Vacation 2011: VA Beach

Now, I was honored being a part of Kari's wedding and loved getting to go to Philly, but the part of our vacation that I was looking forward to the MOST was going to the beach! Donald and I hadn't been to the beach in FO-E-VER (said like the kid from The Sandlot)! And for 2 beach loving people, that's a long time!

Well, the beach did not let me down and it was a gorgeous sunny day, despite all the weather predictions! I got a little sun, played with Gracie and Tabitha, watched Jared and Savannah ride every wave (or at least attempt to), chatted with Jackie, G and Troye and took a few pictures with my boy!

For G, because she LOVES back pictures!

In case you can't tell, that's Savannah!

After a great day we headed home and said goodbye to my most favorite place on earth! But before I could leave I had to take a few pictures to be reminded of my love for the beach when I am stuck in the middle of Texas!

Goodbye Beach, we shall meet again soon!

After we got home from the beach, Donald and I took showers and then met Donald's cousin Steven and his wife, Tina, and their daughter Jayce for dinner! We had a great time with them! We just ate and chatted and just had a good time visiting.  

Vacation 2011: Philadelphia

One of the things that Donald and I were looking forward to was going to Philadelphia with Jackie and Jared for two days! Sunday after church we loaded up and hit the road! We stayed in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and drove to Philly early the next morning!

We got there and checked into our hotel and then we went looking for somewhere to eat dinner.  We had picked an Italian restaurant from a bunch of menus that we got from the lobby.  However when we arrived there it was a little, whats the best word, sketch! I am sure it was a good place to eat, but we were a little nervous! So we happened upon another local place to eat that look a little more established- The Cherry Hill Diner! It was very good!

Monday morning we woke up bright and early and made our way to Philly for our first, and most important, stop of the day, which also happens to be the whole reason for the trip- the Rocky Balboa statue and steps! (Now I know those steps are not actually "the Rocky steps", but to two Rocky Balboa loving boys, they are!)

Now it was about this time that the batteries in my camera began to die.  So, my camera never actually took any pictures of them running up the steps, but thankfully Jackie's did and I just stole them from her Facebook page! Ha! (Thanks Jackie!) Thankfully we were able to get batteries at the gift shop so my camera wasn't out for too long!

After the steps we walk over to see a statue of Abraham Lincoln (Jared's favorite President).

He was in awe!

We then made our over to the Historical district where we got to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

Independence Hall

But most importantly we found pretzel carts! They were amazingly good and worth all $0.50! That's right they were only $0.50 each! We stopped at the same cart when we got there and then again when we left!

Overall we had a GREAT trip and a GREAT time visiting with Jackie and Jared!

Vacation 2011: Airports and Airplanes

The first leg of our vacation was, well, getting there! Our flight was set to leave at 3:15pm from DFW and arrive in RIC at 10:50, but when you are dealing with planes and airports that doesn't always happen! 

We get there and find that our first flight was delayed an hour because of storms on the East coast (we had a layover in Newark).  We were a little nervous because of flight leaving Newark was set to leave at 9:30 and if we were arriving an hour later than planned, we wouldn't have much time at Newark- we had to change terminals and that's not simple in Newark.  But "thankfully" we were delayed leaving Newark (I say that we were "thankful" because we had PLENTY of time, but that meant that we would be arriving in Richmond later than planned and it was already too late for my taste!) But we did have plenty of time to eat $10 airport pizza!

Now for all you people that live in New Jersey, please don't be offended by what I am about to say!  Newark Airport is a terrible airport and I don't ever want to fly through there again! We arrived in terminal C, but needed to be in terminal A.  Now terminal C wasn't so bad, it was terminal A that I have issues with!

First, because there were so many delayed flights departing, the terminal was way over crowded.  Second, our ticket said we would be flying out of one gate and once we got there we were told it was leaving from another gate.  And about 45 minutes into waiting we were told, once again, that our gate had changed! At that point, we told ourselves that were was a good chance they would lose our luggage, but thankfully they did not! Third, it smelt terrible- like throw up! We changed seats a few times trying to avoid the smell, but we had no such luck! Even the plane had a bad smell! I was never so happy to feel us land than at that time!

The flight home was much better! We left Richmond at 7am and had a small layover in Charlotte and were back in DFW by 11! We did have to sit at the airport for about 2 hours because we didn't drive and someone had to pick us up and everyone that we knew that could have picked us up was in church and we didn't feel comfortable asking someone to miss church for us! So we just hung out and shared a $7 sandwich and a $2 bag of chips! Ha!

There were a few pros and cons to flying.  While we loved that we got 2 extra days in VA, it was a bummer have to be at the mercy of the plane and airports.  Had we driven we would not have had such long layovers on the way there- just a long drive!  But had both flights been as good as the one coming home, then it would have been great! Also, I hated having to spend $50 to check luggage! It such a waste of money, but we really didn't have a choice since we were going to be gone for so long!

Overall, we were glad that we got to fly- it was way cheaper and A LOT faster! We probably won't get to fly for Christmas because flights are a lot more expensive during that time.

P.S. Sorry there are no pictures for this post- we didn't take any of us sitting in the airport- ha!

Vacation 2011: Prologue

So it could possibly take me until August to blog about everything that happened during our vacation! We had a busy, busy week and a half! We had great time visiting family and friends and we were sad to leave! We got home and totally crashed from sheer exhaustion!

As a teaser to the upcoming blogs, here is our vacation in numbers:

• States visited (or drove through): 5- Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania
• Hours in the car: over 20
• Nights away from TX: 11
• People on the beach trip: 9
• Little people we loved on: 6
• Sermons preached by Donald: 2
• Guests at the wedding: over 90
• Pictures taken: at least 500
• Nights at a hotel: 1
• Newlyweds: 2
• Days in Lynchburg: 2
• Hours at the Airports: 10
• Hours on the plane: 8.5
• Temperature when we returned to TX: 103

Lots more pictures and blogging to come! 

Camping

This past weekend Donald and I went camping! We went just for one night, but we had such good time! We did get a quick storm Friday afternoon, but other than that the weather was great!

We got to see a lot of wildlife- a baby snake, lots of frogs, a lizard and a crane bird.  We also saw 2 very common animals that were acting very uncommon- a raccoon and a squirrel. These two animals would come about 2 feet away from us and when we tried to scare them off they didn't budge! Donald tossed a rock near the squirrel thinking it would scare it off, but it thought what he threw was food and he didn't go anywhere.  The raccoon creeped me out a little- he was too sneaky!

One time the raccoon was climbing on our neighbors table and Donald ran over there a little to scare him off and when he did he tripped over the rope that was securing our tent cover down and riped the tent.

A few things that we learned from our first solo camping trip:

• Bring 2 trash bags
• Spray foil with cooking spray before putting the burgers down- I even brought the spray
• No baked potatoes-  they take way too long to cook- we ate half raw potatoes with dinner
• bring a smaller cooler for drinks and stuff to take while fishing
• Coffee took 2.5 hrs. to brew- we should have gotten up a lot earlier
• My boss' grill is no good, we should have just planned on using the fire for everything- which we ended up doing anyway!
•  If the option is available, pick a campsite closest to the bathroom!

But overall, we had a really good time.  While it was raining on Friday, we drove around checking out the whole park. 

After the rain stopped, we went fishing for a few hours.  Unfortunately we didn't catch anything, but we saw lots of fish jumping!

On Saturday we wanted to go fishing but all the good spots were taken! So we went on a hike instead.  For Texas, it was a good little hike and we got to see some cool plants!

After the hike, we went back to our site, ate lunch, and packed up to head home! It was really nice to be "unplugged" for the weekend...no phones, no Internet, no TV, just us and the great outdoors! We would like to go one more time before it get too hot, but its already getting pretty hot.  But we will be going again in the fall!

Have a great Tuesday!



Kari's Bridal Shower

This past weekend I flew to VA for some Matron of Honor duties for Kari's wedding!

On Friday we went to Ben Franklin and got all the flowers and stuff necessary to make all the bouquets.  And then we went home and put them all together, well almost all.

Then on Saturday we had Kari's Park Bridal Shower at Cheswick Park! It was overcast and COLD, but it was fun and she got lots of good stuff! After the shower we went down to Maymont to test the music and figure out some seating/arrangements for the wedding!

We had such a good time celebrating Kari and Matt's future! The next time I see everyone it will be for the actual wedding! Exciting!

Of Course I couldn't go to VA without seeing some of my favorite little people: Jared, Tabitha, and Brayden (Savannah, Gracie, and Sophie I didn't get to see..bummer!)

Hanging out with Aunt Jenn!



Sorry this picture is so bad- I took it on my phone!

It was such a good weekend, but I was so glad to get home and see my boy! I missed him!

P.S. Happy Happy Birthday to my Sister in Love! Love you Jackie!