We went back to work today, and it was a slow one. It seems like there are a lot of people in the park, but it was the hottest day since we have been here–around 96 degrees. Luckily our new kitchen air conditioner works good or we would be dying in there. We are still trying to eat up that brisket we bought from HEB last week, so we had that for dinner. I think I am getting a little tired of it. It is good, but we have eaten a lot of it this past week…

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My little Canon camera has a scratch or something on the lens–it can’t be seen in every picture, but it is visible in the brighter ones. I first noticed it in the pictures we took from the road around Mt. Shasta, but I thought it was just a smudge or something. We tried cleaning the lens and blowing air inside the camera but the smudge is still there. We decided we would use some of my birthday money and Kevin’s tax rebate and buy a good camera. This guy–one of our favorite full-time RV’ers uses and recommends the nikon D40. He takes really great pictures–everything from distant landscapes to close-ups of wildlife–even hummingbirds in flight.

I really wanted a camera that I could use now, but that would improve my picture taking over time. The D40 can be as easy as a point and shoot camera, but it also has manual modes that we can play with and learn as we go along. It is not a camera that we will quickly grow out of. They had a great package at Costco that came with the camera, a Nikon camera bag, a get started DVD, and a memory card for less than the retail price of the camera alone at most places. So we bought it. I took a bunch of pictures as soon as the battery got charged, and I was really happy with the ease of use and the quality of the photos. Eventually we will buy a zoom lens, and that will make it even more fun!!

After Costco, we went to Wal-Mart for a few groceries, then back to the park. We had planned on doing a bit more shopping, but the camera purchase was enough for one day!! We got home, and the new couple in the snack bar had a couple of questions, but their day went well for the most part. They are still having trouble with the register countdown and the deposit, so I made up a worksheet similar to the ones we used at the restaurant. Hopefully that will simplify the countdown for them.

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Today was the first day that the snack bar was open without either Kevin or me working in it. Kevin went over a couple of times to make sure the new people were okay, and I went over at closing time to oversee their first close alone. We didn’t want to seem like we didn’t think they could handle things by themselves, but we wanted to let them know that we were there to support them if necessary. I just kind of watched them close up, and they seemed to have it all under control, but the register count down is a bit of an issue. We will work on that.Since we kind of wanted to be available today, we stayed home and cleaned the coach. With both of us working full time, it had gotten to be quite a mess. We cleaned and organized and put things away and did laundry and threw things away. I think the coach is the cleanest it has been since we left Woodburn.

In other news, while I was out walking the cat, our friends Judy and Kathy whispered to me to come back and see them as soon as I took the cat inside. So I did. They told me that our current assistant managers were given the manager position(not too much of a surprise), and that a couple was coming from one of Legacy’s other parks to take over as the new assistant managers. They should be here tomorrow. Hopefully things will settle down and we will have a nice, happy rest of our summer.

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We thought the new couple might get to work with us one more time before they were on their own, but they were desperately needed in housekeeping today, so it was just Kevin and me in the snack bar. We were busy again, but not so much that we could not handle it ourselves. It would have been nice to have one other person, but there really was no one they could spare. Sunday is usually busy when we first open, then slow the rest of the day. But today, there were some fifty check-ins, so we had plenty of business. We are actually out of some things and getting low on others…we had no idea we would have such a busy week.

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Now that we are getting comfortable with everything in the snack bar, the owners decided to include a menu in the check-in packet for every guest in the park. I think it worked–we had our busiest day by far today. There were three of us working all day, and we all kept busy all day. By the end of the day, we were tired, so we made ourselves a pizza for dinner. It has kind of become a habit to have pizza one day a week now. First it was Friday, but we work our longest day on Saturday so we have decided that should be pizza night.

This weekend was supposed to be Christmas in July, but nothing exciting happened. One of our activities work campers actually works as Santa during the holiday season, so he was dressed that way all weekend. And some of the crafts were Christmas-y I guess, but I didn’t see any of those. In fact, there are still flags hanging everywhere from last weekend. I really think they could have done a better job of Christmas in July.

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Friday was a typical work day. Kevin had to run to the grocery store in the morning because we were almost out of milk. He also got some buns so we will have hot dogs for dinner tonight. We worked 12 - 8 in the snack bar along with the new couple who we are training. They are doing very well, so we left them alone for an hour so we could take a lunch break. They seem to be fine, so they will probably be on their own on Monday, so we will probably wait until Tuesday to do our weekly shopping trip, just in case they need help with something. After work, we had our hot dogs and some chips, then the cat and I sat outside until past 11:00. The bugs did not seem to be as bad last night, so we stayed out late…

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Today the new work campers stayed with us all day. They basically took all of the orders and made all of the pizzas. Kevin and I helped out a little, but the owners want them ready to be on their own by Monday, so they need to get good at everything quickly. They both have restaurant and business experience, so they didn’t have much trouble at all learning what needed to be done. All day we had to work around the air conditioning people as they installed our new a/c unit. The building itself has air conditioning, but they put in too small a system for the size of the building and the amount of equipment in there. The game room is completely full of video games and our little kitchen is full of equipment as well. By the end of the day, the kitchen was easily in the 90’s, even with the a/c set at 75. Now, we have our own air conditioning unit just for the kitchen, so the rest of the summer should be very nice in there!!

We finished work at around 7:15, then went home and made sandwiches for dinner. We bought a bunch of sandwich meat because we were taking lunch breaks nearly every day and wanted something quick to fix. Now that our schedule is the same every week, we are finding that we take fewer lunch breaks and just work through our entire shift with a couple of short breaks instead. When there are only two of us in the snack bar that is the easiest way to go. So we have a lot of sandwich meat that needs to get eaten.

After dinner, the cat really wanted to walk around. He likes the weekday evenings the best because there are way fewer people around to bother him. Nearly every time we are out walking, someone asks about putting a cat on a leash. Or they want to pet him. Especially the kids, and our cat is not used to having kids chase him around. That is really the only time he tries to get out of his harness–when kids chase him or try to get him. We rarely leave him outside by himself for that reason. Plus we are surrounded by farms here and there are some cats and dogs from neighboring farms that come around every once in awhile. So if the cat is out, one of us is usually out with him.

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Today was the first day of training for the new snack bar couple. They were assigned some other tasks in the morning, so they did not come over to us until just before opening at noon. We had them watch the DVD from the Hunt Brothers Pizza company, then showed them around a little. They got to take an order or two and make a couple of pizzas, but they really did not do much before it was time for them to leave again. I wanted them to come back for a couple of hours at dinner, but the pool was closed because of another storm passing through, so there was no need to have them there. We were dead.

Kevin and I decided to buy an order of french fries from the snack bar to have with our brisket dinner, so we cooked those then went home and ate. I was sitting outside with the cat and watching a TV show on my computer when I noticed a million tiny bugs landing all over me and the computer screen. Even though it was still fairly early, we had to go inside. I could not take the bugs. I bought a bug band to wear on my ankle, I have bug spray, I have a citronella candle burning on our patio, and the bugs still find me. I have huge red blotches all over both legs from some kind of bug bite and I have big itchy welts on my feet from another. The bugs ar the main reason I would not spend another summer here. They are awful!!

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We were off today, so we did our normal shopping trip to Cypress. We each had banking to do, so we went to both banks, then we tried to find somewhere to eat. We wanted to try something new, but we had trouble making a decision. First, we tried Luby’s, but we did not realize it was cafeteria style, and it was quite expensive for lunch, so we did not stay there. Then we drove around a bit more, but just did not know what we wanted. We ended up going to Wendy’s, and we were both happy we did. After lunch, we went to Sam’s Club and got some paper products for the snack bar and a couple of things for us. Our membership was expired so we had to renew. $40. I also just got a renewal notice for Costco, so we will have to pay that next time we go there. Not sure how both of them came due at the same time, but whatever. We really like to be able to go to both stores, as each of them have their unique qualities. Anyway, after that, we went to my favorite grocery store in this area, HEB. We got our regular groceries, plus they had a meal deal where you buy their slow cooked and sliced brisket, and you get a bunch of stuff for free. The free stuff included two pounds of smoked sausage, a 12 pack of soda, a can of beans, a bag of chips, a mini vacuum sealer, and some sour cream. We will use most of the free stuff, and the meat turned out to be really good, so we were quite happy with our purchase. By then, we were ready to get back home, and the cat was happy to get outside. We walked over to see Kathy and Judy, but the cat was anxious, so I had to bring him back to our yard, where he immediately got himself tied around the picnic table and a chair, so he went back inside while we finished visiting. Then the cat and I stayed out until bed time. I watched a movie on my computer while the cat laid in the grass. It was a very nice evening–no rain and nice and cool.

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We had a relatively normal Sunday at the snack bar–not really very busy, but enough to keep from getting bored. At six, we closed up and came home. I printed out our weekly sales report for the manager and handed it to one of the office workers to give to Jan, the manager. She looked at me and said that Jan and David, the other manager, had just resigned and were leaving the park. We were surprised, but not shocked, because they have been having problems almost the entire time we have been here. They were assistant managers for awhile here, but had only recently been promoted to managers, just before our arrival. They seemed to be way over their heads–they were probably great assistant managers, but running a park of this size was just too much for them. They spent almost no time packing up and moving out, leaving at around 9:30 at night. I guess Bob and Diane, two of the owners, will run the park until they find suitable replacements. We have been working closely with Bob in getting the snack bar up and running, so it should not affect us too much. We will have to wait and see what happens…

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