Oregon Living 2025 – Blog #8 –  More Packing, Getting Taxes Done, & More Dancing!

 

Sunday, February 16^th., 2025…… The only thing on our to-do list today was class tonight. So, we slept in this morning. I guess I didn’t time it right because by the time I got back with breakfast, it was too late for Cat to make it to church. We hung around the house for the day and then went off to class later in the evening. Cathye is doing well with the Plus calls so far. We will have one more session before the cruise. She will have 12 of the 31 calls. We’re not sure what the level of dance will be on the ship. As I mentioned before, most of the group is from SoCal where they dance 100% Plus. The dances listed on David’s flyer says he will call at  ‘floor level’ which usually means calling to the lowest level people can dance. But if there are only a few of us from out of the area (where Mainstream is the norm) it will be his call on what to do. No biggie for us – we are in it for the cruise - and the dancing is just a bonus. I plan to give David a list of the calls that Cat has seen and he can use that as a reference. No promises. After the lesson, we went on to Panda Express for an afterparty with the group. Home, tv and bed.    

Monday, February 17^th., 2025…… The weather is getting better. The front that came through has moved on and we have warmer temps. It got up to the 50s today! Yaay! But we are getting some rain, which will freeze at the higher elevations. No worries for us here at 340’. Penny came by with news that her friend, Jerith, had passed away. She had been ill for some time so this was kind of expected. Jerith was one of my dedicated blog followers and said she really enjoyed reading about our lives. She will be missed. She was also the one who did the calligraphy on our marriage certificate. She had such great talent!  

We each had massages today so I headed off for the first one, with Cathye coming later. When we got home, Penny brought over some goulash that she had made the other day. We went over some things for when we are gone. Not sure what she and Cherrelyn will be doing as far as staying here at the house. It’s their call. But we have stuff written down for the dogs, the spa maintenance, the inside flowers and plants, etc.  We will be driving the Honda (with our luggage loaded) to Penny’s on Monday. We will get her and drive to the shuttle pickup, and then she can bring back the car to her place and park it in her garage. That way our car is out of the weather and hers will be in our garage. Later, we ate leftovers and watched tv. We are trying to keep up with the new shows and I have now got Cathye hooked on Deal or No Deal Island!

Tuesday, February 18^th., 2025…… Just class today. Oops, forgot that Cat was taking Jamie out for a haircut and lunch!

On the way to class, we stopped at the credit union to see if we could order Australian and New Zealand currency. Nope, they referred us to a larger bank. So, we will just use our US cash (or cards) or get some changed over at the airport. On the way out of the CU parking lot, I didn’t see two older kids riding their bikes on the sidewalk and they almost ran into us! I apologized but when one kid kept mouthing out, I lost it! I got out and walked up to him. Just yelling but no contact. I know I was wrong for both pulling out through the sidewalk without looking up and down, but also for getting out and taunting him. Cathye got to see my temper and I’m sorry for that too!  Class was ok and we got back and ate and settled in for the evening.

Wednesday, February 19^th., 2025…… Today was tax day!  We had a 12:15pm appointment with a new person since our lady retired after last season. We liked her and it went quickly since neither of us has complicated items. Surprised us though that we got money back from the state as well!  Later, we fed the dogs and left for the Club meeting. We went early because they scheduled a bylaws committee meeting beforehand. No one was able to come so it got cancelled. I hope they will finish it without me while we are out of town! After the meeting, we came home and relaxed from the day.  

Thursday, February 20^th., 2025…… HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYLEE! She is 7 today!  She got to go to the groomers (just happened to be today!) with Jama and looks like a big fluffy puppy!

Don’t think we did anything else for the day except maybe check in with the airlines on our flights. The one from PDX to SFO is booked but it’s the only one we can’t seem to get seat assignments for. Air New Zealand is using United to shuttle us to San Francisco and neither one can give us seats. It says we will be assigned seats when we check in. No worries, we have the long flight covered and that’s the important one!  Tv and then bed.

Friday, February 21^st., 2025…… Another quiet day. It was 37° when I walked Rylee (Cat and Jama slept in this morning!). They were still asleep when we got back so I just fed Butthead. Later, Cathye got up and had her coffee and fed Jama.  I think we purposely scheduled nothing for these last few days.  Cathye had bought a journal for the trip and I stuck glittery letters on the front and she put clear nail polish over them.   

She will make her notes just like me while we are out and I can use them as well for my blog! We decided to go to the Alliance Plus dance in Albany tonight because Shaun will be calling and at our class he said, “if any of you newer dancers come, I will alternate tips between full Plus and just those calls that I have taught to date”.  We were surprised to see that there were several of the students from Cat’s class there. That made it better because she wasn’t the only beginner there!  She did well (as well as the others) and got a lot more floor time, especially on some of those calls that are a bit more complicated. My fellow dancers know this – repetition, repetition! She has one more class this Sunday and that will be 3 out of 7. I expect she will retake the class but I am glad she is trying.  It was late when we drove home through the sprinkles and settled in and watched tv for a bit before calling it a night.       

Saturday, February 22^nd., 2025…… Weather is weird. This morning, when we went out for our walk with the girls, it was already 51°!  Chance of rain later though. We ate a light breakfast because we are meeting up with Penny and Cherrelyn at Robin’s Northside Bar and Grill for lunch. We had a round of drinks…

and then lunch. It was fun and we went over our plans and they asked us questions about stuff around the house. I think they plan to split up time at our place while we are gone. But that’s up to them. We got back home and I worked on the blog and then tried to catch up on my shows before we leave.  There is another dance tonight, this time in Corvallis, but we both opted to just stay home and relax for a change.  I got an email from United AL about our flight. Turns out they have reassigned the flight number so they couldn’t assign seats. But I was able to do it now and got us legroom seats (as an upgrade).

Ok, this might be the last post for a bit. I am not taking my laptop on our trip. I have both my Kindle and Cat’s tablet and I may decide to try to type on one of those and may post while we are out. We’ll see……    Either way, Cathye plans to post periodically on Facebook so feel free to check in there.  See you in a few weeks!