Posts Tagged ‘posts about traveling’

Letter to my mom

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Hey, Mom!

I keep completely failing to call you and thank you for the encouragement cards! 

They arrived on Saturday, and then we were rushing all over the place trying to get the laundry done and errands run.  Sunday, I got to sing with the worship band for the very first time in front of the church, so we had practice from 8:00 until church started, and then after church, we were decorating the house for Christmas and making our Thanksgiving dinner (instead of being at 10:00 at night on Thanksgiving, we were a whole three days late!) and other randomness.  Monday, I started my day dark and early at 4:45 with my workout, followed by work, and then a chiropractic appointment, and then Zumba.  So I didn’t get home until after 8:00 and then I was SO TIRED that I pretty much collapsed.

But thank you!  They’re wonderful!  And they’re going to be SO HELPFUL on those many, many hard days.  :)

I’ve got a cold today.  Sneezing a lot, coughing a little, the back of my throat is really sore, so I’ve got some Chlorasecptic drops, a big box of Kleenex, and a mug of tea.  And I’m tired.  I was tempted to stay home from work, but there are only 14 days left of work for the year.  I’ve got stuff to get done!

So I’m sitting here wrapped in my zippered sweater that Grandma gave me for Christmas a couple years ago.  It’s WARM.  And I’ve got my space heater running at my feet.  My new coat is hanging on the wall behind me but I’m settling for just petting it now and then (because it’s so soft!) instead of wearing it (because it’s warm and just so dang cute!).

And my lead sat down a little bit ago and asked if I’d be interested in working my way into a position that’s higher up on the ladder than where I am right now and doing EXACTLY the sort of things that I enjoy doing.  Would I?  Oh YES, I would!

I can’t believe it’s already the 1st of December!  And I still don’t have tickets to fly north.  I’ve been looking at tickets since the beginning of AUGUST.  Difficulties with Justin’s work schedule, really.  But we’re doing it this week!  Maybe tonight?  SOON.

And I haven’t started doing my shopping!  And Justin hasn’t put up a wish list, but I know he’s been thinking about it.

I wish I could breathe out of my left nostril.  Stupid cold.  I’m not sure this box of Kleenex is big enough . . . .

I’ve got to run.  But I wanted to let you know that I got the cards and I think they’re great!  Thank you so much!  I hope you’re having a fantastic week so far!  And I’ll call you as soon as I know more information about our travel plans over the holidays.

Love you!

Kylene

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Whirlwind weekend!

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Friday was a long, difficult day at work.  There was a lot of craziness going on trying to get a project finished.  I actually ended up staying an hour longer than I usually stay at work just so I could finish up my part of the project before heading home.  Once I got home, I started packing for our weekend away from home.

We didn’t actually leave the house until after 5:00, so we didn’t make it to Orlando until probably around 11:00 Friday night.  It was late.  I’d been up since 5:00 and I was tired.  We climbed into the room set up by Justin’s ex-stepmom and her husband and went to sleep.

The next morning, Justin, his mom, his sister, and I made a fairly slow start to our day.  The other half of our party (Justin’s ex-stepmom, her husband, and her father) went to visit family in the area, so the rest of us were on our own for the day.  Justin and his mom went to Target to pick up a few things (breakfast, sunscreen, etc.).  And then the four of us went to Disney World for the afternoon!

It was a blast!  We went through the Haunted Mansion, the Jungle Tour, the Swiss Family Robinson House, the Pirates of the Caribbean, and Stitch’s Great Escape.  My favorite was probably the Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor.  It’s just a comedy show done by the characters from the Monster’s Inc. movie.  But it’s so cool!  They pick people from the audience for parts of the sketch, and even though it’s completely animated, the characters REACT to the things that the audience is doing, with no visible delay.  And it’s hilarious!

I think Justin said his favorite was Splash Mountain, in a big part because of my reactions.  I’d never been on that ride before.  I don’t do roller coasters very well.  And we were in the very first row of the car.  I was absolutely TERRIFIED going down that waterfall.  And at the bottom, I was completely soaked down the side that was toward the outside of the ride – shoulders to knee.  Justin felt really sorry that I got so wet and he was surprised that I was shaking after we got to the bottom because I was so scared, but he was so glad that I was brave enough to try something that was scary for me.  And he was more than willing to give me hugs and a ridiculously expensive cappuccino to help me warm up.  And it’s funny how getting scared totally out of your wits can be so FUN!

Space Mountain was down for refurbishment and we decided not to wait in the incredibly long line for Thunder Mountain.  We were there all afternoon and a little into the evening before we decided to call it quits because we were too tired.  We went back to the room, showered, I took a bath in the Jacuzzi in our room, and then chatted with Justin’s stepmom, et alii, until about midnight when we all crashed into bed.

Sunday morning, we had to check out of our room and get moving between 8 – 8:30.  Justin’s mom and sister are staying in Orlando with the rest of the group until Thursday, and the other three are flying out on Saturday.  Justin and I had to be back for work this morning, so we threw all of our luggage in the car while Justin’s mom and sister put all their luggage into the other room with everybody else.  And then we set out for Cape Canaveral.

There, we met a gentleman who used to work in the Air Force base and who gives tours to groups of people all around the Cape.  Justin’s ex-stepmom’s father used to work at the base back in the 50s and 60s on one of the early rocket programs, the Navaho.  So we drove around to where they used to launch those missiles.  And then we drove around to see a whole lot of the other launch pads, where they launched the Gemini missions and the Apollo missions and the first satellites and oodles of others.  We got to see, from a fairly good distance, the rocket that was scheduled to go up last night at midnight.  We got to get right up close to the beast of a machine that brings the rockets from the Vertical Assembly Building over to the launch pads.  Basically, we drove all over that base and a little bit of the Kennedy Space Center without being on a tour bus and getting into a lot of places where people aren’t usually allowed to go.  It was a fascinating bit of history and I should do some research to figure out exactly what it was that I was allowed to see.  It was really mind boggling to see all of it.

After the tour, we went to a seafood place to eat a very late lunch and treat our tour guide to a meal.  We chatted and enjoyed some great company together for about an hour, when Justin realized it was already after 5:00.  We had a long drive yet to make, so we said our good-byes and set off to drive back home.

The drive home was uneventful, we made it in sometime between 10 and 11 o’clock and crashed into bed to sleep.

It was a whirlwind couple of days!  But it was an absolute blast.  We had a LOT of fun.  And we got to spend some good quality time with Justin’s family.  This was basically our Thanksgiving holiday with them so we made the most of the time that we had.  And I think we used up that time as much as we possibly could.

I don’t have any pictures because I completely failed to bring my camera.  I do have a picture on my phone of the Cinderella castle, but that’s it.  I think we’ll get some photos emailed to us from the other people who were there, though, so hopefully I’ll be able to post some eventually.

And there you go!  That was my weekend!

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Maybe I shouldn’t write while not feeling well . . .

Monday, November 16th, 2009

I stayed home from work today because my wonderfully loving husband shared his cold with me.  He’s a wonderful man.  And he was completely supportive of me staying home and watching TV all day even though he had to go to work when he was dealing with this thing.  But it’s a nasty cold, ya’ll!  It’s one of those that completely stops up your nose and then you wake up in the middle of the night and realize that you’re snoring like a lumberjack because you absolutely cannot breathe through your nose.   And your body can’t decide if you’re hot or if you’re cold, so you wake up sweating and then sit there shivering a few hours later.

It’s been fun.  And we had to miss dinner with friends yesterday because we didn’t want to share this with them.  That wasn’t as much fun.

I was going somewhere with this . . . .

I am feeling much better now.  And I did manage to get some things accomplished.  I went to a chiropractic appointment and to the post office.  Yesterday I went through receipts and balanced the checkbook and cleaned my office.  And I’ve watched many, many hours of Numb3rs.  So the whole thing has balanced out.  And, like I said, I’m feeling much better now.

Not well enough to go to Zumba, but I’ll go next week.

Do you remember what I was doing last November?  I was doing that whole NaBloPoMo thing where I posted every single day.  I think it was November.  I’ll have to go check.  But you notice?  I’m not that crazy this year!  I’m not getting out of bed to go post something so I can have something every day.  I think it’s an improvement on my mental state.  There are enough other things.

My mother in law is arriving on Thursday.  My sister in law’s last day of school is Thursday or Friday, I’m not sure, and then we’re all going to Orlando for the weekend, to spend time with Justin’s ex-step-mom and her husband (that’s such a fun relationship to explain, but we *love* them).  So we’ll be there for the weekend and then Justin and I will come back up home because we have to work.  But his mom and sister will stay down there until Thanksgiving and then fly back to Vermont.

I swear, there was something else I was going to talk about.

This is the problem I’ve been having all weekend.  I’m not having much trouble talking or writing, the actual process of it.  But, gosh, if I don’t make any sense at all.  I left messages for my boss and manager guy and I’m pretty sure I rambled on for like a minute about how I wasn’t feeling well but that I was all caught up and if anything happened, a coworker could handle it for sure and I’d be in on Tuesday and I’m sorry I’m not feeling better and I’m going to go to bed now.  It’s a good thing I work with nice people.

We’re having a pot-luck lunch tomorrow for Thanksgiving, since people will be gone next week.  And then I have a lunch meeting on Wednesday about a newsletter that we’ve been completely failing to get out since before the furlough.  The furlough in JULY.  It’d probably go better if he’d just give it to me instead of saying that he’ll do it and putting it off more and more and more.  I’m a little irritated with him today, but that’s because of something else.  Actually, not it’s not.  It’s because he’s a poor planner and organizer and it’s what he’s supposed to be *doing* for the company and when he fails, he makes the program look bad and that frustrates me.

Anyway!  I just got a call from my handsome man and he’s picking up dinner from the grocery store after his very first chiropractic appointment and then coming home, so I’m going to wrap this up so I’m ready for him to get home so I can ask all about his appointment.

But I hope you’re all doing very well!  And not at all sick because it’s terrible, even if you do get to sit around in pajamas watching TV.

And Mom, I’ll see what I can do about the text when I’m feeling a little more . . . coherent.

Cheers!

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Covering old news with much more detail.

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Okay, so Amy said she was actually interested in hearing more about the stuff I was touching on briefly in the post I put up the other day (Too much to sort through!).  So I thought I’d go back and address some of those things.

…I could talk about work and how we’re going to attempt an “affinity diagram” tomorrow and I have never done it before and I really hope it works out well.

Well, the affinity diagram didn’t go so well.  It was part of my first meeting for the Lean Project I’m heading up in order to get my Lean Specialist certification.  As far as first meetings go, it was apparently pretty good.  As well as projects go, it needs a lot of work.  The activities that we worked through managed to show just how enormous the scope of the project was, as it stood at that time.  So we had a meeting with me, my Champion, and the Lean guy for our area, and we’re going to look into scaling it down a little into something actually manageable in 4 months.  And for a first-time Specialist in-training.  We have a lot of work to do.  My next meeting is this afternoon and hopefully we’ll actually start to get somewhere.

I could talk about how we’re flying to Burlington, Vermont, again because we’re going for a wedding.  And I keep freaking out because Justin’s jacket is wrinkled and we haven’t gotten it dry cleaned yet.  And we don’t have a rental car yet, and since we’re staying at Justin’s folks’ place, we need a car to get from there to the wedding and all that.  And all these things about weddings keep stressing me the heck out so much that I haven’t even started thinking about freaking out about the traveling part of the whole deal.

I already covered the trip to Vermont, but I did manage to keep the freakage down to a minimal level.  We got Justin’s jacket cleaned in Burlington.  We picked it up the morning of the wedding and that was freaking me out a little.  But we got it on time and it looked really beautiful.  And the rental car worked out great and ended up being less expensive than I feared.

I could talk about these books I’m reading about managing money and not undervaluing your worth and taking control of your finances and all the fun and exciting things I’m learning . . . that no one else thinks are fun and exciting at all.  And I’m reading books about marketing and writing business plans and don’t those sound fascinating, too?  No?  They do to me!

Books I’m reading.  Oh, gosh.  I have Family CFO which is talking about taking family finances and running it like a business.  It’s interesting and they have some interesting points, but I’m not buying in to the whole thing.  I’ll probably end up taking a couple of their recommendations, but ignoring the rest.

I still have The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke.  I asked Justin to read the section about buying a car because I thought it had some really good information.  He did and he agreed that it was a good read.  He’s going to read the rest of the book before we take it back.  Or, since we’re on the final renewal for that book, I might finally drag him to the library and get him his own card so he can check it out again under his own name.

I have the Complete Book of Business Plans.  It’s not terribly fascinating to read, but it’s a good resource because I’m trying to write up my business plan.  It’s a complicated pain in the butt and having something to look at for inspiration has been helpful.

The Everything Home-Based Business Book falls into that same category.  It’s not a terribly interesting read, but it’s awfully helpful as I’m trying to write up my business plan and figure out different aspects of working up my business.  I haven’t had time to dig into this one much, but I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in there.

I have the Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide, another great resource that’s basically a brainstorm caught on paper.  It’s idea after idea that could be used to drum up business.  Some of it doesn’t work for my situation, but some of it is really fun and could be very helpful.  I’m reading this one with sticky notes so I can jot things down for reference later.  Like in my business plan, since apparently there’s a Marketing Strategy section of that beast and I’ll have to put something down there.  So, keen!  I have something to put in there.

I have the Ultimate Small Business Advisor, which I haven’t read at all yet, so I haven’t got a clue about it.  But it looked interesting, looked like it might be another good resource, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

And I have Home Staging because I think having that as an option along with helping people pack up their stuff could be a really great service to offer.  I don’t quite have the eye for it, but I know I could learn how to do it.  I haven’t read this one yet, either, but I’ll get there before I have to take the book back, I’m sure.

For leisure I just finished reading Summer Knight of the Dresdon Files series by Jim Butcher.  I’ve got the next one, Blood Rites, tucked into my purse.  They’re fun, easy fantasy books, slightly on the noir side.  Justin and I are devouring those books as fast as we can afford to buy them.

And I have a PDF copy of Suze Orman’s Women & Money.  I’m about halfway into this one.  It’s talking about how women see money and themselves and how sometimes those don’t end up being a harmonious match.  We don’t value ourselves and the money we bring in, we don’t take the time to consider the whole of finance and how it affects us, stuff like that.  It’s interesting.

I could write about how well we ended up with our finances last month–with Justin making more money than expected and us handling budgeting and saving really well and ending up so far into the black that it’s astonishing how much we could potentially put away if we spent every month not going out to dinner or spending money on fun things and sitting at home sitting on our thumbs.  Which we’re not going to do but we might spend more time looking at the possibilities there.

Finances.  I was really concerned when I found out that I would be furloughed and getting unemployment for four weeks in July.  We’d have to survive on Justin’s paycheck and the small amount I’d get from the government.  That put us at a lower total income than I was comfortable considering and it made me freak out a little bit.  I mean, the unemployment checks were about half what I was making normally.  Could we survive on half my income plus Justin’s income?  Answer?  Yes, we can.  Especially if he has a really busy month and manages to bring in a steady amount for the whole time.  And if we cut down on expenses and spend carefully and really hunker down and take things easy.  We even picked up something that we normally wouldn’t have bought but had the opportunity to get on a considerable discount.  The airplane tickets and car rental went onto the credit card.  But we didn’t have to touch the savings account at all.  And I’m pretty sure that I can go in and pay off the plane tickets just from the checking account, leaving all of savings alone.  Which means that we can take that money and use it as a down on a used car for Justin.

Which would bring me into talking about our current situation with Justin’s car.

A friend of mine called me on Thursday and said that her husband knows a good Christian man who owns a car dealership not far from here.  We’re going to get his information and go talk with him about what we can do.  We were hoping to take advantage of the clunker bill, but with the money flowing out of that thing so quickly and our unlikely chance of getting a good loan from the bank right now, we’re looking into cheap, used options.  I’m not really sure what the plan is for Justin’s old car, whether we’re going to try to trade it in or just take it to a place like we took my Buick—a place that takes dead cars for parts and pays for that.  I’m really not sure.

But we’re going to run the numbers this week, check how much of a hit we took with our trip up north, and look at what sort of payments we could really afford.  We can’t buy a car outright right now—our savings aren’t that lush.  But with the down that we can pull from there, we should be able to manage a pretty good deal.  I hope.  We’ll find out soon enough.

And dang it!  I haven’t bought gifts for Erica or Dad, who both have birthdays in the next 10 days, or for the bride and groom on Saturday.

We did pick up a gift for the bride and groom, although what we really did was look at their registry and then go buy them something similar through Pampered Chef.  They’ll get it in a few days.  Last night, I went onto Amazon and hunted around until I found something that seemed like a good gift for Erica and Dad.  The order went in last night; they should ship out in a couple days.  They’re being shipped directly to their new owners, so they won’t be wrapped, but you should get your gifts in a couple of days.

So there you go!  Any questions?

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My really long post about the wedding in Vermont on Saturday.

Monday, August 10th, 2009

WARNING:  What follows is a very long and rambling post about our trip to Vermont.  LONG.  Seriously long.  You have been warned.

Well, we are home again, safe and sound from our trip to Vermont.  It was a good trip, a whole heck of a lot of fun, and the wedding went perfectly!  All in all, really a fantastic trip.

The first day was difficult because we had to leave the house around 1:00 in the morning to make it down to Jacksonville, Florida, to catch our 6:15 flight.  It’s about a 2.5 hour drive and we had to make it down an hour ahead for check-in, so it made for an early morning.  When I got home Tuesday, I went to bed for about 2 hours so I’d be a little rested.  Justin had an awful day on Tuesday, starting work at 7:30 and not getting done until 10:30.  So he had to pack and get ready to go after he was done working.  After that, he took the bags down to the car, along with a pillow, and slept in there.  He woke up briefly when I got into the car to start driving us south, but he slept most of the way down.

The flights were uneventful, all our luggage made it in, and we got our rental car picked up without too many issues.  I mean, they gave us the wrong key and told us the wrong car type and put my middle name on the contract instead of my first name, but the car we got was cute and functional, even if there wasn’t cruise control, power locks, or power windows.  Funny how we get so used to those functions.

Anyway, we spent most of the rest of the day meeting up with the bride and groom, going out for lunch and chatting.  We had some time to spare while they took care of some errands so we went to the most AMAZING Barnes and Noble EVER.  Huge!  Used books sections!  Bargains up the wazoo!  It was beautiful.  We spent a lot of time just wandering around looking at all the wonderful books.  And, of course, found a few good deals to bring home with us.

It didn’t take too long, though, before we were just wiped.  Staying up all night can do that to a person.  So we went to Justin’s family’s home about 45 minutes away from Burlington, and spent the night there.  The next morning, after letting me sleep in a good while, we went out to lunch with Justin’s mom where I had my very first maple-dipped hamburger and I think I might be in love.  I mean, seriously.  Maple.  Dipped.  Hamburger.  With grilled apple.  On a freshly-baked bun.  LOVE.

That evening was the bachelor/bachelorette parties.  The boys went to play paintball while the bride and her court went out to dinner.  I took a nap on their futon.  The boys then went to the groom’s parents’ home for a barbeque.  The girls went to the groom’s apartment and played a game for a while before heading downtown to make the bride do a scavenger hunt (get a photo with a cop, get a photo standing behind the bar, get 5 people to do shots with you, etc.) before going back to the apartment to chat.  The boys definitely had a better time of it.  They had more fun and better food—burgers and cake, even breakfast in the morning.  We had crackers and a handful of cookies, and only English muffins in the morning.  The only advantage of the party I went to over the party Justin went to was that at the end of the night, I got to sleep on the futon and he had to sleep on the floor.  Otherwise, he had the better evening.

Friday, I waited around at the groom’s apartment waiting for the boys to get back so Justin and I could go back up to his parents’ and we could shower and get ready for the rehearsal.  Once there, I steamed my outfit and he went to lay down for a nap.  We set out a little later than anticipated and got a little confused about where exactly we were going for this shindig, but fortunately one of Justin’s friends loaned us his GPS navigator so we were able to find it.  And even through we were 15 minutes late, we drove in just behind the groom’s parents.  You’re not late if you arrive at the same time as the parents!

I sat in a pew and read while they did the rehearsal and then we set out for the dinner, which was delicious!  Lots of chatting with friends, hearing stories tossed back and forth from when they were in school together, chatting with people we were just meeting because of the wedding.  It was a really fun evening.  And afterwards, after sitting at the groom’s place for a few minutes playing Mario Cart, we once again drove back up to spend the night at Justin’s parents’ house.

Saturday morning, we packed up all our luggage, ate breakfast with Justin’s family, and then went back to Burlington.  The groom, best-man, another groomsman, and Justin worked on learning how to tie a full-Winsor knot and I stood outside chatting with Erica and Dad and then watching the boys get ready.  It’s amusing how differently things go for the guys than the girls.

We left for the church and got there in plenty of time, and I wandered around, not having a function, taking a few pictures and then just sitting in the church.  It’s this cute Catholic church out in the middle of nowhere with beautiful stained glass windows.  If my pictures turned out, I’ll post some later.  A few more clouds came in around the time of the wedding and I didn’t want to use flash to mess up their professional photographer, so none of the pictures I tried to take during the wedding worked out and then I gave up trying to take pictures and decided to just enjoy being in the moment.

It was a beautiful wedding.  They’re both apparently strong Catholics so there was a full mass, complete with communion and kneeling on those little benches attached to the back of the pews.  The bride and groom actually sat down most of the wedding, only standing up in the middle for the vows and the rings.  It was interesting because I’ve never been to a full Catholic wedding.  It’s quite a bit different from most other weddings I’ve been to, but I’m having trouble explaining it.

Anyway, afterwards, I got a little lost getting to the reception at the Hilton in downtown Burlington.  Fortunately, I had the GPS thingie.  The maid of honor’s husband followed me and I felt sorry for him because there were so many times I just had no idea where I was supposed to be going.  But we made it in, I dropped the groom’s luggage off at the desk so it could be delivered to his room, and we sat around waiting for the party to start.  There was cheese and fruit served on the mezzanine.  The bride and groom and court finally made it back from getting their pictures taken, and we went into the ballroom for another delicious meal.  They did their first dance and the dances with the parents.  There were toasts.  They didn’t smash cake into each other’s face.  I sat at the table with a bunch of people I didn’t know ahead of our trip but got along with very well (mostly) and had a lot of fun.  And then the DJ started up the music and everybody danced and danced for the next several hours.  I’m pretty sure the bride and groom only left the dance floor a couple times—to gobble up the cake once it was handed out and grab something to drink, and to get a few pictures taken with groups of guests.  Otherwise, they were on that floor for about 4 hours straight.

Justin and I don’t really know how to dance, and we get tired quickly.  We danced enough to get worn out, sat down and chatted with friends, watched the party happening, and then went back up to dance again once we’d caught our breath.  I kicked off my shoes because I kept falling over and ended up with black soles by the end of the night.  One of the bridesmaids kept trying to make me jealous because she walked down the aisle with Justin, and any time she saw someone sitting down, she’d go grab them and try to get them back up dancing.  The flower girl, this shy little thing, jumped and spun around and danced in the back with her mom and dad, until the bride picked her up and danced with her for a while on the dance floor.  And we just partied the evening away, not caring how sweaty we all were getting, how tired our feet were, how absolutely foolish we looked.  We were celebrating!  And it was so much fun.

The DJ finally played the last song and we started saying our good-byes to the people still at the party.  We congratulated the bride and groom again, shook hands with their parents, said good-byes to old friends and new friends and stumbled our way back out to the car.  We spent the night at the groom’s place, on that same old futon, with one pillow and one blanket between the two of us.

We got about 4 hours of sleep before getting up and heading back to the airport for our 6 AM flight.  We dropped off the rental, checked in, and got ready to head back home.  Home, where we’d be able to sleep on a real bed again.  And shower in our own shower.  And just relax and recover from the chaos of the weekend.  And with the exception of turbulence that pulled me from a dead sleep and made me think we were going to crash, the flight back was pretty easy.

The weather while we were in Vermont was amazing.  It’s been hot and humid here lately.  But when we got up north, it was in the 70s, slightly cloudy, with soft breezes.  The entire time we were there, it was absolutely beautiful.  I got to sit on a porch for a while when Justin was napping and I just couldn’t believe how beautiful the weather was.

And renting a car was one of the best decisions we made on this trip.  We saved money by not staying at a hotel in town and just driving the 45 minutes up to Justin’s parents’ to sleep.  And the freedom we had because we had that car made it more than worth the expense of it.  We could head out at any time and not have to rely on anyone or inconvenience anyone to get a lift to wherever we needed to go.  It was great.

And now we’re done traveling for a while.  No more graduations.  No more weddings.  We’re happy that we’ve been doing better financially over the last few months, making it so we were able to make these trips, these once-in-a-lifetime events.  But we’re looking forward to a few months of not traveling.  Justin’s family is coming down to us for Thanksgiving, so we get to stay at home now until December.  Then we’ll catch a plane and go up to Minnesota to celebrate Christmas with my family—something we’ve been looking forward to doing for a long time.  It seriously could not get here fast enough.  We’re already thinking about how we’re going to schedule it—whether I’ll fly up alone ahead of time if Justin isn’t able to take the time off, what we could do that would let him stay longer, exactly how long we’ll be able to stay up there, whether we’ll rent a car again, and so many other different things.  One thing is for sure, though:  We ARE spending the holidays with family this year.  Wild horses couldn’t keep us away.

But I am glad that we have a few months to recoup, get a little rest, make some plans, get a little more padding in the checking account.  And did I mention sleep?  Because I am still so tired.  But it was still a lot of fun.  And it looks like the only thing that we lost was my hairbrush, which disappeared somewhere between the Hilton’s parking garage before the reception and home.  It’s a little disappointing because I loved that brush, but if that’s the worst thing that happened the entire time, I call that a win!

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