Surviving the Holidays

Yeah, we're home! It's taken about a week to recover from all the traveling we did over the holidays, but I think we're back on schedule now. I was so tired, that I didn't even bother to set up my computer until today (very unusual for me). I guess I'll just start at the beginning (this will be a long blog).

-Friday Dec 21st Kurt and I decided we wanted to have our friends over for a small Christmas party and gift exchange. It was a great time, amd the gift exchange was hilarious. Kurt went to dollar store and bought some awesome gag gifts (my favorite was the fake bling), but our friend's Georgia and Todd stole the thunder by giving us Ohio State ornaments and a UCLA sticker. Where they found them out here, I'm not sure. Here some of the pictures of our friends that Micaela took:

- Saturday Morning, being the superstar that I am, I woke up early and cleaned up the house from the party the night before. Our plan was to head up to PA around lunchtime. Of course Micaela was packed and ready to go at 6am, but with a little effort Kurt and I managed to get ourselves ready and we left just after noon. The drive wasn't too bad until we hit D.C. and the world just came to a halt. Traffic sucked. The dogs got sick. Not a great drive. We got to PA around 7pm ate dinner and went straight to bed.

- On Sunday we took Great-Grandma Cowfer to church and then headed to the mall for some last minute shopping. It actually wasn't too crazy. Micaela was off shopping with Grandma so Kurt and I got to spend the day together, it was actually very nice and relaxing. When we got back Kurt set up the Wii and Grandma and Pappy Weaver got to experience Wii sports. They did pretty good, but Micaela still beat them which she loved. Kurt got spanked at baseball by both his dad and his sister, which I enjoyed :)

- Christmas Eve and Christmas day were nice- some shopping, some sleeping, eating, and present opening. Thanks for all the gifts! We spent most of Christmas down at Kurt's sister's house relaxing. After we had visited with all friends and family we decided that we wanted to head back down to Williamsburg so that we wouldn't be rushed getting ready for our Puerto Rico trip on the 27th. We got home, slept, and then took down our tree and decorations and repacked for our trip.

- Kurt hates when I make plane reservations because I tend to make them early. We got up at 4am to make our 6:30am flight to San Juan. No real issues on the way down, until we got off the plane in San Juan wearing jeans and sweatshirts. It must have been 85 degrees that day. I should have checked the weather. I didn't pack and shorts or t-shirts/tanks for me or Micaela, oops (we were forced to go shopping). We rented a FJ Cruiser and headed to our rental house at the Coast Guard Station in Aguadilla. It was awesome, a great three bedroom house on a cliff across from a big pool for only $80 a night. There was even a post exchange nearby where we were able to buy groceries to get us through the week. Highly recommended location.

- On Friday we slept in and took our time getting ready before heading to Grandpa Oscars. Kurt's pretty familiar with that part of Puerto Rico so he took us to a great restaurant on the way that sells my new favorite food - seafood mofongo. Grandpa Oscars house was in a really nice neighborhood which made me feel more comfortable. His house is small, but very neat. It's all wood (which is strange for PR where everything else is concrete) and it's down at the bottom of this big hill with a stream running right next to it. It's pretty secluded and really quiet. It's also very shady so it keeps cool year-round. We're hoping that Micaela inherits it someday. Micaela's favorite part is all the animals. He has three dogs, and lots of wild animals that never leave: cats (that we don't touch), two ducks, about 50 chickens (on the other side of the stream), fish, and turtles. He feeds them all so they all just stick around. It was a very nice first visit and when we started talking about food he offered to cook for us the next day, which we gladly accepted.

- The rest of the vacation was spent sitting on Grandpa Oscars porch eating, and eating more, relaxing and then eating the next meal. It's the culture there that if you don't clean up your plate then you didn't like it or something was wrong, so I ate a LOT more than I normally would have. It was fantastic though. If I lived in Puerto Rico I would weigh at least 50 more pounds than I do now. On one of the days we went back to the CG station early to swim which was fun and it felt good to do something close to exercise. Here are the pictures:

The pool

Grandpa Oscar's House

Micaela, Grandpa Oscar, and the three dogs

Feeding the fish and the chickens

Micaela and "Mr. Duck"

Uncle Hernan's Ranch

- It's a little bit of a trip from Aguadilla to San Juan so we decided to leave on New Year's Eve and get a hotel near the airport for the night before our flight. Dad booked us at a Holiday Inn Express in an area called Condado that's a little away from the main tourist area. We had to go down this alley to get to the hotel, but on the next corner was a Cartier store, Gucci, Louis Vitton, and some other store. What a slummy area :) We walked along the beach and went out to eat a Japanese Steakhouse. It was a nice night but I was asleep well before midnight.

The beach by our hotel in San Juan

- You all probably know about our fun then next day, but just in case, here it is. On New Years Day we were supposed to fly out at 1pm (I thought). We bought tickets through Expedia where our flight down was on United and the flight back was on Delta, but booked through United. Back in early December I called United to check on the return flight and got an itinerary confirmation that was different from Expedia's itinerary. I figured the airline was more correct than Expedia, so we were going off that. So on New Years Day I went to Delta to check and make sure our flights were on time and the flight numbers and times didn't match up to what the itinerary said. I called Delta to see what happened and they said that they couldn't help since they didn't book the flight. I called United and they told me that they only booked the flight on Delta, they don't get updates when there are changes (would have been nice to know earlier). I finally called Expedia and actually got a very helpful person on the phone. It was sort of my fault for trusting the airlines itinerary and not Expedia's itinerary (which was right all along), but she helped us out anyways and gave us a $100 coupon for our troubles. We weren't able to fly out until Jan 2nd and we had to take seperate flights. Kurt offered to fly solo, so that's what we did. It actually worked out okay because we were able to upgrade our hotel and relax and watch all the football games (Fight On 'SC!!!). Somehow the next day Kurt ended up with the shorter flights, exit row seating followed by first class seating, and he arrived early. Micaela and I ended up crammed in coach, delayed at JFK (no, New York is not in between Puerto Rico and Richmond), and we ended up carrying all the luggage. I definitely got the short end of that stick, next time someone has to fly solo, it's going to be ME! But we made it home and I was certainly glad to get here.