Vacation Part 7 (Saturday)

Saturday my parents had a cookout at their house for friends and family.   My parents cooked hamburgers and hotdogs and tons of other stuff.  I think we had just about 30 people there!  It was so nice to have everyone in one place.  I really enjoyed visiting with everyone.  

Thanks everyone for making that long drive out to Navarre! It really meant a lot to us! Love you all!!

Vacation Part 6 (Thursday and Friday)

On Thursday we had lunch with my parents at Panera Bread. Rob and I really like eating there. It's a great alternative to fast food.

Thursday night, my brother and his girlfriend Shana flew in for a visit. My mom was very excited to have both her children under one roof again, even if it was only for a couple of days! My dad had to work Thursday evening, so Mom, Rob and I went to pick up Jeremy and Shana from the airport.   Jeremy and Shana were starving (no flight drama for them!). So we went to Logans for dinner.



Jeremy and Shana were pretty tired from their flight, so we just watched a movie when we got home.

On Friday, we headed to Pensacola to see GI Joe, but first we stopped at the Oar House for lunch. The weather was beautiful outside, and there was a nice breeze coming off of the ocean. Lunch was really great! I'm so glad the Oar House was able to open again after the fire.

As for the movie, it was okay.  It's definitely a movie that can wait for video.

That night, Jeremy, Shana, Rob and I all went out to Bamboo Willie's at Pensacola Beach.  It was so nice out!  There was a band performing covers of popular songs.  So, we had a contest to see who could name the original band the fastest.  Rob and I were on a team and Jeremy and Shana were on a team.  Rob and I kicked butt!:)

I'm so glad we were able to hang out with my brother.  I don't get to see him that often and I really miss him!  It was really great to get to know Shana, too.  Hopefully, we'll get to see them more in the next couple of months.  Jeremy and Shana are moving to Florida.  We should be able to see them again during the holidays!

Vacation Part 5 (Wednesday)

Wednesday we packed up our stuff and made our way towards Navarre.  My parents live in Navarre and we stayed the last half of the week with them.  On our way to Navarre, we stopped by Chris (Rob's cousin) and Mia's house.   They recently purchased their first home, and we wanted to see it.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the actual house, but I did take pictures of their son Thor.  He was playing with our car keys and he pushed the panic button on the key chain.  The horn started beeping outside and Thor was amazed.  It was so funny.  Rob kept trying to take the keys away from Thor, but he really wanted to keep pushing the button!

We left Chris and Mia's and went to my parents house.  We got ourselves settled and then got ready for dinner.  Rob, my mom and I were going to the Ale House to meet some of my old co-workers for dinner.

Russ and Faith

Marty and Gary

Joyce and Charlie

Gary and Mary

Brandon and Krista

Mom and I

Me and Rob

Krista, Joyce, Gary, Me, and Faith

The NWFHG crew.

I was so happy to see everyone!  I'm so glad that we have all been able to keep in touch.  I miss you guys!

After dinner we went home and made Rice Krispie treats!!  Yum!

Vacation Part 4 (Monday and Tuesday)

Monday was a quiet day for us.  We had lunch with Rob's mom and then Rob dropped me off to get my hair cut and highlighted.  I've had a hard time finding a hairdresser here in VA.  It was nice to go back to my hairdresser in Pensacola.  Then we had a nice meal at Pop's house.

Tuesday was another fun day for us.  First we went to visit people from my old job.  I worked at the Heart Group for 5 years and met a lot of great people.  Here are are two of my favorites Joyce and Faith:

Next we went to see some of Rob's old co-workers from Grainger.  Rob worked there for 7.5 years.  He's been gone for two years now, but he has some really great memories from when he worked there.  Here is a picture of Rob and one of his favorite co-workers, Katie:

After visiting our former employers we took a trip to Milton to see one of my good friends Mary Grace.  Mary Grace just had a baby in December and I was anxious to meet Grady.  I've read so much about him in her blogs.  He was just as cute and energetic as she's described him!

After our visit with Mary Grace and Grady, we went back to Pop's to get ready for dinner.  Rob was going to dinner with Pop, Dolores and Tia at Skopelos.  And I was going to dinner with some of my friends, Veronica, Lauren and Mary Grace at a Mexican restaurant.

I miss our girls' night dinners!  We had such a fun time just chit chatting!  I miss you guys!

Rob met up with us at the Mexican restaurant.  Rob and I both wanted to go out and shoot darts.  We haven't done that in forever!  We had a lot of fun.  We really need to find a place around here.  Okay, okay, and Rob beat me at everything.  Darts and pool.  Blah.

Vacation Part 3 (Sunday)

On Sunday, Pop had a family dinner at his house for us.  All of Rob's relatives that live in Pensacola were there for the dinner.  My mom was also able to come, but my dad had to work, so he couldn't be there.  Pop cooked Prime Rib for dinner, one of Rob's favorites.  It was a fun Sunday!

Vacation Part 2 (Saturday)

After sleeping in on Saturday, we met up with one of Rob's friend, Chris, and his wife, Janet.  Rob has known Chris since his days at Grainger and Chris was one of the groomsmen in our wedding.  We met Chris and Janet at the Shrimp Basket.  Fried shrimp!  Yummy.  After lunch we stopped by the airport to pick up Rob's luggage.  Then we went back to Pop's to visit for a little while before dinner that night.  Pop was taking us, Tia and Dolores to Yamato for dinner.  Yamato is a japanese steak house.  Rob's family has been going there for years and it's one of Rob's favorites.

  After dinner, Rob and I met up with Chris and Janet.  We all went to the Ale House for a drink.  Then we went to Seville.  Rob and I haven't been there in a very long time and we both felt like dancing!  My friend Veronica met up with us at Seville.  Veronica was one of our bridesmaids in our wedding.

We had a fun night, but we were both exhausted from the previous night.  I'm so glad we were able to hang out with Chris and Janet.  Chris works out of town and he had plans the next weekend.  Hopefully we'll be able to hang out with them more when we come home for Christmas!

Vacation Part 1 (Getting there)

What a long, relaxing, fun, eventful vacation!  Did I use too many adjectives?   Too bad, because they all apply!

After a year, Rob and I were finally able to take a trip home to Florida.  Trust me, this was a well deserved break for Rob.  The past few months Rob has been working from 6:15 AM to at LEAST 6:30 PM (the latest was 10:30 PM).  And working a half day on Saturdays.  Like I said, it was a well deserved break.  We decided to fly out on a Friday after work.  We were supposed to leave at 7:15 PM (EST) and get in around 11:00 PM (CST).  Notice I said "supposed to"?  If anyone knows me, they know that I don't have the best of luck with flights.  I miss a connection, the pilot calls in sick, the crew is late, the plane has maintenance problems, the weather is bad.  Inevitably some part of my trip will be plagued with travel woes.  Usually, when I travel with people though my bad luck doesn't rub off on them.   It looks like my bad luck has spread to Rob though.  He married me, he married my luck, too.  

Anyway, back to that Friday.  The day started out beautiful, with a 90% chance of rain/thunderstorms in the afternoon.  I knew our flight would most likely be delayed, but we had a 2 hour layover, so I figured we would be okay.  We got to the airport around 5:30 and we were told that our flight was behind schedule by 1 minute.  1 minute no big deal!  We checked out the flight board and I noticed that the 5:30 flight to Atlanta was delayed.  No thunderstorms on our end, but Atlanta was getting hit pretty bad.  So, all flights going into Atlanta were delayed.  We still had a lot of time, so I thought we would be okay.  Our plane showed up at 6:45 PM.  Great, right?  Wrong.  An announcement was made telling us that we would not start boarding the plane until 8:45 PM.  So, that would mean we would most likely miss our connecting flight at 10:57 PM.  I was trying not to freak out.  I just figured we would catch a flight first thing in the morning to Pensacola.  There are TONS of flights going to Pensacola from Atlanta.  I asked the gate agent to book us a back up flight, just in case we missed our connection.  She booked us on a 6:45 PM flight on Saturday.  If we missed our connection, that was the ONLY available flight.  Alright, now I started to worry.  My phone has an internet connection, so I started checking the connecting flight's status online.  Maybe I was checking it every 5 minutes, but I was a little stressed.  Rob kept reminding me that we were on vacation.  That didn't help.

So, at 8:45 Pm we start boarding the plane.  I checked the connecting flight and they were still in DC, but they were supposed to be leaving at 9:00 Pm.   That should delay the plane until at least 11:30 PM.  Maybe we could make it!  Finally our plane left around 9:10 PM.  It was a very smooth flight.  I tried to keep myself calm, not to think about the connection.  But I stress, I can't help it!  Finally we landed.  I think it was around 10:40 or 10:50 PM.  I immediately turned on my phone and checked the connection.  They had just landed too!  The flight was supposed to leave around 11:30 PM.  Okay, maybe we can make it, if we can just get to the gate!  Which wasn't happening.  Apparently, there were so many flights that had been delayed that they didn't have a gate for us.  We sat on the runway for at least 40 minutes.  I kept checking the flight status.  At this point, Rob kept checking it too on his phone!  Our only hope was that our connecting flight was sitting on the runway, too.  At about 11:20 PM I checked the connecting flight's status and the plane was delayed until 1:00 AM!!!!  Ahh!!!!  I was so relieved.  Right at the moment I read that our plane was delayed, our plane started moving to a gate.  Things were working out!

We got off our plane a made our way to our next gate.  On our way there, we saw a line longer than any line I've ever seen at any amusement park.   At first I thought it was a line for food.  I quickly realized it was the line to the Delta Customer Service desk.  All of those people had either missed their flight, or their flight had been cancelled.  They were waiting in line to be booked on another flight.  Oh, I was so thankful we didn't have to stand in that line!!

We got to the gate and boarded our plane.  We didn't leave until about 1:20 AM.  We got into Pensacola around 1:20 Am (CST).  We went to wait for our bags.  And waited, and waited...finally my bag showed up, but Rob's wasn't there.  I ran over to the baggage claim, because there were about 50 other people whose bags did not make it on the plane also.  We were fourth in line.  Okay, I was actually lurking by the baggage claim.  It was late and I didn't want to have to deal with the line!  We gave the baggage claim people our phone number and were told they would call us when the bag showed up. 

Finally, we were able to head to Rob's grandfather's house.  My parents had left us one of their cars at the airport.  Rob and I were both starving!!  All the restaurants had been closed in the Norfolk airport, and they were closing by the time we got to the Atlanta airport.  We went to Whataburger!  Yum!  then we went home and went to sleep.

The next morning, we checked online to see if Rob's bag had made it to Pensacola.  According to the website, they didn't have any information for us.  Basically, they didn't know where Rob's bag was.  Wonderful.  So, we got ready and headed out to buy Rob some new clothes and other essentials.  But first, we stopped by the airport to see if they could give us any information about Rob's bag.  I walked in and saw 3 rows of baggage just sitting by the baggage claim area.  I walked down the first row and there was Rob's bag!  I picked it up and walked out.  No one asked to see our claim ticket, no one said anything to me.  I thought about stopping by the Delta Customer service office to let them know I had the bag, but decided against it.  According to the Delta website, Rob's bag still hasn't been located.

So, we had our luggage and we were in Pensacola.  We were ready to start our vacation!!