Tears in the juice aisle

Going on vacation always has a certain amount of stress attached to it. This time before we left the kids missed a week of school due to the flu and then missed the next week of school because of the freezing temperatures. So, starting out a vacation with having seen too much of each other beforehand can make you wonder if you will survive the trip. To top it off, on the day before we were getting ready to leave, we were giving my friend instructions for the dogs and noticed a nice little ice sculpture covering our pool equipment. Holy crap! This pool is nothing but trouble and expense! I had taken a gamble that it wouldn't get too cold this winter and thought we were done with snow....we went from 60 degree weather to below freezing temps and a pool not winterized in those temperatures does stuff like you see in the picture. One more thing to add to my list of worries. I called up the pool guy and set up an appointment for when my friend could be there.......Too bad I gave her the wrong key and locked her out of the house! Luckily she could still get into the garage and just paid him for me and he will come back when he can access the PDA that was also in the house. Who doesn't check a key before they give it to someone? Me that's who! Aarrgg!

We had a great time and then left Maui on Friday night at 10 pm, which I will never do again. It was pouring down rain in the afternoon and we were running out of ways to kill time. Finally it was time to board and we had troubles with one of our seats. It was double booked so there was a bit of a scandal to which Nate's solution was that the airline could take one of our kids since we only wanted 3 anyway. This solved the problem pretty quickly. :) Our flight arrived 30 minutes late and there was a guy that tackled us trying to get off the plane before it was his turn. He literally pushed us and climbed over seats. Wouldn't you know, we missed our connection in LA. The plane was right there, they just wouldn't let all 33 of us that were supposed to make that connection get on it. It's always nice when someone else is more pissed off than you and makes a huge scene. It did no good and we got redirected to another flight that had already boarded. This is when I kissed my luggage goodbye and knew it probably wouldn't be waiting for us. We then flew to Dallas and wished they would just let us parachute out of the plane to get home. From Dallas we went to Abq and arrived at 1:40pm on Saturday to........no luggage. Big surprise. They knew exactly where they were and offered to deliver them to our house when they arrived. O.K.

We get home completely exhausted from lack of sleep. I tried, but those darn seats are so uncomfortable and leaning against the window was out of the question because it felt like it was frozen. Good times. We gave the shuttle guy his tip and then went to pay for our parking where Nate realized that he gave the driver the wrong wad of cash in his pocket. The shuttle driver got the 40 bucks we needed to pay for the parking. Fantastic. I hope his day was made! We got home and let the dogs out and didn't realize that the pool guy that fixed everything for a nice chunk of change left a bunch of parts and equipment out that the dogs thought were meant for chew toys. Are you kidding me. We get to pay for this all over again? Obviously going to the grocery store having been up all night and not having brushed my teeth or showered since the day before was not a good idea. We needed food though, so off Nate and I went. We ran into a family that we know that is trying to sell their house and of course everything keeps breaking. So we commiserated together in the juice isle while tears rolled down my face. That's not embarrassing now is it? lol

Good news, we finally got a call at 9:30 pm on Saturday telling me that they were in possession of our luggage and wondered if they could still deliver it that evening. Sure, why not. When? "Well, Ma'am it will be between 4-6 hours." I just started laughing and said, "well now, that isn't exactly tonight anymore now is it?" The guy really didn't share my humor and for the sake of not having my luggage lost any further I accepted. At 2:30 AM my cell phone rang and woke me from such a deep sleep that I jumped spastically out of bed unsure of where I was or what was going on. "Ma'am I am at your front door with your luggage." Fanflippintastic.