since last Wednesday...

You had to know SOMETHING was up, right?? Me? Not blogging for a week? I'd better have a good excuse for myself.

And I do! I was in TEXAS!!!! On VACATION!!! FINALLY!!!

Alright, enough with the all caps and exclamation points. It's just that I'm still really excited about it, even though I'm home. And I'm even more excited that I convinced my super-finicky camera to cooperate for long enough to upload pictorial evidence to the computer.

No time for a thorough re-cap (I know, you were holding your breath), but I'll tide you over with a few tidbits about what I've been up to since last Wednesday...

1. Flying on a plane (two, really) with my husband!

 Maybe not a big deal for some, but we've never flown together! It was a good experience, for the record. It reminds me what great Amazing Race partners we would be. And today we were THISCLOSE to spending a lot MORE time together on planes. Our flight from Houston this morning was completely full. So full, I guess, that the AirTran dude made several announcements asking for four volunteers with "flexible travel schedules" that would be willing to take a later flight (getting into Atlanta like 10 hours later that our flight was supposed to) that connected in Branson, Missouri (check your map: in what world is Branson a logical route to get from Houston to Atlanta?). In exchange for your troubles, each volunteer would receive TWO ROUND TRIP TICKET VOUCHERS (and a few meal vouchers to get them through the day). So that means, if Mattie and I had taken them up on the deal, we would have been able to go on TWO MORE TRIPS in the near future!! Don't think we didn't sit there and debate furiously for 15 minutes whether it could be finagled. We had about decided to give it a whirl, when we heard that all the spots were filled. Darn. So we're back home and we have no free tickets for future travel. 


Oh well. At least our plane didn't crash.


2. I puked in public. Three times.

Yep, at the Houston Zoo. Home of baby elephants (pictured), baby giraffes, and three now-buried piles of my vomit. You're welcome for that lovely mental image. I apparently had some kind of 24-hour bug (which I later passed on to my grandmother, since sharing is caring) that chose to make a most opportune arrival. It was truly a miserable day, in large part because I was so pissed about having to leave the zoo so soon!! I did stick around for about an hour post-vomiting, but it was one of the most horrible hours of my life, so we headed home. 

I'm sorry to over-share so much about this situation, but I am still astonished that it happened. It was totally surreal. I haven't thrown up in like...8 years or something? And then to do it in front of God and everyone at the ZOO??? Ridiculous.

3. Spent a lot of time hanging out with, catching up with, and enjoying my family.

Here we are with my dad's parents, whom we spent most of the trip with. It was such a blessing to spend such leisurely time with them (and have them all to ourselves)! 

4. Started reading Jane Eyre and am 77% through! Super-specific percentage details brought to you courtesy of my friend's Kindle, which she lent me and which I am reading the book on. I am LOVING the story AND the Kindle. 

5. Met my blogging BFF in REAL LIFE!!!!! 

This was definitely a first and it was a great experience. Amanda is just as fun and real in person as she is in her blog/facebook/emails/texts, which is what has comprised our friendship for the last year or so. Matt and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend the evening eating, eating more, and book-browsing with them. 

Also fun? Trying to explain how I knew Amanda to people in the over-80 set. "Is she a friend from college?" Um...well...she's a friend from...the internet? That doesn't sound sketchy at all. It took a lot of explaining, but I think eventually they understood that I'm not totally weird for meeting people I met online. It helped that we actually made it home from hanging out with them. Proof that more than just murderers and pedophiles are available to meet online!

We had way more adventures than just this, but now I've got to get my act together here at home so that I'm ready for the second half of this week. It is very sad that I have to go back to work tomorrow. Until next time, let me leave you with this one very valuable piece of advice I wasted no opportunities to quote this past week:

Don't mess with Texas.

I don't even know why. I just know you shouldn't. Consider yourself warned.