Gearing up for a Grandtot Weekend

Only have a little bit of time this morning to type a blog post... we have two grandtots due here in an hour or so.  I already ran to the store and got watermelon, strawberries, and all of the good munchies they love when they are here.

Little Chelsea and Clayton are spending the night.  The dogs get all wound up as soon as they see me inflate the air mattress in the Grandtot Bedroom.  It is much easier than having a regular bed that they could fall out of in the middle of the night, especially the wee ones.   From time to time, Finney stops in the hallway to go into that bedroom and lay down, wondering "Where are those kids???"  The dogs like that the grandtot bed is at "their level". They can get on and give licks and cuddles and even sleep there with the kids.

Here is a shot from a couple weeks ago when grandtot Jameson was here with his dog, Radar.   Finney looks surprised that Radar gets to hop on HIS bed!  LOL

Speaking of beds... I snapped this shot the other night.  What is the sense of buying TWO doggie beds when they only sleep in one?  LOL....   The dogs sleep at the base of our bed on their two little pads.  Most often, they are curled up together on either one or the other.  When the morning comes, they were both on the bed on the right side!

I was feeling a bit better yesterday morning and got the car over to Manitowoc (25 miles away) to get the checkup done on the transmission repair we had done last month.  All is hunky dory and it passed with flying colors!  I know it's an older car, but I really enjoy driving it and it was worth adding the transmission repair because we bought it for such a good price to begin with.

When I got home, I decided to toss a beef roast in the oven.  I toss in a bunch of taters, onions, carrots and mushrooms.  The sauce starts with onion soup mix, water, and a good dollop of Andria's steak sauce on the top of the meat.  A liberal sprinkling of Lawry's seasoning, some pepper and a good smattering of dried parsley.   Stuffed it in the oven on low, and soon the house was smelling GREAT!

This is my favorite cooking pan, a huge cast aluminum roasting pan with a domed lid.  I got it from my friend Lisa before she moved to Montana.  I use it all of the time, and works so nice to cook in the big oven at home.   It doesn't fit in the smaller convection oven in the motorhome, so I found another just like it, only smaller to be able to use it in there.


In the afternoon, I was feeling much better.  I had a "DATE" with the neighbor lady Rosie to go to the movies!  Every other month, the local movie theater plays an old movie, sponsored by the local retirement home, home health care and assisted living centers.  This month it was On Golden Pond!  They have free popcorn and soda too.  Rosie and I did a "selfie" -----  The Chilton Theater is only a block away, so we walked over on such a nice sunny afternoon.

I just LOVE that movie, and when it first came out over 30 years ago, I went to see it I think four times! I don't often like seeing a movie more than once.  But this one is different... the music, the lighting, the scenery, the emotion.  Ahhhhhhh I now have the movie on DVD and it's possibly the only movie that I like to watch over and over again.  (My favorite musical of all time is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and I play that one over and over again too)    It was so nice to see On Golden Pond on the big screen again, and we really enjoyed our afternoon.


Something Steve has been ruminating in his brain is the topic of our air conditioning at the house.  We are fortunate to have central air conditioning in our home.  It keeps us very comfortable on the main floor on those hot ugly humid days in summer.

The only problem is to keep the upstairs bedrooms comfortable, we have to crank the temps wayyyy down on the main floor to keep it cooling the upstairs all night long.  As things cool off outdoors at night, the thermostat on the main floor doesn't call for any more cooling.   Thus the bedrooms get hot and stuffy.   I get up and go down and turn it even colder... so the AC runs again during the night...  that cold air reaches the bedrooms for a while, but eventually goes down the open staircase and foyer to the main level. Ya know, cold sinks.

But by the time we get up in the morning, the downstairs is freezing cold, and the upstairs is barely cool.   Usually hot and stuffy.  We even tried closing all the vents on the main floor to help shove the air up to the bedrooms, but it still is much colder downstairs, which makes the thermostat not call for any more cooling.

Soooo Steve has been thinking.  He wants to get a window sized air conditioner for just the bedroom.  Then we can keep the central air set for a comfortable level on the main floor and just cool our bedroom at night for sleeping.

Only problem, I am not nuts about having a window air conditioner hanging off the front of the house where our bedroom is! Personally I think they are ugly.  Also the windows are situated right next to our bed, so the air would be blowing directly on us if there was a window unit set in either of our two bedroom windows.   AND that is MY side of the bed.   Long ago in our Green Bay house, we had a window air conditioner next to my bed and I felt achy and sore each morning waking up from having that blow on me all night long.  No thanks.

But---- I came up with another idea!   What about putting the unit in our large walk-in closet window??  Yes, our closet has a window.  This is last year's pic of what the front of the house looks like:

We can let the air blast from the window unit in the closet and against the open closet door and direct the flow into our bedroom.  Then it won't be blasting on our bed, but still can cool our room (and our clothes?).   Hmmmmmmm  plus it won't be noisy right in our ears either?

Our closet has a newly wired in electrical outlet that Steve put there for my curling iron or blow dryer. So even that isn't a problem.  The outlet is right near the closet window. Installation should be Easy Peasy!

Steve agreed to the compromise and it won't look quite as bad in the little window the left on the front of the house.  We picked up a window unit on sale, and it's actually larger than we need in BTU's but it's thermostatically controlled.  It even has a remote control we can aim from the bedroom to operate it from the bed.   Little Finney had to supervise while Steve took it out of the box and examined the new unit. 

After eating our delicious supper last night (didn't have time to take a pic of the finished roast, sorry)  we sat out in the front porch for a while.  The dogs brought us a toy to play fetch with.  It's called Blue Man.  This is our Evening Entertainment! haha

Back and forth they went, fetching and running, just the length of the porch makes them happy to have us play with them.  What nuts..... 

They are waiting for some grandtots to come and play fetch today

These will be two VERY tired out doggers by tomorrow when the kids leave.....