THE BEST FAMILY VACATION EVER...PART I

 This past weekend, my family and I took a trip to +James Pierce (ok, I know there is a name there, but Powhatan Resorts is where we went and hopefully James works there)

Anyway, we took a trip there with +Austin Camacho and Denise and their family and my two children along with their children and also a couple of friends, and also a cat (which will be a different blog on a different day)

We arrived on Friday night and we were all to tired to do anything but this was a family vacation and after all of the sleeping arrangements had been made, re-made and floor space claimed, we settled in for a peaceful night.

Then came Saturday and the madness began. Have you ever cooked breakfast for 13 hungry people, 7 men, (2 of which play semi-pro football) and 6 females and one finicky 1 year old and a 2 month old baby. Well the task of what to feed them was easily solved with a bag (Costco is your friend on family outings) of pancake mix, a gallon of syrup, 3 dozen eggs, four pounds of bacon and enough coffee to wake up an entire teaching staff of college professors.  See that looks like a lot of food and after cooking for what seemed like an hour we were ready to call everyone in for breakfast except...

Half of them were still asleep, one decided they needed to take a leisurely bubble bath and the men, well they were about to gnaw off an arm if they weren't fed immediately.

We (that would be Denise and I) sat down the platter of pancakes and two bowls of bacon and by the time 6 of them ate...we needed more food.

Wait, what....my initial statement of "wow; do you think we will need all of that bacon" was met with the very light laugh and yes" from Denise)

Turns out we needed all four pounds of bacon, half of a bag (5 pounds) of pancake mix and 1 dozen of eggs. We ushered in shifts of food, took turns at the table that sat 6 and made quick time using two different coffee pots. Whew, breakfast was over and the dishes, well; the dishwashing hands of Denise and myself had all of the dishes, pots, pans and glasses and mugs out away in a little over an hour but you know what,

the memories that were made just over breakfast will stay embedded in my mind forever and off to the beach we went. But getting everyone corralled into three cars...

to be continued.......

TEACHING AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS

People say you can't teach an old dog new tricks and I don't believe it.

Well, I wouldn't say it about dogs because I had dogs and I would teach them new tricks almost every day. I would tell them to go fetch and after showing them a few times what I wanted them to do, they would...oh wait...they didn't go fetch, it was just me bringing back the branch or paper or the occasional stray dog.

My point is, you can't teach this old girl new tricks. I had to buy a new laptop....well I didn't have to buy a new one, I could have continued to use the one that would need to be angled on it's side in such a way to keep the plug firmly in place to charge it or risk losing all of my important data at the three hour mark. Instead I have a new Windows 8 laptop by +HP

Now, the huge screen, 17.5 inches; I fell in love with. The raised keyboard is another plus but the whole Windows8 application.....lets just say I have been close to tears, close to hysterics and now, close to a mental breakdown.

This moving screen is not good for someone like me, who is like a cat with shiny objects. Every time a new image appears, I fall into a trance like state; that is until another window comes 'alive'.

Then its the whole 'charms' that appear randomly on the side of the screen. They are suppose to help me find my way but all it succeeded in doing was confusing me.

Let's not even talk about how it took me over an hour to 'find' the desktop and then the 'find' my way back to all of the 'live' windows.

Who out there knew that computers no longer come with an owner's manual, well I sure as hell didn't and that was another two hour ordeal to figure out how to OPEN the manual online. Yes. I love my new laptop but can someone, anyone please show me how to navigate between the 'start' screen and the desktop without it taking me over an hour to do to so.

What's that...ohhhh, pretty pictures....ah, there's a new one scrolling right now....wait..there's another one.

See, I'll be here all day.