Posts Tagged ‘posts about traveling’

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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My eventful commute home

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

It was a bright, sunny day most of the day yesterday, but when I left, dark, heavy clouds were coming in on a strong wind that was down-right chilly.  Something big was coming through and I was going to end up right in the middle of it all the way home.

Before I could even get a mile away from work, I stopped in a line of cars at a stoplight.  As I was pulling up to the queue, three fire trucks, a couple police cars, and a tow truck pulled into the intersection, stopping all traffic.  People ahead of me started doing U-turns and going back the other direction, but I could see that other lanes were able to move, so I waited patiently for the opportunity to move on through the intersection.

While I was waiting, I saw billows of smoke start pouring up into the sky.  And then great leaping flames of bright yellow and orange fire chased that smoke.  There’s a line of trees along the road that kept me from seeing anything clearly but there were definite flames climbing high into the air from something along the side of the road.

When the police officer eventually waved us through the light, I could see a car pulled into the median of the divided highway that I was pulling onto.  It was crumpled and black with fire damage.  The fire was extinguished, but brave local service personnel were still standing by and keeping an eye on it.

Shortly after that, the skies opened up and poured down rain.  And we’re not talking that friendly summer rain that makes everything smell good and brings good refreshment to all the trees and grass.  We’re talking torrents.  We’re talking buckets and buckets of water crashing down from the sky and pounding relentlessly at everything in its path.

Fortunately for me, I’m getting really used to this kind of rain.  There’s a method for handling this type of rain.  You slow down to as slow as you need to go, put your wipers on as hard as they can go, turn on your blinkers, and stay the heck out of the ruts in the road that are pooling up with water.  Especially with my short-wheeled little car.  One poorly-timed puddle and I’m sitting in the ditch, so I’m careful.  But I’m not going to sit still and wait for it to pass, either, because it could be hours before I get home that way.

The rain was dealing with an attitude problem anyway, it seemed, because it would pour down rain, and then let up completely. And then pour down again.  Sort of like a teenage girl with her mood swings.  I’m great!  I’m sad!  I’m great!  I’m angry!  I’m great!

About halfway home, during a light-rain episode, I ran into another queue of cars.  This time, though, it wasn’t at a light.  It was partially down a straight length of road that doesn’t have any stops until the T-intersection 2 miles further down.  I could see another fire truck, but no lights were flashing and the hose was still in the back of the truck.  People ahead of me started pulling U-turns again, and a man in a pick-up stopped to tell me what was happening.

There was a tree downed across the road.  A big tree.  And the volunteer firemen were working on it, but they only had one chainsaw between them and it was dull.  And the tree was a good 3-feet thick.  At the rate they were working, it was going to be at least another hour before the road was cleared through.  I saw what was left of this tree on my way into work this morning and it really is an impressive piece of work.  And it wasn’t the only one of its kind yesterday.  Apparently the storm that crashed through wrought a fair degree of damage on its way.

So I got to the front of the line and turned around, and then stopped at every car for the next mile or so, everybody backed up behind us waiting to see what was happening, and told them what was going on—there’s a tree down, they’re working on clearing it, but it’s going to be an hour before anyone can get through.  Time to find a different route home.  I spoke to one woman who lived just beyond where the tree was down.  “You might just want to park it here and walk home!” I said to her, laughing.  “I just might!” she said.

I was tempted to stop and try to help redirect people, but it was already getting late and I wanted to get home.  And the rain was starting up again and I didn’t want to stand in the pouring down rain trying to get people’s attention.  So I got back on the road, took a route that took me further north than I would typically travel to get home, and drove into our neighborhood about an hour and a half after leaving work.

And then, I had to park in the overflow lot because AAA towed Justin’s car home from the mechanic’s lot and parked it crosswise in our slots so I couldn’t pull in.  Fortunately, when Justin got home, he went down and got my car and moved it into the slot so I wouldn’t have to make that trek again in the morning.

Also, I had several episodes of podcasts on my music box to entertain me while waiting for the flaming car, driving slowly in the rain, and taking the long way home.

It was without a doubt the most interesting part of my day!

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Our trip to Vermont (full recap)

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

This whole post is about our trip up to Vermont for Justin’s sister’s high school graduation.  It’s a long post.  If you’re not interested in my babblings about flying and party prep, feel free to skip it.

We left Thursday morning to drive down to the Jacksonville airport.  I’m really amused that we decided to drive from South Carolina, all the way through Georgia, and into Florida to go to the airport.  But it was significantly cheaper than flying from Savannah and 2 hours closer than the Atlanta airport, with the added bonus of being much cheaper for parking and a seriously cute airport.  Atlanta’s airport is this monster of a thing.  Jacksonville’s is like what the Savannah airport would look like if it grew up a little.  It’s got its big boy pants on.

Anyway, we drove though this patch of sulfur on the way down and I got to see what happens to Justin when his allergies flare up.  Here’s a hint:  It’s not good.  His sulfur allergy reacts instantaneously and closes him up like my asthma would.  We had to keep on driving until we got out of it before we could pull over so he could recover, but for the miles between the bad air and where we stopped, he could hardly breathe, his vision went crazy, and it was honestly really scary.

We stopped at a gas station so he could get some fresh air, the car could air out completely, and I could get him some water to drink from the counter inside.  And then I drove for the next hour or so and he slept.

We flew from Jacksonville through JFK up to Burlington and all the airports were great.  I freaked out a little, but I think I held it together pretty well.  You’d really have to ask Justin how I really did.  There were swallows flying around inside the airport near our gate at JFK, which I thought was hilarious.

We flew with Jet Blue and I think we’re going to try to fly with them again, if we can.  Each seat has a little TV where you can watch Direct TV or listen to XM radio or watch the path of the plane progression.  The headphone jack fits standard headphones, but if you didn’t bring a pair, you can buy one from the attendants for $1 using the credit card swipe built right into the seat near the TV.  The first bag checked was free, drinks and snacks during the flight were also free.  It was awesome.

One of Justin’s friends picked us up from the airport and we went out to dinner with a few other friends before heading back to their apartment to spend some time.  I got to spend a lot of time talking about 5S and Lean/Six Sigma with Rachel, the fiancé of Pat, the friend whose wedding we’re going back up for in August.  That was unexpectedly exciting—so few people understand what I’m talking about when I get started on that.

As it got late, Pat drove us up to Justin’s family’s home so we could go to bed.

Friday was the graduation, so a lot of time was spent getting ready for the party on Saturday.  Justin and I put together felt banners with “SCAD” written on them since that’s where Jessi’s planning to go to school in the fall.  I was very proud of figuring out how to make bumblebees out of yellow felt and fabric paint.  We were all proud that the school actually gave Jessi her diploma.  She was really tickled by the laptop that we gave her as a gift, and I was tickled that I got to play with her fancy new camera at the graduation.  (And she got several talkings to over the weekend about how to properly care for both the laptop and the camera.)

Saturday was the party.  Justin and I started setting things up in the yard around 10:30 for the party to start around 3:00.  We pulled chairs from the barn, set up tables, prepared the bonfire, set up tiki torches and the badminton set and the croquet set.  We set up decorations and electrical for the music.  I got really, really burned because I didn’t realize when we went out at 10:30 that I’d be out for several hours and didn’t stop to think about sunscreen.  And then I stepped in dog poop and had to hose off my shoe and walk around barefoot.

Wendy (Justin’s mom) and Rose (his grandma) prepared loads and loads of food.  Tony (Justin’s step-dad) collected drinks and ice and balloons from in town.

When people started to arrive, I got the fire started and then Justin and I ran off into town for a little while.  We stopped to buy a new pair of shoes for each of us—me because all I had were the ones sitting wet on the porch and a pair of heels for the graduation and him because we were thinking we’d go kayaking Sunday and he wanted to have sandals.  We picked up a bunch of squirt guns for the party and a few things from the grocery store and I was finally able to drink a lot of liquid to stave off the dehydration I’d been working on all morning long.

And then back to the party where there were probably about 50 people, none of whom I knew, eating hamburgers and hotdogs and chips and macaroni salad, playing games, sitting around talking, singing and dancing with the music playing, and chasing each other around with squirt guns.

I spent a lot of time sitting, reading, watching people, meeting a few people, getting lots of comments about my lobster-red sunburn, and laughing at the teenagers.  Crazy, wacky kids.  Justin and I did spend some time playing a few games and chatting with people he knew.

The party lasted long after dark, with people sitting near the fire or near torches, listening to music and chatting.  Justin and I went inside when Jessi and a bunch of her friends went inside to watch a movie, so I could shower and get more aloe vera slathered across my damaged skin and he could keep an eye on the kids in the living room.

All in all, I’d say the party was a huge success and a whole heck of a lot of fun.

Sunday we had been planning to go kayaking, but instead most of us slept in pretty late and then Jessi and Wendy started getting ready for the trip they were taking to NYC with Rose and several other kids from the graduating class, parents, and school staff.  Tony took care of clean-up from the party, laundry was done and I kept track of grabbing our laundry and getting it back upstairs to pack into our bags by the end of the day.  Justin, Jessi, and I tried to go into town for ice cream but the shop lied and it was actually closed when we got there.  So we got a few items from the grocery store instead and had sundaes back at the house.  We watched the very amusing Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and then went to bed.

And then got up out of bed a few hours later to head to the airport for our 6:00 flight.  Burlington’s airport is a darling little baby airport, but it was early in the morning and I was tired, so there was a little freakage.  Wendy, Rose, and Jessi switched to stand-by and made it onto our flight instead of their 7:30 flight.  When we landed in JFK, they watched our stuff so we could find something for breakfast.  Our connecting gate was actually only a few feet from our landing gate, which amused me a whole lot.

We landed back in Jacksonville without any problems.  Justin slept most of both flights, so when we got back to the car (after an adventure with finding a bus to take us back to the parking lot), he drove all the way home.  When we got to the place where the sulfur had been a problem, we turned off all the vents and he put on a mask to filter the air, and we made it through without any problems.  It may have just been a freak accident; we’re still really not sure.  If anyone wants to figure out whether there’s a recurring sulfur thing 20 miles north of Darien, GA, please let me know.

Anyway, we got back to the house, threw our luggage on the floor of the bedroom, and I slept most of the rest of the day.

And that’s it!  That was our trip.

Our next flight will be at the beginning of August to go up to Pat and Rachel’s wedding.  And then nothing until December when we’re going to Wisconsin to spend the holiday with my family.  (Happy!  I am SO looking forward to that trip!!!!)

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