Domestic Travel

So I'm flying (again) and the WiFi on Southwest is down (dang).  My knitting and my computer are in my bag in the overhead.   I'm delinquent on my blogging,  so I'm typing this on my phone. ...  I know.  I hate it too, but giving it a try.   I've been considering a tablet, just for such an occasion.

Anyhow,  I'm flying to Atlanta today.   Just got home from Australia (blog post to follow) Sunday, and going to Virginia next Sunday. The travel has kicked in. 

While I was in Las Vegas I signed on 1/2 time to the IBM team supporting Lockheed Martin.  SO most of the travel of late has been getting up to speed on that job.  I had a 2 day trip to Manassas, Virginia,  a 2 day to Detroit, Michigan,  and now a 1 day trip to Atlanta.  I'm hoping the Lockheed Martin work will now settle in and the work will be from home.  That is the promise anyway...  A few weeks at home wouldn't hurt my feelings.  Those three trips were pretty routine with nothing to mention, I did get in a couple geocaches, but other than that is was fly, work, and fly home.. perhaps a meal or two with new colleague I am trying to get to know.

During the travels it's interesting that Colorado color are long gone, this is Detroit, and 2 weeks later when I went to Atlanta they were just starting.

But I left Las Vegas after my last blog post and flew to Salt Lake City, where Mike and Nai met me, driving from Colorado, and my daughter, Kelsey, joined us, flying from Albuquerque.   It was an eventful weekend starting with a joint birthday party for lots of family members, the party was at Mike's sister's house and with her daughter getting married that weekend we had about 27 at the party, including a number of relatives we hadn't seen in a long time or I had never met.

One notable mention was that Mike and I decided to use the occasion to toast our renewed commitment to our relationship.   In the toast he happened to mention that we had filed with the county... making us legally, no questions left, MARRIED.  I had requested we do this because I wanted to seal any ambiguity about our status.  But I was most surprised at the reaction.  We were greeted with congratulations and well wishes all around.  So in the end I guess the confirmation was well overdue as we have been common law married for a couple of years by now.  Just before I left for Australia we celebrated our 15th anniversary... Life is good right now for us.

Mike took a day to go fishing with his son, Jed.  While Kelsey, Nai, and I, went to meet the new grandson, Johnny, and another soon to be grandson Rider that Mike's daughter, Sara, is about to adopt.  Rider is a delightfully pleasant soul and is almost completely deaf.  In fact he was just nearing his second birthday and just about to get a cochlear implant. Johnny was only 2 months old and was asleep in my arms nearly the entire visit. It was fun seeing Sara, Cory, and the other 3 kids too.

Mike's nephew generously invited Nai to the bachelor party where they drove go-carts and has great fun.  Kelsey and I went to the bachelorette party but ran out of gas on the way.  We were pushing the car off the highway when a man and his son got out to help push, then a cop stopped to help with traffic control, and finally someone saw our situation while driving by and returned with a gallon of gas!!  Utah is so nice!  By the time we arrived at the party, we had missed the "twister with paint can lids" and we were the only guests not covered in paint.   Can't say I'm upset about that.

The wedding was beautiful and accompanied by the usual drama.  But while the guests were enjoying the Cold Stone ice cream bar and cotton candy machine, we hardly noticed.  Kelsey flew out at 6 the next morning and Mike, Nai, and I started the 9 hour drive home.

The following day I got my wisdom tooth out, and it turned out to be painless.   I only have 2 wisdom teeth and the doctor recommended I only remove one since the second hasn't broken the gum yet.   So he numbed me up with some Novocaine and reached in and pulled it out.   The whole thing took about 15 minutes.   He told me I would have pain later but I never really did.  Weird!

That weekend the exchange program had an event where we went to Manatou Springs in Colorado and went into a cave there and the kids did a ropes challenge course.  I think they were challenged, but they did great!

 A week and a half later we went down to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta.  We drove down Friday, saw the balloons Saturday morning and had a chance to visit the folks and my kids a bit.  The weather turned out exceptional for a perfect mass accenting morning.  Headed home Sunday.











The following weekend was homecoming.   Nai was really looking forward to it.   They ended up electing him homecoming king.  So he went to the volleyball games, football game, dance and after party.   He had a complete experience including crowd surfing the dance hall.   His friends told him they want him to have great experience in the US.  He said he never could have imagined he could have so much fun.  Meanwhile we had some friends up from Canon City to play games.  He said the photos at the dance were too dark so we have no homecoming photos, but we did get out for a hike the next day that was beautiful.

Mike was recently hired on as a ski instructor at Breckenridge.   He has also signed up to volunteer a couple of days a week at the boys and girls club here in town.  So he'll be keeping busy while I'm travelling.  He also recently bought all the equipment to keep our skis tuned and is learning to do that. .. so as usual, never a dull moment at our house.