For those of you who don't know, my husband and I spent three weeks on vacation to see our family in New York. Like all trips, it had its ups and downs, but when it was up, it was really up, and the downs were really down.
Day one.
We left five hours early to make it to our flight in Denver. A trip that should have taken less than an hour, and it took over 4. You see, we got stuck in stand still traffic thanks to a 40 car pile-up about a mile up the road. We missed our flight, and arrived at the airport an hour and a half late. Of course, we were able to reschedule, but we had to wait in the airport for 5 hours. At least they had an art exhibit going on.
We flew into Newark, NJ at midnight for our connecting flight...at 6:30. Let me just say Newark isn't an airport you want to spend the night in. Its dirty, none of the food places are open, and they keep the Fox News channel blasting all night long.
Day two.
We finally caught our flight into Buffalo, NY after being awake for over 24 hours. We were picked up at the airport by John's Grandmother, and spent the day sleeping at her house. That night the family had a bit of a dinner gathering, and we ate lasagna. Mmm. Not exactly how we were planning to spend our evening, but still, it was a lot of fun.
Day Three
Still exhausted from our trip, we slept til one. Then we went out and got some delicious, second to none, NY chinese food. Mmm. I'm pretty sure we went home and watched a Sabres game that night.
Day Four
Slept in again...this is vacation, that's allowed, right?
That evening we went to visit John's cousins and decided to take them bowling. However on the way, we nearly exploded my Mother-in-law's car and got stranded at a downtown Buffalo gas station. Turns out it wasn't our fault, the car would have broken down anyway. It was a Ford after all. John's parents came and rescued us, temporarily fixed the car, and then we stayed up most of the night talking about it.
Day Five
We slept in because of our late night, watched a Sabres game, and then John's parents took us to the Casino. We were losing pretty badly, when suddenly we won $80 and paid John's Dad back for the money he'd lent us. We were about to leave when we saw a Wheel of Fortune machine and decided to play. All of us (John's parents, John and I) together won $400 on that machine. We knew it was time to quit. Haha. By the time we got home and into bed it was 5:30 AM.
Day Six.
Saturday. We slept in because of our late night and then, thanks to John's Dad we WENT to see a Sabres game. The Sabres lost, but it was an epic amount of fun.
Day Seven.
Despite our late night at the Sabres game, we were up at 5 to go visit friends. It was a long, but lovely day. I got to meet a few people that I'd talked to previously and liked, but never met. Then we went to visit John's second home with the Ellis Family. Bill Ellis gave me a bag of venison jerky. Mmm. Instant bonus points. They're great people and I felt comfortable around them very quickly. They have a lovely Maine Coon cat named Itty Bitty too! We spent so long chatting that it got so late we didn't want to drive home. The Ellis family let us spend the night, and we couldn't thank them enough.
Day Eight.
We returned home and spent the rest of the day visiting family and relaxing.
Day Nine
Another travel day. My Dad showed up in Buffalo to pick us up after fetching my sister at College. John's dog Max wasn't too thrilled to see him. It was a long, long drive to eastern NY, but we had lots of time to chat. My sister even started talking to John, and all of us were thrilled. When we got home, we called it a night.
Day Ten
We discovered that my grumpy cat Bug has a crush on my Husband. Go figure. She's never liked anyone but me til now. Haha.
Day Eleven
Thanksgiving. We went to my Dad's house, and call me crazy, but I had venison instead of Turkey. Oh, happy day. I got to see all of my Aunts and Uncles and Cousins for the first time in a while. Jeffery would not be quiet, but that's normal I suppose. We played apples to apples and took lots of photos. Dad even made John and me a wedding cake... Still, I found it to be a bittersweet day because my Dad told me that my Aunt, who has a brain tumor, is not doing well. I hardly recognized her, and that kind of hurt.
We stayed home to avoid the insanity of black friday...
Day Thirteen
We went into town. I visited my Aunt's hair salon, we got chinese food, and Michele helped John choose out a hat to keep his ears warm. that night we had a surprise party for Mom's 50th birthday. She got a lot of wine.
Day Fourteen
A sad day. Michele had to leave to go back to college. John and I were really bummed out. We went through a few of my old things, and then, due to not sleeping well the night before, took a long nap. Dad couldn't believe we were asleep at 5 PM when he came back from dropping my sister off.
Day Fifteen thru Seventeen
We visited Mom's side of the family, Aunts, Uncles, Grandma and Grandpa. We went into town and got sub sandwiches from Pecks. We visited the school and surprised a few of my old teachers too, and we got boxes to send a few things home in. We almost had a flood too. Ah, Manor.
Day Eighteen
Its time to fly home. Ah, fun. We found out on the way to the airport that someone in California had stolen $1000 from us. Our entire paycheck which we needed for travel and bills. Oh joy. Then our flight was delayed. We made it into Detroit and missed our connecting flight. The airlines put us up in a hotel since the next flight out was not til morning. We caught the next one no problem, but I got motion sickness while landing in CO Springs. Go figure.
Then Delta lost our luggage.
And our dog was a mess when we got home.
We got our luggage back, the dog cleaned up, and somehow I still feel stressed. I can't sleep, and I really want more venison. Haha.
Of course, that's not all that happened over vacation, but its a good summary. Hopefully I didn't bore you all to death.
Point is, I'm home now, and will be back on my normal schedule, provided I have things to write about.
See you all soon!
