August 6-August 12 Summer 2018

So we were back home. Turns out my nursing home still hadn't closed the sale of the facility, so I was actually still employed!  I had received paid vacation for our trip to Charleston. I was signed up to work on an as needed basis for a few more weeks in August as the facility turned over to the new owners. I let them know I could continue on in that position and started looking for other part time positions. I was really not happy with the new company and could not see myself working there full time when there are so many other opportunities available. Also since I had lost all my previous benefits, I was starting over again anyway. So time to try something different.

I interviewed with the rehab department for a M-F part time position with Little Sisters of the Poor, located next to the my previous job at Erickson Retirement Community. However, they were only offering a few hours/day for 5 days/wk at a low pay scale, so I decided to keep looking. I have my resume out on several websites and continue to get plenty of phone calls! I just need to pick and choose the best position for me!

Meanwhile, I am taking advantage of spending more time at home to get some projects completed. I started with the air conditioner!  I had made an appointment for the previous company to return on Tuesday to assess for a leak. Seemed pretty likely since they refilled the freon and it lasted about 6 hrs! The more I thought I about it, the more frustrated I was. We paid $500 for them to refill the unit which lasted 6 hrs and no apology and no offer for credit and no hurry to return to assess the problem. They told me they had to have an entire day to do a leak check and that someone had to be home all day. The kids were home when they first came and they said the repairman was rude and came into the basement, poking around the system and complaining about the set up. So I decided to look around and see if anyone in our neighborhood had recommendations for other companies. We had used this company before with no problems, but I was a bit ticked off at their poor customer service. Anyway, I took a chance on a company recommended by the neighbors and they were terrific! They were able to come out right away, so I cancelled the other company. It only took 10 minutes for the man to determine where the leak was-a hole in the line near the unit which he reported is common due to rubbing and vibration over the years. He did try to repair the hole in the line, but to no avail. So sadly we had to purchase a whole new unit, but the price was right and it was so hot, we could not wait. Unfortunately we did have to wait until Weds to get the proper unit for our house. The business owner came out to assess the project prior to the work which was completed by 4 men. They even placed our old unit in the garage since Tom was wondering if he could salvage some of the newer parts from our previous unit(which he did!). I was quite surprised at the speed of installation, and the much small size of the unit. Tom and I were a bit worried about it cooling our entire house, but it seems to be doing the job! And we were very pleased with the service and price. Unlike the other company. But most importantly, we have AC again!

So Allison was able to return to sleeping in her room. We really cannot open up all the windows and turn on fans since the kids have such bad allergies, especially Allison. Scott can handle it, but she gets pretty sick. So it is AC for Allison. And good thing she now has a job where she works inside with AC! Allison is really enjoying her new position. She has been completing some orientation programs both in Sykesville and at Tom's BWI Airport facility.

Since our AC was up and running, I decided to invite our neighbors over for dinner before they headed off on a last family vacation while dropping off their son to Georgia Tech. Bryce and Scott were born just a few weeks apart. Beth and I both found out we were pregnant at the same time when they first moved into our neighborhood! We have been friends since. Their oldest, Barry, attends Penn U in Philly and is in his second year. So we wanted a chance for the boys to get together before heading off to school. Plus they were dropping off their pooch, Ripley, so we could puppy sit while they were gone. We had a wonderful dinner and visit and spent the evening playing video trivia games. Ms Beth had to drag the boys home since they planned an early start on the road the next day.

And since we were trying to catch up with everyone before the kids went off to school, we accepted an invitation to our friend's house since we hadn't had a sit down visit in quite awhile. The Santiago's lived across the street and Scott and Sammy were best of friends, although Sammy was a year younger. And Allison became good friends with their oldest daughter, also a year younger than Allison. The girls stay in touch, but no so much for the boys. The kids decided to have a "play date" that weekend which turned out to be an overnight, so we parents also decided we needed a "play date". Or at least a dinner date. Their family invited us all over on Sunday night for an incredible dinner at their house and to catch up with everyone's activities. It was quite a lovely evening. Although I was starting to have issues with my right eye. It kept watering and was very itchy. I was afraid I had irritated it doing yardwork on Saturday-trimming low tree branches.

July 30-August  5, 2018

Sunday night in South Carolina, Gma and Gpa Seitz, Tom, Scott and I had dinner on the beach at Coconut Joes. We had to wait a bit, but it was nice to eat on the deck overlooking the beach. The weather in Charleston was a bit rainy and stormy all week, but we managed to find lots of activities to keep us busy in between the rain drops. It seems like most of the heavy rain came in the mornings.

On Monday we all drove into downtown Charleston to walk through the covered, open air market checking out local artwork like Gullah sweetgrass baskets and local food items. We then met up for a BBQ lunch in a local restaurant. Later that night we all had a seafood dinner at a local Marina restaurant. Shrimping is big along the southern coast, along with fish and of course, BBQ!  Needless to say we were not lacking for wonderful food choices! And my favorite, Hush Puppies!

On Tuesday. Tom, Scott and I visited the Charleston Aquarium. Lots of sea turtles and the facility functions as a sea life rescue, especially for injured turtles that nest along the coast.  Nearby, a new museum is planned to describe the life of the slaves brought into Charleston although they had a display we walked through on a local pier before heading to the movies. We stopped into a Movie Tavern and caught the Mission Impossible film while enjoying a very tasty dinner!

On Weds the Seitz Family returned to downtown Charleston for a carriage ride through the city complete with an historical tour. It was incredibly hot and the tour guides mentioned how wonderful it must have been living there when our country was just getting started, with the heavy rain storms, humidity and tons of mosquitoes!  Seems like nothing has changed! Except thank goodness for air conditioning!  (Sorry Allison!)  We also learned that Charleston had a rough history with lots of fires and even earthquakes that left one church tower leaning!  The tour was very interesting and Tom even reported it was his most favorite activity! What?! Tom and horses usually do not mix!

We bought a combo ticket that allowed us to have both a carriage tour and a harbor boat tour, so on Thursday we took the ride around the large harbor and Ft Sumter. We opted out of the tour to Ft Sumter-not a whole lot to see there anymore, but it is on an island. So you have to take a boat to access it. I think we had a better tour from the boat, and walking through Ft Moultrie. The movie, Glory really highlights Ft Sumter's role in the Civil War. But as we learned, Ft Moultrie had an even bigger impact in protecting the city. And the location of Ft Sumter was not always on an island but a peninsula. The tour boat took us along the city's coastline, around Ft Sumter, and off of the Mt Pleasant peninsula and the large vacation homes and shrimping boats. We also saw lots of dolphins! And then we cruised past Patriots Point and the USS Yorktown Aircraft carrier parked in the harbor before stopping under the bridge. The captain gave us a special treat by blowing the horn under the Ravenel bridge that seemed to echo on forever for the entire length which connects the mainland to the peninsulas. We were happy that we managed to get our boat tour in between rain showers!  Tom and Scott opted out of the boat tour and decided to go on a bike tour on their own around the Mount Pleasant peninsula while stopping into a local coffee shop to avoid any big rainfalls. It warmed up enough in the afternoon for Scott and I to take swim in the ocean. The waves though were very rough and we spent most of our time getting knocked down and trying to remain standing! Scott even attempted surfing on a small board left at the house, but it wasn't sturdy enough to stand on, so he used it as a boogie board instead. At least the water temp was very comfortable!  That evening we visited with the son of the Seitz family nephew/cousin, Bryan Blanchard who lives in Charleston. He stopped over to the house to help us drink some beer before we headed out to dinner.

On our last day, Tom and Scott took Gma Seitz in town to walk through a large mall while Mark, Gpa and I toured the USS Yorktown. The history is amazing onboard the carrier, and it was full of historical planes, including several from Northrop Grumman. I even bought Allison one of the historical plane models, The Tomcat,  for her new work desk. (Tom already has plenty of knick knacks for his desk like the B2 model). It was just a bit challenging climbing up and down the narrow stairwells on board, plus a bit slippery with all the rain. We opted out of climbing around the smaller Destroyer and submarine. The rest of the group visited the aquarium. In the evening we stopped in for some souvenir shopping and then we took one last long walk along the beach and out for a BBQ dinner.

Saturday we drove back home through the DC area.  Alex could only stay for a few days as she was heading to Wisconsin for a Cross Fit Event to cheer on friends in the middle of the week. She enjoyed shopping at the outlet malls and visiting a Plantation as well as joining many family activities. We also had the added challenge of keeping Gma Seitz engaged as she is struggling with ongoing dementia. We would like to thank Gpa and Gma Seitz for making this trip possible! It was wonderful spending time with all the family members and having the opportunity to discover another part of the country as well as meeting baby Claire!

On Sunday I was busy unpacking the van and doing laundry. In a very hot house!  Allison had survived her first week of her new job at Northrop at the Sykesville facility, near my previous job at the

nursing home. She spent the evenings holed up in our basement with our portable AC, but Tom did not think it was running very efficiently. We couldn't wait for the AC repairman scheduled on Tuesday!

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.