California 2012---part 2

California Time Part 2

This rose was in bloom so beautiful when we arrived.  

Well Monday, a few of us went searching for a store that sold a certain kind of shoe.  Found the store, it was closed.  But here are a few sights we saw on the way.

Then we all went to lunch at a cute little restaurant, where I bet they thought "why did we let those midwives in!"  No, it was not the one above---king kong sushi, I hate sushi, I just liked the name king kong-so took a photo.

We talked our usual, birth, placentas, unusual placentas, blood clots,  lacerations, (with photos shared from our cell phones---) and could we laugh!  Loud!  They looked sort of funny at us once or twice!  

here is where we ate lunch

myself and Tracey from Kentucky

Jennifer and Lori from California

Rebekah from Minnesota 

Doreen from the south---from one state but will serve in South Carolina! 

Here are a few photos.  While there, since the area we ate in was an outside cafe' area, there was the potential of insects sharing our meal.  A bee did sting one of us, and so our lovely hostess told us (after someone killed the bee) that they were an endangered insect out here--so do not kill them.  You could get in a lot of trouble and fined for doing that!  Thus the following photos were from that conversation....it was one of those times that you just had to 'be' there ...to get the funniness of it all....but here are the funny photos!

showing us where she was stung on her neck

Doreen, who was the official  'killer' of the bees!

going into hiding after killing a bee

As we left the cafe', these fine officers of the law were waiting outside for us...well not really for 'us'. But they were actually out side the door!  So I told Doreen that they were there waiting for her, they had heard that she had after all----killed a bee!

Oh!  Forgot, in the morning when we had left to find shoes,we also went shopping to trader Joes.  Laurie Z from Michigan, had never been to a trader Joes so this was her first time.

spent a little fun time checking out the place...

Later in the afternoon we had a teaching  on "blood born pathogens " yucky stuff---but stuff we have to know (and review for me-I have seen this same thing every year since about 1991, but I do have to say, this lady made it really interesting and it is the first time, I actually enjoyed the session!)

always goofing off ---we are only serious when doing a birth.  The rest of our lives...cant say that we are!

 Then later for dinner we went out to some oriental restaurant and had a long relaxed dinner.

Ok so more later!

California 2012----part 1

California Time 2012

This post appeared on one of my other blogs.  I am currently not in California, this was October of this year....

 I am in sunny California   I arrived yesterday (sunday) after first-- a 2+ hour flight to Dallas Texas, where I changed planes and then took a 3+ hour flight to Ontario California.

By the way-strawberries are one of the important berries out here, because of the climate, they do not get the berries like I do back home, all of the cold weather ones. 

It is not comfortable to sit still that long, but I made it!  When your driving, you can at least stop and walk around once in awhile-but on a plane, there is really no where to go. I cant just say-hey gonna go out on the wing for a few minutes...

We were up at about 3 am, well scott was, I just laid there for 10 more minutes, then finally got up and got ready to go.  Had to be on the road by 4 am, picked up our son Nathan who would be with Scott as he came back home then-to ensure that he did make it home!

I was at the airport a little bit before 6 am, to check in.  Was 3rd in line, then just as I was suppose to get to the counter the lady started taking people for the flight that was leaving just before mine was, so she basically was skipping me.  I thought, well if I was those people I would be happy she was doing that, but hey-they could have gotten here sooner like I did too!  I was getting a little frustrated after she took on about 3 of them, allowing them to cut the line like that-thinking, I could have just went over and sat down and waited had I known she would do this! Why stand there like that?!  So basically all of those people waited until the very last minute to get to the air port, then they are allowed to cut in line, in front of those of use who got up early, came her early like we are suppose to.  If it was snowy weather (which it is not) or something like that, I would get it.  Also, like I said, I wish they would have told me this as I stood there at first-I would have went and sat down instead!

Then finally, the other woman looked and must of thought the same thing, because she motioned for me to come up to the counter.  I told her, I am not on that other flight -she said that is ok...and proceeded to help me check in.  She/we were done -once she started- in 3 minutes.  (I had pre-conformation so I guess that helps the process go faster)  Now that other lady, could have allowed me to stay in line, and see-I would have been done in just 3 minutes.  I do not like this part of flying!

Now off to security check in.  I had checked my one bag, (with a fee!) so just had my computer, phone, camera  purse-plus all of my electronic plug in's to go thru for the carry on bags.  They make you take off your shoes, so you want to wear something that is easy to remove and put back on.  (I wore sandals) then you put everything in these plastic tubs that run thru the xray thing.  You then walk into a big xray like thing, it does not show your bones, but lets them see if your hiding anything like a gun or a knife.

I made it thru that and then waiting for the plane to leave. 

So finally out in California (hours and two planes later) I wait for the ladies already here to finish up their church time, then pick me up.  By now I am starving, no breakfast because I just can not eat that early, and I only had some pretzels and a can of tomato juice since getting up this morning--had that while on the plane.  So its been about 12-13 hours so far since I have been up, with no food but the plane snack, and since yesterday even longer!  My blood sugar is going nuts!  My body actually tries to compensate for the not eating and raises my blood sugar.  Which it is doing.  I have a migraine too.  ugg. 

So out to "lunch" we go! 

We went here:

Great food!

Our waiter was a little slow, not refilling drinks for a long time, and my salad did not arrive until after the meal, but it did not appear that he charged me anything for the salad at least!

Here are the ladies I enjoyed lunch with!

Laurie Z from up in Michigan and Debi C from Tenn.

Loris daughter, & Lori from California (were at her birth center this week) and Doreen .

  Also at the meal was Jennifer, but I do not have a  photo of her right now.  I will later!

Our dessert!  Cookie with ice cream (I only had a couple of bites) well 3....

and do not ask about this strawberry!  You had to "be there" to "get" it!

So I am still having a bad headache after food (remember it was 12-13 hours since I was up for the day and about 14 hours before I  finally got some food in me!) So Lori suggests a place where you can get a massage-she says, they beat you up a bit and slap you around....boy do they!  It is deep tissue and also reflexology   But it was wonderful (sorry Christi-you are on maternity leave after all )

This is after our massages! Notice the smiles!  We are just beaming aren't we! 


A bit of shopping, a late night (late for me but early out here with the time difference) of chatting, watched "call the midwife" and then Off to bed.  But today is a new day, (monday.)  More later everyone!

Family Vacation Part 2-2012

So on our vacation to Tennessee....spent time sight seeing up in the mountains.  I never tire of that.

Here are a few more views...

We traveled around for the day, then a nice dinner out.  

This was Tuesday  and once we were out of the mountains, I noticed I had a message on my phone.  I listened to it, and wow!  It was the manager from the resort-finally.  So I called him back, with the extension he gave in the message, and no answer.  SO I left him a message telling him we were up in the mountains, no signal and I would call him when we had one.

Once we were down from the mountains, we did have that dinner out, at a steakhouse-nice meal.  I called the manager before we went into eat-again, no answer, so I left a message that I was in a area where I now had a signal, and he could call me.

Now it was up to him...

Finally a phone call.  He basically started by saying phone tag and your it!  I did not laugh.  Nor did I comment. That was just rude.  After days of NOT contacting me....really?   Does he and his staff think they can ignore me from our arrival-Saturday evening, until now Tuesday? Really? Does he not pay attention that 2/3 of our vacation is OVER?????

This is NOT service.

I am not pleased.

I tell him that, he looks back to all the calls, and tries to basically act like things were taken care of.   THAT is not dealing with a customer well....I talked about the gross pillows, about having only one spoon and 2 forks, and he talks like-"well I did not say anything at first"-hey guy-keep talkin and not dealing with the problem.....he just made me more upset. 

I explained to him, that I was not going to continue to call and call and that when someone showed up, I would talk about the problems (I had net even told him about the cleaning issues and such)

He said he would get some one out about the hot tub, but to the fact that I had to buy pillows, pillowcases, dish soap etc, no comment from him.

Ok, I am not happy.  But we will continue to make the most of our vacation....that is all we can do. We do not have the extra money to go somewhere else, it is so frustrating to have such awful service like this. But this DOES effect our vacation, and will effect our future decisions where we will stay.  I spent a lot of money, I could have spent it somewhere else-and had better service. Actually:  I would have spent LESS at the other resort we had always went to, AND had good service!

Stupid me....

So someone finally showed up and changed the heating thingy in the hot tub.  He said they go out often.  Scott showed him how the area was burned-and he said that is from the problem with the hot tub, the heating thing, not working right-and guests try to fix it by unplugging it and re-plugging it and such.  Well, remember the staff told US to re do all of that....maybe the staff should NOT tell its customers to do those things, and they should come out and do it themselves? Just a thought.  Again, IF I was the property owner-I would want the staff --someone skilled---to handle any major problems.  But that is just me.

The hot tub was finally up to 100 degrees by Thursday (remember it was Tuesday evening when he 'replaced' the element) Now lets re-cap:  We arrived Saturday evening:  No use for the hot tub until Wednesday (and it was a colder hot tub, since the it was not up to 100 until Thursday)  and we left friday morning.  So planned 6 nights staying here ---planned to stay for a total of about 144 hours, and we had the hot tub (actually from the time it was to the degrees it is suppose to be) only about 24-28 hours.   Great service....yeah, really great...NOT.  AND remember-I had to clean things in this cabin that a guest should NEVER have to do! When you can visually see the dirt, its dirty! 

But again, we tried to enjoy ourselves as best we could !!! So on Wednesday, we spent the day relaxing around the cabin:

I did like this style of couch.  

still down stairs, the 3D TV.  Out the window, you can see the hot tub, that is actually a cold tub, and the mountains in the back ground.

the door and window looking out down stairs, see the hot tub...that is still a cold tub

the main level.  couch, fire place (electric-which looked stupid.  I would rather have a wood one, but understand the possible fire hazard so a gas one would be better at least!)

main level, stair way going down to the lower level, where the hot tub, other living room is, and bedroom, and main bathroom. Then you see the stairs going up to the 'game' room, where there is a loft that has the pool table, a couch, and the game table with about 50 old style games like space invaders.

deck....the advertisement said there was 2 decks but there was only one. So sad, had to enjoy only one!

kitchen area. on the main level.

now after all of the other photos, you might say, why did you

 complain so? Well this is just a few of the rags that I used

 to 'clean' the already suppose to be clean---cabin.  The 

hand rail, just one-had all of this and MORE.  I had to clean

 the counters, all hand rails, door knobs, switch plates, all 

places you touch and usually people do not clean well.

  The most germ filled places!

But the sunrises and sun sets observed on the deck made it worth staying.!  The view was great, it is so sad that the service was so very poor...

COFFEE!!!!

So by wednesday.....

My right knee was hurting a lot (and that is not the one I had surgery on) so thought I should prob take it easy.  It was prob from all the driving, with it in one position....that can hurt a persons knee!  

We watched some movies, even one on the tv downs stairs that was a TV that had 3D.  So we watched a 3D movie.  There we sat wearing those funny glasses... (I had to clean them first...they were filthy...a film all over them)

I tried the hot tub.... it was not up to a 100 degrees....sigh.

We played the games (old style like space invaders) on the game upstairs

Played some pool....

Took a nap.....

Sat out on the deck....

By the evening, my knee and lower leg was hurting, I finally looked at it (you'd think I would have sooner-as a nurse-) I found 2 areas swollen, on veins, (not deep veins) that were possible clots.  So I thought ---gotta watch those!

Evening: time in the "warm" tub...got to keep the sore leg up (opps, photo shows the wrong leg!)

By Thursday morning, they were more swollen, so I sat on the couch most of the day, with leg propped up, hot pack on it, and taking aspirin....

It was finally down by Friday morning when we had to leave, but not completely.  Scott drove the whole way home...I could have if I could have had the auto on cruise all the time, but with it being my right foot-the actions of driving-would not have been ok.

It was nice for me-but tiring for Scott.

We left just before 10 am on Friday for home, and arrived home about 11:30 pm.  We did take lots of breaks at rest stops, longer ones, (usually we allow about 5-10 minutes) but we took from 10-30 minutes.

We also took a longer route, why? Well we wanted to see a different area-but prob should have taken the fastest route home!  Silly us.

Home, that means we did not get to Virginia and West Virginia like we had planned.  So I guess if we are to move there, it will be on total faith for Scott-since he did not get to see the area!