A very long weekend.

We had a very long Memorial Day weekend around here.  Dan was off Friday, Monday AND Tuesday.  But before you get too excited by that, it's because his company is giving all the salaried employees 15 mandatory vacation days (with a given schedule as to when they are to be taken) to make up for the fact that all salaried employees are having to take a 10% pay cut for the rest of the year. 

I am trying to remain positive.  Thankfully they haven't started laying anyone off yet and thankfully they are trying to compensate for the lost pay with extra days off.  I continue to read about cuts all the airlines are making and it's only a matter of time before it trickles down to Dan's company.  (The company he works for makes airplane seats so if the airlines aren't buying new planes or upgrading the old ones then...you get the picture.)  Still, I'm trying to remain thankful that at this point he still has a job and a paycheck. 

So on Friday we went car shopping with Sarah since she will be 16 soon.  And yes, in retrospect, it's probably not wise to be car shopping with the current state of affairs but we found an excellent deal on a 2020 car that the dealership used as a loaner.  It has very low miles and still has that new car smell on the inside and the discounts on it we large. 

Sarah has an appointment with the DMV to do her in car driving test on June 16th.  Sadly, we learned yesterday that most likely they aren't going to be doing in car tests until the new year.  But it sounds like they are trying to pass a bill in the state legislature that would allow kids that need their license to drive without one until they are doing in-car tests again.  So hopefully that means that Sarah will be allowed to drive by herself with her permit.  But who knows?  We are anxiously awaiting to see how all of that plays out.

On Saturday Sarah completed all of her training and is now officially American Red Cross Life Guard and First-Aid/CPR certified!  When she was done, she texted us that she had passed but that it was one of the hardest things physically that she has ever done. 

Once she got that completed she went online to finish all the forms and paperwork that the pool management company she was hired to work for needed to make everything official.  All that's been turned in and now she's just waiting for a call back to find out the next steps.  I'm getting a little antsy because this pool is supposed to open on June 1st and Sarah still hasn't heard anything about training yet.  I'm hoping that the job doesn't fall through but I'm a little worried at this point.

In other pool news, the pool that we are members of opened on Tuesday but the weather has been so wet this week, we haven't gone. And sadly, we heard that there will be no official summer league swim season.  The team will attempt to have some sort of practices in July but no meets.  Sarah doesn't seem to interested in just going to practices so I'm not even sure if she will do that or not. 

On Monday, we had a cookout (it was cloudy but thankfully it didn't rain).  My mom and my brother joined us as well as Jennifer and her family.    We had a great time. We ate too much, laughed, and talked and it was nice to just be with friends and family.  For a few hours, I forgot about COVID-19.

And one more piece of bright news:  my hummingbirds seem to be back in full force!  I was worried about them.  I had a couple around the feeders but not to the degree they normally visit.  People on the local Facebook page were complaining as well so at least it wasn't my feeders or my food.  They were speculating that the honeysuckle is in bloom early this year and the birds were eating that instead of visiting feeders.  Others were speculating that the cool wet weather was keeping them away.  Yesterday, I had birds at my feeders through out the day and I was very happy to see them! Hopefully my tiny feathered friends will continue to grace my back yard!