July 23-July 29, 2018

Happy Birthday Wishes to Nicholas Bozyk who also celebrated a July Birthday on the 17th!  I am guessing you had a better day than Allison and Scott!  They were busy recuperating from their wisdom teeth surgery-still taking medication and eating soft,squishy food!  Looks like Allison was a bit more bruised and swollen than Scott. But both were recuperating well. They had a follow up appointment with the surgeon to make sure everything was healing. I joined them since I wanted to make sure everything was fine before our busy upcoming week.

Allison was preparing for her new job at Northrop Grumman which starts July 30th. And the rest of us were busy preparing for our upcoming, second summer vacation with the entire Seitz Family in Charleston, South Carolina. We were very excited to be going on the road again, however, we were going to miss Allison. But she had the new job waiting for her!

This looked like it was going to be my last full week of work at the nursing home. Turns out, the State Inspectors came in at the end of the week. Glad I missed most of it!  The new owners were waiting for the State Inspection to see if there was any further work that needed to be done to the facility. Rather like waiting for a Home Inspection and then requesting certain items to be repaired prior to the purchase. I had agreed to work for the previous company until the end of July, and then had planned to work for the new company-same pay and same schedule. However, I really was not happy with the new manager that was coming in. Strangely enough we had 2 managers-the old company and the new company trying to run the department. It was strange and awkward. And I did not think I would be happy working for the new manager full time, so I told him I would be happy to work on an As Needed basis starting when I returned from vacation. Since I was still working for the previous owners, I had a portion of my vacation paid for. All the old rehab staff members were gone except for myself and Anne, our PT assistant. She was able to obtain a full time job at another local nursing home, a bit smaller than the one we currently worked at, but near her house. Several other staff members had basically retired, and our full time PT, Laura was working at an out patient therapy clinic like she used to do. I was certainly going to miss our old crew. I wanted to spend more time visiting with everyone with dinner out. I did manage to meet up with two of our PTs, but everyone else was so busy with their own schedules, we just could not get together.

Meanwhile, the new company and our old company brought in substitute therapists-a new OT grad from Detroit! She also attended Wayne State U!  Another OT whom I never officially met, but knew about her because I had worked with her father during my last job at the large Retirement facility. He was a very hard working PT, taking on a manager position in one clinic and working on an as needed basis at several other facilities on weekends and after work during the week. He was making sure he had enough cash flow to put his twin girls through college-and turns out one of the girls became and OT and this was her first job!  Sadly, I had heard her father had passed away a few years earlier, so I gave her a big hug and told her I much we all loved her Dad, including the patients. And what a great job he always did. Meanwhile,we also needed PTs which came in the form of traveling therapists from Florida. The two guys were temporary, as well as a Speech Therapist that was sent in from the DC area. The difficulty lies with the patients who may end up having different therapists each day as well as the difficulty for the facility staff trying to work with different therapists in the building. That is why we used to like working directly for a business rather than a contract company. But that does not seem to be the norm these days. Anyway, I was looking forward to vacation!

I spent the week packing including beach toys and food! We were staying in a house on a peninsula off of the Charleston Harbor called Isle of Palms. We had access directly to the Atlantic Ocean and lots of beach area, as well as a small pool at the house. And we brought along our bikes for outings.  On Thursday night I dropped into Mom's apartment to attend a presentation on Alzheimers and to visit with her before heading out for a week.  I also took her in for a dentist appointment Weds morning before heading to work. What a crazy schedule!

On Friday, Tom had to go into work in the morning which gave me more time to pack! However, it also meant that if we left later in the day, we would get stuck in DC traffic heading south. We really wanted to make use of our extra time, so we decided to take a different route, through the mountains in Virginia, and to stop near Charlotte, NC that evening. The drive was much better, although it rained quite a bit especially through Virginia. In the morning, we drove by Charlotte, NC and decided to stop into CaroWinds Amusement Park. The Park is located exactly between North and South Caroling on the border. It was also just down the street from our previous house when we lived in Charlotte (BC-Before Children). We arrived as they were opening the gates. It was incredibly hot, but the park was beautiful and it was a nice day to walk around. Except for Scott-we bought him a Fast Pass so he could ride all the roller coasters since we were not planning on staying late. The park is owned by the same company that runs Cedar Point in Ohio. We had a great time, caught a few rides together and had a terrific lunch before getting back on the road. We did  a drive by at our old house. We actually had a hard time recognizing most of the neighborhood and the surrounding area as Charlotte has really been built up. We arrived in Charleston in the evening with time to unpack and settle in to our room before it got dark.

On Sunday the whole Seitz

family was up and dressed for church. We attended mass at an historical church on the Mt Pleasant peninsula called Stella Maris. It was a pretty little church with great music and a bit old fashioned with lots of bells and altar servers holding the platters to catch any of the host that may fall during communion!  After mass we stopped into  Historical Fort Moultrie located right across the street. Most of the fort was underground and was used during both the Civil War as well as a stronghold for the East coast during WWII. We did not have much time for a formal tour, but found out later that General Moultrie was actually buried on site, as well as a famous Indian chief.  And that this fort was even more important to protection of the coast and Charleston than Fort Sumter which was located on an island in the Bay. We headed back to the house after picking up some groceries and then grilled burgers to have lunch with the whole Seitz family.