ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

We're up early this morning getting everything packed up so we can go to the airport check-in desk. We all get our bags checked, receive our boarding passes and see that our flight had been moved to 9 minutes earlier. Not sure why they sometimes do that but oh well, it didn't really matter to us. By 8:30 or so, we were all finished with this and set to be picked up at 12:50 by the ME bus. Off to MGM we go via a Friendship boat.


On the Friendship boat

We get there slightly after opening, get our stroller and rent a locker as we had more stuff with us than normal so that we could take it on our flight. Load up the locker and we're off to the Playhouse Disney/Voyage of the Little Mermaid area while DH is off to get FPs for RnR. VoLM show is getting ready to start and they have 1 minute left to allow people in. DH makes it back just in time and we go in. When that is out, Playhouse Disney was starting within 10 or 15 minutes so we get in line for that. Get out of that and decide to start the walk down Sunset to use our FPs. FP return time was 11:15 and in order to do it with child swap and still make our boat back in time for ME bus, we'd have to be there right at 11:15. DH, me and Katrina go on while Dan waits with the 4 kids.


Dan got the kids treats while they waited

It takes us about 25 minutes to get through the ride and we decide that Dan can't miss this one so he and Katrina and Isaac go on it while DH and I take the little ones and Payton to turn in the stroller, unload our locker and proceed to the boat. Get on the boat right away and we're off toward BWV. Get a call from Dan and they are also on a boat right now and will get off at the Swan/Dolphin boat stop and walk the bridge over to save some time. We all meet on the Boardwalk as I frantically try to finish up some postcards and drop them in the mail slot. I realize the time and we're off to the ME pickup area except Payton has to use the bathroom so DH waits for her on the Boardwalk. They make it back just as our bus is pulling up and all 8 of us are off to the airport. The bus driver was very talkative during the trip and told us lots about real estate prices, showed us evidence of hurricane damage, etc. It amazed me how some bus drivers talked nonstop during our stay and others didn't speak at all.

Finally get to the airport and proceed to our gate and see that our flight has been delayed. We eat at Burger King nearby and Cinnabon for dessert and then go sit near our gate. Our layover in Chicago was only supposed to be 1/2 hour so we were pretty sure we'd miss that connection and wanted to be booked for another flight while we were in Orlando. Agent assured us we could just catch the next flight out and that there were plenty of seats available. I wasn't sure of this and asked for clarification from her again and was assured again. Finally get on flight out of Orlando and the flight takes longer than planned due to change in flight path due to weather.

We arrive in Chicago around 6 p.m. to complete mayhem as the terminal was packed full of people who had been delayed for hours due to Chicago weather. We try to get booked on another flight, we're given boarding passes and when we go to board, we are told we are on the wrong flight (even though the agent had written down this flight). We get booked on another flight and it's delayed until 11:30 p.m. We see there's an earlier flight than that so we get booked on that one - 4 sets of boarding passes since our time here. When we got the last set of passes, I asked the agent if there was anywhere for the little ones to run or climb as they were antsy. She said if we walked up a ways there was a climbing area that they could go to. It was quite a walk (15 minutes or so) but 100% worth it as it was actually a Children's museum right there and there was hardly anybody in that part of the airport and NObody was in the Children's museum play area. All 4 kids just loved this area and it helped keep tension down tremendously.

Playing in Children's museum area

After about an hour we make the walk back to our terminal and our flight is off at 10:30. Kids slept on the flight and when we land at DFW, our bags had arrived before us. DH went to get the car, we bid Family #2 farewell as they left for their house and we arrived home at 2:15 a.m.

Big delay getting this posted but here goes....

Thursday, May 25 - drove all night and got into my parents at 2 am.

Friday - I had my interview for 3 hours and it went well. Hope to hear from them to schedule a second interview soon. Lots of people over at Andy's mom's house (including all 8 of the grandkids!).

Saturday - Chatting w/my parents in the AM, swimming at Andy's mom's in the afternoon and then out for the night with my parents.

We went to BB's Lawnside BBQ in KCMO and Fast Johnny Ricker was the music for the night. Fun times. Some pics:


Fast Johnny Ricker.

Weirdest. Bass. Guitar. Player. Ever.

Sunday at noon was a picnic at a park in Lawrence with Andy's family. Beautiful park and the wind made it fairly easy to stay cool despite the high temps.





Baby Bree 1st Birthday cake.

Monday - long drive home complete with windshield wipers that flew off and then our A/C was broken when we got home! Found myself at Wal-mart at 11 pm buying a couple of box fans to keep us cooled down until the A/C started working again. Luckily, it did within a few hours.

Warning - this 24 hour trip report may end up as long as our Thailand trip report. :-)

So Amanda and I went to Austin on Saturday and had a great time. It started off slightly rough with some nausea but we were quickly on our way. We made good time, listened to a Mitch Hedberg CD that we hadn't heard before, and got there well ahead of schedule so we went and got checked into our hotel and grabbed some breakfast. Then, with 15 or 20 minutes to spare, we headed off for our Segway tour of Austin. The place was only about a mile away but the bridge we needed to cross was closed off! Turns out, President Clinton was in town for the UT commencement speech and some of the roads were closed for his motorcade. We were driving all over the place trying to figure out how to get there without that bridge. Took us about 25 minutes but we did finally get there! Good thing I had programmed the number in my cell so we could call and let them know we might be late!

So we get there and we're slightly anxious because we aren't sure we will do well on the Segways. Training took probably 45 minutes and we got comfortable quickly. Turns out, one of the girls that was also on the tour was a member of the Cherry Bomb rollergirl team in Austin. I had no idea roller derbies still existed and were so popular - learned something new!

So we're off on our tour and it was a lot of fun and we got a lot of pics.


Kind of toward the end, we were on a gravel trail near the river and Amanda was trying to scoot away from a cyclist and stepped off of her Segway and it ran into the little rock wall. No big deal as the Segways stay up pretty easily and she did the right thing by getting off. Pretty soon, I come off of mine as one of the tires slides into a rut. Of course, we were the only 2 in the group to come off of their Segways but it was fine and not a big deal.

At the end, we did an obstacle course and got good times on our second tries but of course rollergirl and her family beat us. :-)

So after the Segway tour, we were hot and sunburnt and headed off to our hotel to change into swimsuits and head to the rooftop pool at the Omni. Amanda asks the towel lady how we go about ordering drinks and she says we have to go down to the lobby. We have to go down 19 floors in our swimsuits to order drinks?! Turns out she was wrong and we ordered drinks which arrived 30 minutes later. View from the pool was great and it was very relaxing.....until a daycare showed up (ok, not really but it seemed like it) and there was splashing everywhere, including into our drinks.



Leave the pool and then we go to get showered and dresses for dinner. I get calls from work that something has to be fixed and luckily that was done in time for us to go to dinner. Dinner at the Iron Cactus on 6th Street. We sat on the rooftop patio and the food was really, really good.


Then we're off to see the bats on the Congress bridge. We park and walk quite awhile to get near the bridge to see the bats come out from the bridge at dusk. The bats are a big deal and draw quite a few people every night to watch them come out. We had visions of a Hitchcock movie with the sky being covered in big bats and making lots of noise. What we got was a small stream of little bird-looking bats that kind of made tweet noises. It could have been something from a Disney film! A little disappointing, I must say.


So then we're off to the Driskill Hotel with Amanda's vision of sipping lemon drop martinis and eating fancy desserts. We head to the Driskill which is located maybe 100 feet from our own hotel and Amanda wants us to valet park so she can avoid having to walk in her new shoes which are proving to be very painful to walk in. The hotel is very nice and we find a place to sit and place an order. They did in fact have lemon martinis and they did have fancy desserts - success! Amanda asks if the banana cake dessert is big enough for us to share and the waitress tells us that it's one of the bigger desserts so we just ordered the 1 dessert. We wait probably 20 or 25 minutes and out comes this behometh dessert......



Ok, so it wasn't so big. We looked at the waitress like she was a crazy person and opted to order another dessert right away since this one was so....um....diminutive. We got two forks to go with our mini dessert and just had 1 cloth napkin which, of course, we shared because we're just silly like that. We had much fun with the tiny banana cake and Amanda said she should have told the waitress "oh, you're not kiddin....that thing is huge!" which still makes me laugh. Second dessert comes and we contemplate telling the waitress that we are just too stuffed from the first dessert but we don't and we just pay and leave.

It's about 10:30 by now and I ask Amanda if we are going out tonight and she says "ummm....I thought we were out." So we go pick up the car at valet and drive it the whole way back to the hotel (very slowly I might add, to make the valet feel more worth it) and change into pajamas. Turn on SNL but mute it just in case they have Appalachian Emergency Room which is so hilarious. Amanda does a fantabulous Netti Bo Dance impression. Sadly, no Appalachian Emergency Room this episode but....we did watch a DVD that had us in hysterics. Good times.

Go to bed and apparently the guys next to us decide to have a party in their room. They had 10 guys in their room (despite signing a "no party" policy at check in stating that nobody was allowed in the hotel unless they were a paying hotel guest). Amanda called for security to come, then she called back to say things seemed to have calmed down, then called again to say they hadn't. Turns out that the police had come and removed 7 of the guys and 1 guy was left because he was passed out and unmovable. Sigh.

The hotel alarm goes off at 6 am and I can't figure out how to get it off. Amanda gets it unplugged and back to sleep until about 10. Guys next door are awake and LOUD again. We're not sure how much they actually slept.

Get checked out via video checkout and head for the elevators. Guys at the elevator waiting turned out to be our friendly party boys. We knew their voices but they didn't know who we were. They proceeded to tell us all about their night and how somebody called the police and broke up the party. One of the guys was still drunk and asking random people if he smelled like bourbon and he was a total jerk. What a coincidence we'd get stuck with them in the elevator.

We head for Las Manitas for breakfast/brunch and then to Zilker Park to possibly swim in the springs there. We enter Zilker Park through the wrong entrance and end up bypassing the ticket-taker. Feeling like fugitives, we scope the place out and finally end up in the area of the springs. The area looked neat but we decide to take the kiddie train instead and get the full tour. This area is like kid paradise with playgrounds, the train, the swimming area and soon, there will be a waterpark as well. Nice area.


We head out for the highway to make our way home but not before getting stopped by the police. I had crossed a solid white line on the highway in a moment of confusion about which lane I was supposed to be in. He reminded me about how dangerous it was and I ended up not getting a ticket for that but he did notice that I didn't have my inspection sticker on the car so he cited me for that instead.

On our way again, we passed time listening to random music from her ipod, much of which was 80s metal music and brought back lots of good memories from our teenage years. We stop at the outlets in Hillsboro but I only wanted to go to the Gap outlet. We thought it would be really funny to have the metal music playing at full blast and ask people for directions to the Gap or Ann Taylor or Liz Claiborne. Good times.

Picked up a few good buys at the Gap outlet and finally made our way home. Lots of fun and my stomach muscles still hurt from laughing so much the whole time! If we end up staying in Texas, need to make another trip down to Austin w/the family. They'd love it.

Saturday
Soccer trophies! I think the kids live for these things. :-)




Sunday
Mother's Day! I decided that I wanted Japanese food and then we went to the air show, then for ice cream, then a little shopping. Perfect day. :-)


My special Mother's Day dessert....not sure what it was and I didn't like it much but it was pretty.


I love, love, LOVE air shows!

Sorry, didn't keep up this week like I'd hoped but here are some pics from this week.

Monday
We went to the Rangers game and Payton was supposed to be honored on the field for an award she won, along with some other kids. When we got there, we were told where to go and then when we got to that location, they said it was already over. Andy and I had already taken off early from work to get to the game early so I'm not sure how much earlier we were supposed to get there but I was really mad about this. The ballpark is beautiful and always nice to visit. Our kids aren't much into baseball (they prefer to watch NBA games) so we spent a lot of the time walking around and doing other things. Some pics from our night.










Tuesday
It was hot, hot, HOT on Tuesday and we had our weekly soccer practice except that this week it was supposed to be kids vs. families. We did play but every child ended up crying at some point - they were just so hot and irritable. Andy had them take a couple of water breaks but ultimately ended up calling practice early due to the temps.

Wednesday
Payton got her haircut and Blake got some new clothes. Payton wouldn't let me take a pic of her new hair because she wanted it to be a surprise to the out-of-towners when we visit but you'll see her in photos from Friday.

Blake loves this hat. Andy has figured out that it flips inside out to a less wild pattern but Blake likes the wild pattern. :-)

Friday
School carnival tonight. We've been every year and this was the best of all of the year's. Lots to do!













In other news,
-we continue to wait regarding the job hunt in KC. We'll let you know when we do!
-Dan and Katrina are moving into a house in a few weeks - will be so nice to have their own space again!
-people at work continue to give notice and leave. Very sad. :(
-weekend trip to Austin planned in 2 weeks w/a friend. :-)
-haven't bitten nails in 6 days!

No pics taken this weekend but it was a good weekend. Friday night was Chuck E. Cheese after work with the kids and then home for some Cinco de Mayo festivities with homemade margaritas. Turns out that the drink recipe I used was WAYYY too strong and we paid for it the next day.

Saturday, soccer game cancelled due to rain and date night was Saturday night. Thai food and then watched Walk the Line and played Scrabble at home.

Sunday, Payton and I went with Amanda to eat lunch at Carrabba's and then shopping all day at Northeast Mall including Sephora which is always fun. Quite a few purchases including some outfits for Payton, some makeup and some POTENT nail biting stuff to put on my nails. I've tried many, many nail biting techniques to help cure the habit and nothing has worked. This stuff might have me cured by tomorrow - makes me have to rinse my mouth out everytime I touch my fingers to my mouth. Blech!

Some fun stuff coming up this week that I'll blog about. Also, I have an interview with a company in Kansas City later this month. We're still trying to work out the exact date but things are moving along on that front.

Have a good week!