Hi Everyone!! It's hotter than you know what here in Orono; it was 94F yesterday, and given our northern location, you can probably guess that most homes do not have air conditioning. It's going to be like this all week, making our air conditioned offices at work look like heaven, even if we are still being asked to work from home whenever possible.
@Mackenzie Click-Mickelson THANKS for the pictures! I love having faces to put with the names I see here so regularly!
My solo trip in August now has a +1; DD28 will be joining me. She is my favorite travel companion and best Disney buddy by far, so it'll be fun to have her along. I was SO looking forward to going solo, but it's OK. This gives me justification for booking some TS restaurants; I was just going to do QS if I was on my own, but instead will try out Tiffin's and Toppolino. These are both new to us, so we are excited. Late ADRs will allow us to do some late afternoon grazing at F&W, and if we decide to just stay at Epcot on those days, I'll adjust the plans. That's the nice thing about park hopper tickets; it's easier to jump around and change plans, especially now with park reservations and all. I'm looking forward to the trip.
There is one more week of summer organic chemistry to go, and then I'll be "done" for the summer. No more teaching, that is, but there is plenty of work to be done (storerooms to sort through, manuals, quiz banks, and rubrics to edit, and eventually chemicals to prep for fall). This week is the end of teaching 2 semesters of organic chem lab in eight weeks. It's a stupidly accelerated schedule, and both the students and I are worn out. I'll take some "down time" that first week of July- finish the grading, "be seen" in the department, etc., but the rest of the summer is full of travel. On 7/11 DD, DH, and I are headed to Colorado for a week. For the last week of July and 1st week of August, DH and I have rented a cottage just off the beach (York Beach, ME). This will be a working/relaxing vacation so I can get some of that editing for work finished up. My family is all in this and the Boston area, so I'll do some visiting while there, too. After a couple of weeks back home, DD and I will head to Disney for 5 nights, and then? It'll be time for school to start again. I'll tell ya... I will be eligible to retire in November, and the more I think about it, the better it sounds. If only the mortgage were more amenable to this plan!
Hope everyone is well and anticipating fun summer plans!
Or, have all the aforementioned.
