It finally DAWNED on me that I could download an app to my phone to measure distance in feet and we could just drive to measure instead of walking with the wheel....DUH. That made it go MUCH FASTER!!!! Dave thinks I'm a genius, I just wish I would have thought of it sooner. :p We set probably at least 20 posts so that would have been a lot of walking.

 

Today we will do the other field which is not as big. That will go fast since we can use the phone app right from the get-go!

 

Once we get that done, we will start the farming (discing). Dave will make a couple rounds to give me the perimeter and then I will be doing most of the discing so he can get hay equipment ready and other things.

 

Have a great weekend, everyone!!

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

Well, I had a couple of rude awakenings this morning. First Dave woke me up at 5:00 AM just to say goodbye. He was leaving for Canada. That was no big deal, I just went right back to sleep after he left. Then at 6:15 AM my phone rings. It's Dave. He was at my dad's house in southern Wisconsin because he was picking him up. My dad asked him if he had his passport and guess what! Yup! He forgot it. :eek: So I had to get it out of his desk and drive 45 minutes north and they drove a bit back south to Fox Lake, Illinois, where we met at a gas station so I could give Dave his passport. Thank goodness my dad remembered to ask him if he had it. That would have really sucked if they got all the way to the Canadian border before he realized he didn't have it. The Canadian border is probably about 12 hour drive from here. He said that if that had happened he probably would have rented a car to come home while the others would have continued on into Canada. No point in ruining the trip for everyone else. It all worked out though. They were only about an hour behind schedule.

 

I also went through some tense moments with Staci this week. She left for Missouri (Lake of the Ozarks) yesterday. Before she could leave though she needed to get a TB test and a physical form signed by her doctor for her teachers aide job that starts on Monday. We faxed in the paper for the physical for the doctor to sign since she just had a check up last month. She went to Walgreen's for the TB test on Tuesday at 12:30 PM but TB tests need to be read 48 to 72 hours after they are given and not a minute sooner. They just check your arm to see if there is a reaction. Well, Staci was going to Missouri with 2 of her friends and her friend's dad was driving (they own a lake house there) but they wanted to leave Thursday morning and didn't want to wait for Staci to get her TB test read at 12:30. She was just having fits about it and I had to listen to her complain. She couldn't understand why they wouldn't read her test earlier and was blaming just about everyone but herself for her predicament. In reality, it was no ones fault. She only found out she needed a TB test on Monday afternoon and so she went to get it on Tuesday. She would have gone on Monday if she had realized she would have to go back 48 hour later to have it read. It all worked out in the end though. Her friends DID wait for her. She was at Walgreen's to have it read right at 12:30 and they hit the road immediately after.

 

So long story short, I have a nice quiet weekend ahead of me and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it. Staci will be home Sunday night. Dave will be home next Friday.

 

I have a sick kitty here though. I think it's her new medication. She's supposed to get half a pill, twice a day but it seems like she gets sick from that dosage. She's fine on it for about 3 days but then loses her appetite completely and vomits a lot. So then I stop the meds till she starts eating again then start out by giving her just half a pill once a day instead of twice. Then after a few days, if she's doing well on that I try going back up to half a pill twice a day but then she starts getting sick. I think now I'm just going to go back to once a day and keep her there. She seems to do fine on that and her incessant meowing and hunger is diminished. I just don't want her to stop eating all together. She needs to put on some weight or at the very least, stop losing weight. She's under 5 pounds as it is. I know she's old and may not be around much longer but otherwise seems to be in pretty good health.

 

Have a good weekend. :)

[Flick]

Sue, I am soooo tired just reading about all your work I think I'm going to have to lay down and take a little nap.....

[Nazarushka]

Sue, I agree with Rick!

[Cruisin Dave]

Whew, after reading what Sue is doing, I'm too tired to go to work.:eek:

Heidi, have a great weekend. you need a break.

Rick, looks like you survived the TS.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Dave

[AKB10]

Howdy Cupid's!!!

 

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

 

I have not been near as busy as some of the rest of you - no fields to plant, no unexpected trips to Wisconsin, no getting ready for a presidential visit to the lodge and I got off early today and not just getting ready to go to work.

 

We will go to Frank's dad's house tomorrow to clean up storm damage. One of last Friday's tornadoes was about 1 mile from his house and we will have to clean up lots of tree damage. He has a large backyard with about 10 large trees. Soon this will be the only property left to deal with, closing on the other property is in a few weeks. Several people have voiced interest in this last property - this is where he actually lived. It is in a quiet neighborhood with large lots. So hopefully in a few months this will sell quickly.

[Flick]

O.K. 7 events down and only 2 more to go for the weekend from H3ll........Five minutes ago it was raining "cats and dogs, the streets are flooded and now the sun is peeking out again. Stick around we may have snow in a couple of minutes! Ummm scratch the snow, it's 86 degrees outside.

[HeidiHo]

Good Evening!

 

I am enjoying my weekend alone. I got a lot of stuff done today and then my BIL invited me over to their house for dinner so I went and it was nice. Now I'm home watching the Blackhawks game. Staci will be home tomorrow night. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. :)

[Flick]

We're off to Illinois.I will probably be somewhat quiet because even though we are taking Kay's lap top she may or may not let me near it to use.LOL

[Flick]

It's not as though Allegiant Air had a fan in this poster but last night trying to check-in for today's flight nearly did me in. First it couldn't locate my name then it couldn't confirm the confirmation number of the reservation and finally it didn't show my reserved seats. The whole process took about 20 minutes at 10:00 last night and I was in NO mood to tolerate the foolin' around. Grrrrrrrrr!

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

I had quite an interesting discussion with my BIL on Saturday. He's a nice guy but is kind of a "know it all" and we started talking about the recent "incidents" happening to the cruise industry. He has never even been on a cruise and tried to tell me that the reason the recent fire on RCI didn't turn into a days long nightmare for the passengers and crew like the Triumph incident did was because RCI learned from Carnivals mistakes. :confused: I firmly explained to him that the difference was that the fire on the Triumph was IN THE ENGINE ROOM but the fire on the RCI ship was in a crew area where they stored the mooring ropes so nothing required to power the ship was affected. There's a HUGE difference there. He also said that Carnival should have somehow offloaded all the passengers on the Triumph to another ship to get them home so I explained to him that that once that fire was out, the passengers were never in any danger, just uncomfortable and that it was safer to keep them on the ship rather than to load them into lifeboats for a transfer to another ship. Sure, it was a horrible experience for the passengers and crew of the Triumph but they were safe, just very uncomfortable. I just think it's so funny how non cruisers sometimes think they know everything about cruising. LOL

 

Staci started teachers aide job this morning. I can't wait to hear about it. It will be a challenge but hopefully very rewarding.

 

Rick - Enjoy your trip here. It looks like the weathers going to be pretty decent this week.

 

Dave - Your trip is coming up pretty soon.

 

Sue - How's Mallory doing? did that baby turn yet? My neighbor's son and his girlfriend had their baby last Tuesday. It was breech so they did a C section but I don't think they ever tried to turn it. Tracy told me there were some slight risks with that so they chose not to try.

 

Have a good day. :)

[Cruisin Dave]

Good afternoon Cupids,

 

Rick, safe trip.

 

Heidi, yep! Less than two weeks before our first trip to Walt's Kingdom.

 

Our forecast this week is for close to or over 100 sometime this week. I'm not ready for this.

 

Dave

[momofzeke]

Mallory is doing well. The baby did not turn. They have a C-section scheduled for June 24, a day before her due date. They won't do a C-section before 39 weeks, which is next Tuesday but her doctor is on vacation that week, so they scheduled for the following Monday. Of course, if she goes into labor before that, another doctor from the clinic would do the C-section immediately.

 

Busy, busy farming here. I got one round of discing done, which is a SLOW process. I'm used to my swather that goes like a bat out of hell. I can only go about 3-4 miles per hour with the disc. Oh, well. Dave borrowed a second, different type of disc from my dad and is down there now testing how he wants to disc the second go-round. We need to kill off the sagebrush, so he is figuring out which disc to use and what direction to go in to get the best results. So I've had the morning off from farming, but have been flying around here getting caught up on laundry, dishes, bill paying, etc.

 

Heidi, that's funny about your brother-in-law. That's what makes me so mad about the media blowing all these cruise "disasters" out of proportion. People who know absolutely NOTHING about cruising swallow that b.s. hook, line and sinker and then spout off about it when they actually do not know any FACTS.

 

Gotta run!

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

I had an interesting day yesterday. I met a local man who survived the tornado in Oklahoma (the first one, the one that killed all those kids in the school). I had read about him and his wife in our paper. They were out there visiting relative when the tornado hit and the house they were in was totally leveled. They said they think the thing that saved them was the water heater because it actually fell on top of them but protected them from other debris. The wife was injured but is going to be OK. I saw a pic of what was left of the house in the paper and it really was totally leveled. the only thing recognizable was the water heater right in the middle of all the debris. I went to a business breakfast and he was there so I was introduced to him. I can't even imagine how terrifying that must have been for them. Luckily, the family members they were visiting were not in the house at the time because they were at work so it was just the 2 of them there.

 

Staci REALLY has her work cut out for her with this summer teachers aide job. She was assigned to a class of 6 autistic teenage boys. :eek: At orientation they were told all about the boys and their issues and were also warned that they can get violent. They are all also almost completely non verbal.Yesterday was her first time with the boys and she came home and announced, "I only got hit once!" They have a lot of help though.There's the classroom teacher and 3 aides so that's 4 adults to 6 boys plus she said there's a lot of big men who are basically hall monitors/security guards all over the school. These guys are trained in how to handle these kids when they need to be physically restrained so there are radios in every classroom and the hall monitors carry radios so they can be called whenever needed which, according to Staci, is frequently. She didn't say specifically that they needed to call them in her classroom but she often heard calls going out form other classes during the day. She also said that one of the monitors was frequently standing right outside their classroom looking in. Since she has no training whatsoever in how to handle special needs kids when they get physical, she was told to just do whatsoever is necessary to protect herself and get out of the way and just let the professionals handle it. she said that one boy has a tendancy to scratch so when she was working with him she was given long glove that went all the way up to her shoulders. she enjoyed her first day with them though and was very excited to tell me about each of the boys. According to the teacher, yesterday was a "good" day. I'm afraid of what a "bad" day looks like. Hopefully there won't be many of those.

 

Today is supposed to be a day of violent storms around here. I hope it doesn't get too bad.

 

Have a great day. :)

[Niquein99]

I just booked me and my DS(13) on this cruise today. I didn't book through the group cruise, so I'm not sure if all are welcome to post here or not. :confused:

[HeidiHo]

I just booked me and my DS(13) on this cruise today. I didn't book through the group cruise, so I'm not sure if all are welcome to post here or not. :confused:

 

Welcome aboard, Monie and son. Yes, you are welcome to post here and participate in any group activities we do. The more the merrier. quite a few people who post here are not booked in the official group.

[momofzeke]

WELCOME, MONIE & SON!! We are glad to have you join us here and on the ship! We don't care if you booked through the "official" group cruise, we are just happy to welcome everyone.

 

Heidi ~ I worked as a substitute teacher's aid a few years while the boys were in school. Worked with a few kids with special needs, including autism. It is very challenging, but I'm sure Staci will handle it fine. Some days are harder than others. Best of luck to her!

 

Hope all the Chicago area friends are ok after last nights big storms! Haven't been on to watch the news to see what happened, but I know last night they said big storms were headed towards Chicago and surrounding areas.

 

Well, change of plans for Mallory, Greg and the baby. They saw their doctor yesterday and decided to change the C-section to June 30th. Mallory really wants to go into labor and THEN have the C-section. The doctor doesn't think she will make it until the 30th. The minute she knows she is in labor, they will call the hospital and let them know and then go straight over there. They only live 5 minutes from the hospital.

 

My disc is broke down and we are waiting for parts. I hate it because I need to be getting this darn farming done so that when we get the call the baby is on the way, we can leave and go to Bend! It takes us 2 1/2 hours to drive there. It's too early to start cutting hay, so I am just kind of in limbo here. Drives me crazy with so much needing to get done!!! Dave has still been busy getting hay equipment ready and irrigating.

[HeidiHo]

Good morning!

 

Dave got home from his fishing trip last night. He had a good time and brought home his limit.

 

He told me a very scary story about my uncle though. My uncle was with them in Canada so that's where he heard the story. Apparently he and his friends were drugged and robbed in St. Maarten in January. They were there to rent a private sailboat or yacht for a week and on the first night there they went to a bar. I guess that's pretty much the last thing they remember until waking up the next morning with some bumps and bruises and missing cash. I guess one of the guys remembers just a little bit. He remembers helping get the guys back up to their rooms at the end of the night but that's it. there was a security camera in the area that showed their friend helping them back to their rooms but then later it shows a couple of masked men going into their rooms. They think they were drugged because even though they were drinking, they generally don't drink so much that they black out like that. they are lucky they didn't get killed. This was also right around the same time Staci and I were in St. Maarten on our cruise. I think my uncle was there either the week before or the week after we were.

 

We are going to a graduation party later today. It's raining right now but hopefully it will stop later.

 

Have a good weekend. :)