Author Archives: tbavendam

Friday I found out that my daughter-in-law’s (DIL) band was going to be playing in Nashville Saturday morning at the Finish Line of the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon in Nashville – a 90 minute set starting at about 1030 AM. I hadn’t seen them play since last June when they just added a new member.Continue reading “Perfect Weekend”

When I was young I couldn’t understand why my mom wore socks with sandals. In fact, it used to drive me crazy. It didn’t make sense. It seemed pretty easy to just take the socks off if you were going to put on sandals. Now I understand. Why bother to take the socks off toContinue reading “Socks and Sandals”

At my visit with the dentist last November, they had this cool new camera that they used in my mouth to create a video imaging of my teeth. They then showed it to me and noted that my bite was off and it was causing me to bite down on my fillings. There was oneContinue reading “Bitter disappointment”

Yesterday was my first day of Habitat build since the cruise. This is half of the crew I had. While it is hard to appreciate from the photo, these are high schoolers. I had a crew of nine of them which is way too many to keep engaged. We are building wall panels for theContinue reading “My most challenging day at Habitat”

To the right is a picture of me at the Cedar Rapids airport yesterday, Sitting outside on a patio near the gate with fire pit in the background. Carli was very happy to see me last night. Because the temperature in my condo was over 80 to help the paint dry, I slept at myContinue reading “Re-entry to Nashville”

At this moment “unleashed” means off-duty. Aunt Carol just dropped me off at the Cedar Rapids airport for my flight to Nashville. As I sit looking at the Allegiant desk, I think back to nearly 3 weeks ago with a sense of wonder. I could NEVER have predicted all that was to be be managedContinue reading “Almost home”

We are back in SF. waiting for our turn to disembark. Hopefully our pictures of Carol’s birth certificate and my passport will get us through customs. I will not truly feel “off duty” until I Carol drops me at airport tomorrow afternoon. I will hopefully have time in the morning to return some stuff toContinue reading “Looking a Golden Gate – waiting for our time to disembark”

Our last sea day. We only spent a few chilly hours at Encenada. Apparently cruise ships originating in the states have to stop somewhere outside of the states if their crew is going to be nonUS citizens – so that is the reason for the quick stop in Mexico. In general the crew are onContinue reading “Our bags need packed. I am ready to go…”

I used to be so embarrassed by this photo. Now I see it as a perfect snapshot in time. I would have been 9 and a half. I was desperate to get glasses when I was in third grade and I got them. I stopped wearing them in high school when I tired of glassesContinue reading “Easter 1965”

Freddie is the person who takes very good care of us in our cabin. With the electronic fobs, they can see if we are in our cabins or not so there is none of the annoying knocking from housekeeping trying to figure out if it is a good time to clean. Yesterday morning, Freddie knockedContinue reading “Another birthday surprise for Carol”