May Madness

In Gardiner, the winter is pretty droll, but once tourists start arriving, everything gets crazy.  We’ve been full at the hotel for a couple weeks now, but we haven’t received our summer help yet.  So we’re short on housekeepers and everyone’s been pitching in to help clean rooms.  I’ve been working overtime, Trever has too.  Michael’s been coming in just about every day.  It’s nice to see the larger paychecks that come in, though.  As a consequence, my sleep schedule is completely shifted.  For example, a couple weeks ago I came in to help at the front desk and clean rooms about 8:00 am.  If you know me, you know that I’m not a morning person!

Last weekend, I only had about nine hours sleep.  May 14 I went into work at 10:00 pm like normal and got off at 6:00 am.  Michael lets me take a nap at work so long as it doesn’t interfere with my job or other guests, and I’ve rarely taken him up on the offer, but I did that night.  I just took an hour nap in the back office once the guests had gone to bed.  I needed it too because the next morning I had to drive to Bozeman.  I had promised my friend Kam that I would attend the MS Walk in Bozeman May 15 at 10:00 am via Facebook Events.  I made it and we walked through Bozeman about four miles.  At the walk I saw several people that I had gone to high school with who are still in the area—Brad, Shannon, and Lisa.  It was good to see them.  I met Kam’s dad too; I thought he was a pretty cool guy—very ambitious.  After the walk I briefly saw my aunt at her workplace, and then I slept for about three hours at her condo.  That evening I went to Livingston and ate dinner with Kevin, Dad, and Bonnie, and then went to Gardiner and back to work.  Again I took an hour nap at work.  I had to work late that morning because everyone has been on a slightly different schedule now that it’s so busy.  So that morning I only got about four hours sleep before I had to get up and go to work again.

This week we’ve had a houseguest too.  Chris has been staying with us while he has being doing a painting job here in Gardiner.  It’s been great to have him, but we keep on missing each other because of our schedules.  We finally saw each other Wednesday and I cooked up some chicken on the barbecue for Jean, Chris, and myself.  We had a really good dinner.  Thursday evening I made some tilapia for us too.  Jean loves it when I cook.  She just can’t get enough.  I mentioned that I was going to make some carrots with the fish and Jean just got excited.  I think she likes my cooking.

May 20 was pretty busy in itself, aside from my cooking that evening.  During the morning and afternoon, I helped clean rooms at the Super 8.  We had a lot of check-outs on my floor, so it was slow-going.  After working a full day, I went home and cooked some dinner and watched some TV with Chris and Jean.  I had been invited to try out the Yellowstone Basin Inn’s new hot tub, so I went over there that evening.  It took me a good half hour before I really relaxed.  I guess I’ve really been uptight lately!  So I tried out the hot tub for about an hour and then went home.

So for the past couple weeks I’ve been working six days of the week.  I can’t do that next week though!  I have plans!  Plus Rachel graduates from high school in another week and I’m hoping to be able to see her ceremony.

Since I got back from the Bahamas, I’ve been trying to catch up on a lot of things.  I still have to catch up on all of our mail, but hopefully I’ll have the majority of the mail figured out this weekend.

The madness hasn’t ended yet!

A Little of This, a Little of That

Since I got back from my vacation last month, I’ve been really busy at work.  During the winter months I sleep at the hotel because we don’t have very many guests.  At this point we’re becoming full on a regular basis, so I’ve been staying up all night on Friday and Saturday nights.  This makes for an interesting sleep schedule because I work evenings on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, but I guess I can’t complain too much since I have a job!  I’ve been able to get some overtime because our summer workers haven’t arrived yet.  During the months of May and September-October, it is normal to be full and not have enough employees to take care of the guests.  It’s just something that happens every year.  It’s not just our hotel that it happens to either; all of the hotels and restaurants have the same issue in this area until their foreign help arrives and right after they leave.

Grandma is doing alright.  I saw her twice last week and she was really sleepy both times.  I think the physical therapists are wearing her out!  That’s a good thing though because she needs to redevelop her motor abilities.  Last week she had to go to the hospital briefly for a blood transfusion.  Apparently her kidneys are operating at only about 50% of what is considered normal.  As a result, she’s not producing enough of a hormone that is used in red blood cell production.  After her transfusion she went back to Evergreen and has been there since.  Her doctor is starting injections for this hormone until her kidneys start making it.  Please continue to pray for her recovery.  God is great and can do amazing things!

Yesterday morning Zana and Kassie came to the house.  I made lunch and Jean and Zana did some organizational work.  They also like to make a weekly dump run for the house.  I always enjoy seeing Kassie and Zana and can’t wait until Jared gets out of school so we can all hang out.

Jean and I drove to Bozeman to pick Kevin up from the airport that afternoon.  Kevin arrived in Montana for a couple weeks.  He was originally supposed to arrive May 12, but he couldn’t get transportation to the airport in Munich from Vilseck.  He had to change his ticket and arrived in Montana May 13.

The airlines have an amazing racket going on.  They overbook all of their flights knowing that some people will not be able to go on the flight.  Then when the people need to rebook, they might as well buy another ticket because it costs so much.  What’s more, sometimes the travel insurance covers these changes, and sometimes it doesn’t.  In either case, the airline still gets twice the amount of money that it originally cost you to buy the ticket.  Carefully read those travel insurance policies to make sure that they cover all anticipated reasons for cancelling or switching flights!  Now they charge for extra bags and food.  In flight beverages?  I’m expecting to have to pay for those in the future too.

Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad except that Kevin’s bags never arrived either.  The airline forces you to pay extra for your bags and then mishandles them.  This is the third flight in a row in which the bags were missing!  On both my flights from and to the Bahamas, my bags were missing, and now Kevin’s were too!  Finally they arrived on an evening flight and they were delivered to Dad’s house.  The airlines are certainly not winning any points with me.

After Kevin landed, Jean, Bruce, Kevin, and I ate at Outback Steakhouse since Kevin hadn’t eaten a steak since he was in Washington D.C. a few months ago.  I hadn’t eaten a steak in a long time either, so it was a good change of pace.  Afterwards, we had dessert at Coldstone.  Kevin likes to twist our arms like that. ;) We decided to go to the movies, so we saw Iron Man 2.  We all enjoyed the movie and thought it was a lot of fun.  Kevin had such a long day on the airlines that he had a hard time staying awake through it all!  After every movie we watch in Bozeman, it seems to be tradition that we go to Wal-Mart after.  We didn’t break with tradition, either.  I dropped Kevin off at Dad’s house when we got to Livingston and Jean and I went to Gardiner for the night.  We didn’t get home until about 3 am, so we had a long day.

Happy birthday to Kevin today!


Kevin proudly shows off his fabulous fuchsia phone at Outback Steakhouse.