Brrrrrr! Part 1

After the hectic ten days (or so) in Illinois, I’m somewhat thankful to be back in Texas.  The trip started out interesting and ended on a strange note.

On Thursday the 27th, Mom and I packed up the car and hit the open road.  We had plenty of space, which made the trip that much easier.  Unfortunately, while we were in Downtown Houston (at maybe six in the morning, mind you) we saw fiberglass insulation flying through the air.  Thankfully, we missed getting hit.  Then the bad thing happened – Mr. William the Cat had a repeat of the last trip, the smell of cat urine wafted up towards the front of the car.  Sigh!  Thankfully the smell didn’t linger too long.  We had a rather smooth drive and made it to our destination, Little Rock, in record time.  (For the record, I’m a bit of a SLOW driver too.)  After checking into the hotel and putting food in our bellies we decided to take a nap before heading out to dinner – that’s when the real fun started.  Mom’s breathing machine (CPAP) decided it was time to be laid to rest.  After Mom made calls to Memorial Home Care trying to resolve the issue we realized that we had better attempt to leave very early in the morning in order to arrive home before they closed at noon on Friday – otherwise, she’d be unable to get a replacement/loaner until Monday.  YIKES!  We ran to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, had some drinks and tried to go to bed early in preparation for the next leg of the journey.  Let’s just say that sleeping didn’t go quite as planned…

Mr. William the Cat had a mind of his own and decided he needed to cry (howl is probably a more correct description) and kick all of the litter out of his litter box.  Needless to say, not much sleep happened and I was one grumpy girl.  We decided to hit the road at 1:30 in the morning, which was a blessing, seeing as there was very little traffic and NO cops on the highway. J We arrived home (Illinois-home) around 10am and we promptly went to our respective bedrooms to nap.  Of course, I was a little too excited to be back, so I ran some errands and spent some quality time with Chase.  Seeing my family brought tears to my eyes, as did seeing my Elijah.  Sheesh! I’ve missed that old man.

On Saturday it was determined (just in the nick of time) that the dress I had planned on wearing to Andrew’s wedding was ruined.  Big BOO!  Thankfully, Chase and I were able to run to White Oaks Mall in search of a new dress.  I ended up buying two new dresses since I was unsure which one I preferred, but it all worked out in the end.  We went to Andrew’s wedding and reception and left before the dancing started since we were all worn out.  I certainly wish I was able to catch up with Andrew some – maybe next time.

We pretty much relaxed the rest of the weekend, but seeing as I didn’t pack well I had to do a little clothes shopping.  (I may or may not have done that on purpose, by the way)  On Monday I got to get my oil changed, visit with some of our old neighbors in Rochester, take Cappy to get his shots, and eat dinner with some of my favorite people.  Tuesday was tightly scheduled with doctor’s appointments – Donna at 9am and Vern at 11am; followed by Margarita night at La Fiesta and a hair appointment with Richard.

I will admit that I was hopefully optimistic after my appointment with Donna – my ultrasound showed that the endometrial lining was 3-4 times as thick as it was the month before and she stated that everything indicated that things actually worked this past cycle.  As you can imagine, I was pretty stoked.  Unfortunately, the hope was shattered on Saturday.  I suppose that the tummy issues I was having the day before should have been my first clue.

During my hair cut, my phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing…I figured that it was Chad so I didn’t pay a bit of attention to it.  (Plus, how was I going to answer the phone in the middle of a cut?!)  When I left I checked my phone and it had been my Daddy…apparently Cappy ninja’d out of the house and had disappeared for awhile.  Chase found him (after a wild goose chase through the cornfield) UNDER my white car.  Ugh.  Let’s just say that I almost puked everywhere when I heard that one.

Wednesday was the day I had been waiting for – the day Chad flew into St. Louis.  Chase and I left Springfield after 9am so that we could stop for Chickfila in Fairview Heights.  (Honestly,Chickfila doesn’t excite me too much now that I can have it whenever I want.) We walked throughout the mall, and I was pretty excited to find a ISU hoodie for Chad.  Unfortunately, upon arrival at the airport I parked at the wrong terminal.  I hauled you-know-what to the correct terminal and had an orange cone put directly in front of my car when I pulled up to the parking garage.  Seriously?!  I spoke with the parking attendant who told me that I either had to park at Terminal 1 lot (already paid the $2.50 to park there for five minutes) and take the shuttle to Terminal 2 OR drive around and wait.  Uh, no.  This is the part where it gets real interesting, folks…I started crying, told the lady that I’d not seen my husband in nearly three weeks (which wasn’t a complete lie) and that I just wanted to see him.  It worked! J  She picked up that cone and told me to go give my husband some lovin’. Ahhhhh!  About time things went right, wouldn’t you say?

On Thursday, Chad went took my car and went golfing while I drove the 12-year-old white car to get my teeth cleaned.  I felt like I was in high school driving that car around, but then I realized just how much I loved that car – and I took a joyride. Thursday afternoon it started getting chilly outside and we went to Brenna’s rehearsal dinner.  I was exhausted so we left pretty early and went directly to bed.  

Friday was the big day, and holy cow was it COLD!  Because of the rain and cold the wedding was moved inside.  I stayed much longer than anticipated, mostly because I became a dancing machine. I danced with a former teacher and my mechanic.  I danced so much that my legs BURNED.  (My stomach hurt, too, but that was another issue.)

Saturday morning, we went to visit my Grandma and also got to see Aunt Kaye, Uncle John and Aunt Diane.  I went back home and headed straight to bed while Chad went to watch Brenna & Chris open their wedding presents.  He finally got home around 5:30 and we enjoyed a delicious dinner of Vic’s Pizza before heading to bed before 7pm.

As ready as I was to go home, it was sad leaving again.  I feel like I didn’t really get much time to visit with people.  And, worst of all was the SUPER SAD FACE Elijah made when we were getting ready to leave. I swear that dog had tears welling in his eyes.

Much like our last trip, we hit stand-still traffic just north of Little Rock.  That added an hour to our time.  Some super-douche bag checked us in and informed us that there was a pet fee.  (Yup, we know – we’ve become frequent fliers.)  I had every intention of challenging this fee in the morning.