Another Traveling Story- Gullible's Travels... Again

The south office of Care Net traveled to the north office this week for our staff retreat. We left early Monday morning, had our staff retreat on Tuesday and Wednesday, meetings on Thursday, and traveled home on Friday.

The trip up to DC was pretty uneventful. Our first flight was late, and we thought we were going to miss our connection, but luckily, we made it on time. The trip home was a little interesting though. We got on our first flight (we had a connection in Atlanta) and Polly let me have the aisle seat. She says that I get special treatment now because I'm pregnant, so I guess I better take advantage of it while it lasts. :)

However the aisle seat didn't make a difference in my comfort. As I sat in my seat, people watching- because I LOVE to watch people put their luggage in the overhead bins, all of a sudden I felt someone's bag strike me in the head. Polly said, "Whoa, that bag came so close to hitting you in the head!" As I told her that it had indeed hit me in the head, I turned my head to find the culprit. I got as far as seeing the man's stomach in my face before all of his crap fell out of his bag onto me. I prepared myself to give a sincere, "That's okay" when he apologized, but the apology never did come. As he grabbed all of his items, all he said was, "Well, that didn't turn out like I hoped it would." I wanted to say "Me neither," but I resisted.

After getting over that incident, I looked around to realize that we were completely surrounded by children. Now, I'm sure that as a pregnant mother-to-be, one would assume that I would be looking lovingly at all of these kids, thinking about how cute they were- or how cute my little one will be. Not so. The two kids in front of us included a never-stop-talking/yelling/questioning little cutie, and a never-stop-sneezing from the moment we board till the moment we land adorable guy. I'm not usually a germ freak, but after last week's cold, my immune system isn't dependable, so I tried to fashion my hoodie into a mask that resembled one seen in the SARS outbreak.

The one little girl sitting to the right of my seat was indeed adorable. But, I found myself wishing that she would quit talking altogether because one of the three kids sitting behind me repeated everything she said. Between that and kicking the back of the seat, I was feeling really patient.

When our flight finally landed in Atlanta, I thought we were in the clear. Well, our connecting flight had been cancelled, and the next flight was slated for three hours later. We figured we had a while to leisurely walk around, but there's just not that much you really want to do in an airport. When we made it to our gate, the estimated departure time (which was initially supposed to be 1:00) said 1:01. I realize that doesn't seem like a big deal, but that extra minute usually indicates that there is more delay to come. By the time 12:30 rolled around (keep in mind, we landed at 9:30), the departure time changed to 1:21. Then 2:00. Then 2:30. By the time it was all said and done, we had a five hour layover. However, the trip back to Birmingham was short and sweet and I was home before 2:30 Central time.

After a long week, I took a five hour nap on the couch, and then slept another full eight hours last night in the bed. It was wonderful.

Tonight Michael and I will be venturing to a little restaurant named Fire to celebrate our anniversary which was two days ago.

PS... I think I felt the baby move on Wednesday while standing in the middle of Pottery Barn. Like my friend Kristen Jones, I thought it was my cell phone in my hoodie pocket, but when I pulled the phone out, it wasn't ringing. Weird...