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Sasha is still commuting to work, 45 miles one way, or an hour
and ten minutes one way. I worked at the visitor center on Monday
through Thursday now, as the seasonal rangers and interns
worked on the weekends. I was doing more "office work"
including working on databases for email and special use
ranger activities, and working the "B" shift - basically the
lunch shift. As it was starting to get hotter, I was glad
not to do as much Roving - we were instead, going to the gym
to work out. So Saturdays and Sundays were our own,
starting July 6th, (I worked on July 4th, but that was OK as
it was in the middle of the week.) Sasha took off on Friday
and we went up to NJ for the weekend. We had a great time,
seeing the NJ family, going to the beach, and eating great
food. We did our laundry at my parents' house, I'm not too
sure they liked that idea, but we do our laundry now once a
week and on Sundays, so hopefully they did not mind too
much.
We also started figuring out what to do with the money we
made with selling the house. We did not want to put it in
stocks as we already had that with Sasha's 401K, but putting
it into Bonds when they are earning only 4.5% seemed tough
to do as well. So instead, I started applying to different
banks, some credit unions and online banks to get great
interest rate CDs. These CDs, you could take the interest
out or keep the interest in so that you can compound the
amount. So we decided to try the CDs out, using INGDirect
and Department of Interior Credit Union.
DOI Credit Union - Even though I was not an Employee of
DOI, I am a volunteer, and therefore, because I am a
volunteer, I could belong to this excellent credit union.
They have high interest rates, much higher than even online
banks, so I made sure we started taking advantage of this
opportunity. God Bless America and Department of Interior
for making this happen.
Enough about money, anyway...life was pretty good, so we
had a couple of parties, first one was for my book club, we
read Travels with Charley in Search of America ,
by John Steinbeck. You can see it on the right side of this
website. Steinbeck had a truck camper customized for him and
I thought it appropriate as we are in a truck camper. I had
snacks and s'mores for the party. The book club came to our
site at the visitor center host spot, we had gotten wood
from maintenance just days before, and the fire ring had
been built in late June. So we had a big fire and some
excellent friends to come and discuss the book. Fabulous
time.
My parents came down from NJ on the way to
Williamsburg (I think, can't always remember all of their
trips - they are semi-retired so either they are traveling
for my Dad's work or they are traveling for the fun of it)
and stayed somewhere in Stafford County...but before they
went down to their hotel, we went out to eat for Sasha's
Birthday. WOW talk about great food (thanks Mom and Dad for
the treat), we went to
Tim's Rivershore Restaurant. It was unbelievable, the
food was great, the atmosphere out of this world, the bugs
not too bad, the drinks really good, and after dinner, we
walked on the docks and got a private showing of Tim's
partner's historic shrimp boat. He had converted it to a
house boat and there were quite a few similarities to a RV,
such as gorgeous views, very small head, little headroom,
and small bedroom, but excellent sleeping conditions.
Although I do not believe that I would ever live in a boat,
I could see the attraction to it.
That weekend, we went to Yvonne and John's house for the
July birthdays: Sasha's, Johnny's and Jackie's, but
unfortunately, Bo and Jackie were unable to attend. So we
had a nice picnic at the Batals' house and ate some great
food there. The kids had friends over, and it was kind of
funny to see (sorry Johnny and Ally) - first the boys would
be in the hot tub and then the girls would be, but not at
the same time. But it looks like they all ate together for
dinner - them not with the "adults". Have to keep reminding
myself that I am an adult, not a kid anymore.
We had another party at the very end of July, on July
31st, and invited everyone that was at the visitor center
and whomever else was around. We had tons of food, and lots
of wood, most of both we hardly used. It was nice to see
everyone not in a work environment, and we knew that before
too long, it would be too hot to have something like this
again at the spot.
Oh, and the final installment of Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) came out,
so of course, once it was available at Costco, I got it. I
proceeded to read it (zoom through it Sasha says) in a
weekend. Again the book is on the right side. It was very
good, very sad in some parts and very happy in others. All
around, I think it was her best work, but there were a
couple of places that it could have sped up a little.
Anyway, good book, and I will not give away the ending.
Check out August, 2007 - a very hot month with going to
the Lawrence's and Batal's houses, (when they were not there - to swim in
their pool and stay for the weekend) plus a few other things. |
