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| Meet Up with Our Family in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Me, Quinn, Andrea, Kim and Jacob, Darrell, Jeremy. |
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| Quinn Playing Out His Energy at This Fantastic Playground |
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| Cool Slide with Quinn Climbing Up |
Saturday. 28. Moving and travel day for us. We are driving from Kingsport, Tennessee to Gaithersburg, Maryland. Our stay is in the lower level of a home through airbnb. Eric and Erin with Owen and Esther plan to arrive here from Alabama on Tuesday night. Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn are beginning their local house sit with a cat tomorrow. Our airbnb host has let us know that he loves travel and would like to visit and share travel stories. We arrived and met our host around 4-5pm. From the time of our arrival there were several uncomfortable and challenging issues with our chosen place. The main issue was the temperature in the house and specifically the cold floor. We had unloaded our items from our truck including our 2 large roller suitcases, backpacks, two sealed trunks with mostly kitchen items that can be missing at different airbnb’s, our heavy, cooler-sized refrigerator and a couple of flat crates with more items for the sparsely furnished kitchen. We turned on the baseboard heaters because the place was colder than the current outside temperature of about 50- 60 degrees. And, unusually, this lower part of the house was not hooked up to the central heating. We left the place to go to the grocery, and came back with a couple bags of food to get us started and cooked a quick dinner of eggs and toast. By this time, Darrell was so cold and looked so uncomfortable to me. He said that he was freezing and couldn’t seem to get warm. The cold was mainly from the floor which was directly on the concrete slab. It was way too cold for our little grandchildren to play or live on for their time here. I was wearing my extra wool cape over my wool shirt and wool slippers (that I offered to him, and he tried, but they were too small for him). I tried to remove my wool cape, but I was too cold and had to leave it on. The electric in the main bedroom wasn’t working and so we couldn’t use the side table lamps. I texted the host, and thus began our exchanges. Darrell took a cold shower using a provided space heater in the bathroom. There was no other heat in the bathroom and the space heater had shown him the temperature when it began as 53 degrees!! He jumped into bed and I went to the bathroom about 9:30-10pm and took a sponge bath from the sink while the space heater blasted warm air onto me. The sink plug stuck closed and neither of us could open it. It was after 10pm when I got into bed. We decided that we couldn’t stay and I called airbnb’s help line to initiate our departure for the next morning.
Sunday. 1. In the morning, we were up by about 5am. We began packing up so we could check out before the host’s 10am check out time. We also wanted to arrive for church by 10am in Gaithersburg. We were able to cook breakfast, clean up, and Darrell repacked the truck. We drove away by 8:30am. We texted the host to let him know that we were checked out. We went to a cafe and got some hot tea. We were tired, but so glad to be out of the very cold apartment. Now we were discussing our options of where we would stay for the rest of the week. Before making our final decision, we decided to wait on booking anything because we could wait. Neither of our places were booked up or likely to go away since we are in the off-season here and there are plenty of choices. We arrived at Bible class and met the few members who were there. Everyone was super friendly and happy to have us visiting. Our niece, Kim and her husband Jacob drove an hour down from the Gettysburg area to meet with us and to go to lunch together. They also enjoyed meeting the members at the church there. After worship, we decided on a Peruvian chicken place for lunch. The chickens were lined on spits and revolving over a charcoal fire. It was delicious! We were able to visit for a couple of hours in the low key, relaxed atmosphere. It was nice to take a walk, and wait a little while for Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn to arrive in their rental car from their visit with Andrea’s sister’s family in Pennsylvania. We all took a selfie and walked to a playground for Quinn to enjoy while visiting commenced. After 5pm, we all said our goodbyes. Kim and Jacob headed back to Gettysburg, Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn went to their housesit about 15 minutes away, and Darrell and I purchased and arrived to our room at the Residence Inn. It was close by and we had previously selected it for a 2 night stay. Once we were moved into our suite, we fixed ourselves a quick dinner– eggs and toast again! Lol. With this dinner, we also had some really good Canadian Bacon from the Amish store near Kingsport, Tennessee along with some greek yogurt, cottage cheese and fruit. I missed a call from airbnb support and tried to call back. Twice I had called back and the operator told me that I had to talk to someone in a higher position. I had a hot bath tonight and our suite is very warm and comfortable! I also went online and reserved another property on airbnb for our family get-together this week for Tuesday-Saturday.
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| Quinn with His Chicken Soup at Our Airbnb |
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| Having Popcorn and Cartoons at Our Airbnb. Jeremy, Quinn and Darrell |
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| Darrell Making Pancakes for Breakfast. Even Special Gluten Free Ones. |
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| Eric's Family at Our Airbnb. They Drove About 16 Hours to Get Here From Alabama! |
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| Our Three Grandchildren Getting Used to Playing Together for Their One Time Per Year Get-Together! Quinn (age 5 1/2) with His Magnetic Squares. Owen (age 4 1/2) and Esther (age 2 1/2) |
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| Esther and Her Mom Erin |
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| Pancake Buffet. Darrell and Jeremy. |
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| Sister-in-laws Andrea and Erin. |
Monday. 2. Darrell and I slept in until almost 7am! We got up and did our morning exercise routine from our DDP yoga rotating schedule. We went to the Residence Inn breakfast room and had good coffee and a reasonable breakfast there. Once we were back to our suite, I texted airbnb support to get our case up and moving toward a resolution. Darrell spent some time typing up our side of the story and our request was to pay for our one night stay and be refunded for the six nights that we had paid for but didn’t stay because of the low quality of the property as described in my Saturday entry above. I copied Darrell’s letter and our request to our airbnb support case thread. We went to meet Jeremy’s family at an Italian restaurant for lunch. We ate lunch, gave Quinn some gifts, and made plans for the week. They told us how wonderful their housesit house is! Yay for them!! After lunch, we headed back to our suite. I had another message on airbnb support. I had told them that the 50% settlement was not enough, and they asked for more documentation. We typed up what we could for our case and copied it into the thread. Our conclusion after reviewing what we submitted was that we are due a full refund. Tomorrow we should hear what the ruling for our case is. As I sit here at my computer at the desk in our suite, I’m looking out on a city street with a light snow falling. I’ve had a rasping cough since about last Thursday when we were in Kingsport. I get better during the day, but I have a weakened voice. At night I sleep with some coughing interruptions. I’m not feeling bad or sore. The loss of sleep and the stress at the cold floor apartment is even ok now that I’ve warmed up and had happy family visits, and looking forward to more this week. I’m happy to be warm, dry and restful this afternoon and evening. Airbnb is telling me that we need more picture documentation of our problems with the recent airbnb. Darrell is working on it while I wrote a vented reply to my text box that I prayed about, reconsidered and didn’t send. For dinner in our suite, we had some chicken sausage browned in a skillet and topped on a salad mix from the grocery store. I added a couple of Wasa crackers and peanut butter.
Tuesday. 3. Our check out today is at 4pm. Darrell is teaching the 2pm online class with the group from England. The Residence Inn gave us a generous late checkout time. After we are finished here, we can move to our ‘new’ airbnb house to stay until Saturday morning checkout. We arrived at our new place. It was wonderful. Warm and cozy with plenty of room to spread out and for the kids to play together here. I cooked some chicken soup for dinner together with Jeremy, Andrea and Quinn. We slept so well in our master suite with the king sized bed. Today Airbnb settled our case with the previous host. He ultimately wouldn’t settle for less than about 40% of the week’s rent. Airbnb paid us as much as they could from our failed contract and then added $200 to it because they knew we had been taken. It all helped and I’m so glad this is an infrequent experience for us using airbnb. Eric and Erin arrived after 8pm with Owen and Esther. They got settled and we enjoyed a quiet evening and rest.
Wednesday. 4. Darrell made pancakes, of course. He even made some gluten free ones for Eric. We also had Canadian Bacon from Tennessee. The kids played all day together. It was so much fun listening to their little voices about their games and toys. Andrea and Jeremy cooked dinner for everyone. They made an unusual dish for us, Shakshuka eggs and also rice with lentils.
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| Backyard Playground at Our Airbnb |
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| Cousins Playing. Owen and Quinn. |
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| Uncle Eric and Quinn with Owen's Paw Patrol Toys. |
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| Erin with Esther |
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| Enjoying Our Airbnb in Maryland. |
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| The Back of Our Airbnb. |
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| Eric's Family Getting Ready to Go Visit Quinn and Family. |
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| Owen, Esther, Me and Darrell |
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| Playground Time at Our Airbnb |
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| Kids are Busy Making Birthday Cards for Grandpa |
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| Cousins at Play with Owen's Toys |
Thursday. 5. More play today. The kids met up at an indoor play place. Erin made dinner today: chicken rice and broccoli casserole and salad. Darrell and I went to the store to get him a birthday cake. We got to the store and saw a French bakery. We went there first. Darrell decided to buy an assortment of pastries for his birthday treat. Then we went to the grocery and he picked out 2 kinds of ice cream: mint chocolate chip and moose tracks. The kids loved having ice cream after dinner! Esther wanted to try the green ice cream and she loved it.
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| Jeremy's Family at the National Zoo in DC |
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| Eric's Family at the National Zoo in DC |
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| Grandkids Enjoying the National Zoo at DC |
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| Owen at the Gorilla Exhibit. |
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| Grands Posing at National Zoo |
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| Even Got a Carosel Ride |
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| Our Family Enjoying a Bear at the National Zoo in DC |
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| Darrell's Best Animal Picture at the National Zoo in DC |
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| Watching the Seals |
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| Early Spring Flower Blooming at National Zoo |
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| Spring Flowers at DC |
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| Chili Bowl Toppings at Dinner at Our Airbnb |
Friday. 6. Darrell’s 66th birthday today. We are all going to the National Zoo. It was a chilly day which kept the crowds down. Andrea and Jeremy planned this outing today because they had come here when they lived in DC 2 years ago. For dinner, Darrell and I cooked Black beans in our instapot, browned and spiced lean ground beef, and chopped and shredded toppings for making your own chili bowl. After dinner, the kids kept asking for dessert. They wanted more ice cream! Esther finally got her mint ice cream for the second time. As she is eating, and the adults are playing cards, she says, “Is mint ice cream nutritious?” We all laughed hard! Her mom and dad looked at her and said, ‘no’. She just kept eating with a big smile! So funny.
It was so much fun going around to see the animals with the three little grandkids! Esther really enjoyed the chinchilla along with other animals that she was happy to observe.
Nomad Notes.
This week in Gaithersburg, Maryland was designed to visit our son Jeremy with his wife, Andrea and their 5 year old son Quinn. We found an airbnb to stay near where Jeremy’s family had planned to be staying during this particular week, in the US and between state department jobs. They are spending some weeks in the US that will include some job training in DC for Jeremy. They are scheduled to move to Moscow in April. That assignment in Moscow is for 2 years. Our future meet-up plans with Jeremy’s family is for somewhere in Europe in December, if possible.
Gaithersburg church members: I want to make a note here about how impressed I was by some of the members at this church. There was a man, Barry, who mentioned ALS, and I didn’t ask him, but I think he was referring to himself with this condition. He was in an electric wheel chair with limited hand and foot use. He taught the Bible class and it was so enjoyable to hear from his wisdom. His wife was there and they had moved from the Seattle area for her to work on her doctorate in Neuro-medicine. She had a position with NIH, and this was their late in life adventure together. Another member, Jack, I learned from his wife, was a convert from Judaism! I’m sure others there also had some amazing life stories. Everyone was so kind and the Bible teaching was excellent.
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