2010 - OUR SUMMER VACATION

After all that Michael (Carol's ex) put us through in the spring, Carol decided not to give him any more time with the kids than the existing court order required. Which was "Alternate Weekends". The order made no mention of summer vacation so she told him he would see the kids every other weekend, period.

Since that made anything like the 6 week trip we took last summer undo-able, we decided to make a bunch of 10-12 day trips in between his weekends instead.

AND, I had several weeks of timeshare that I needed to "use or lose" in 2010, so we only took the Airstream out once.


Before we started traveling we had birthday parties the last weekend in June at our church swim club - a few days after the fact, but that was so they could both be on the weekend. Andrew on Saturday and Emily on Sunday. A great time was had by all.
















We had many of our friends there, too. But they have asked not to be pictured ;o)

The weekend of the 4th of July was "his" weekend to have the kids, so we postponed our departure for our two weeks in N Myrtle Beach until Sunday evening.

WHAT AN IN-BETWEEN ! I got the truck packed earlier than I thought I would so I decided a couple of hours before we were to get the kids to go get diesel fuel. The truck (have I told you how much I LOVE my TRUCK? Yeah, I think I have but it is worth repeating) started fine, backed up about 8" and QUIT. Cranked like mad, but would NOT start. Since it's a diesel, there's not much to check. It was getting dark and I couldn't see anything obviously loose, no overpowering smell of fuel, at a loss. I told Carol that I'd call AAA in the morning and have it towed to the dealership. Oh yeah, that'll be July 5th and they'll all be closed. Oh well, we've got TWO weeks of timeshare at the beach, so I'll have it towed and we'll find out Tuesday morning when they can fix it. If not Tues or Wed, we'll downsize drastically and take the Crown Vic instead.

Monday morning, AAA guy shows up. I've called all the dealerships and confirmed that they're all closed for the holiday. Turns out - the young AAA guy's Grandmother was the previous owner of our double-wide so we talked about the great summer evenings he'd spent there. He asked me to lift the hood. I did, although I was thinking - "yeah, a 20 something tow truck driver will know how to fix my diesel." Apparently I said at least part of that thought out loud because he said, "We've got a tow truck with this same motor." He found that the fuel filter had sprung a leak. I said that at least that was probably something that the dealer could fix Tuesday morning. He said, "Let me tow it to our shop. If that's all that's wrong, we can put a fuel filter on it. If it's more, we can always tow it to the dealership."

If you've been reading my Blog, you KNOW what happened. We were on our way to the beach before 1 pm, for less than $200.00.

THANK YOU !!

MORE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES

I MUST blog soon about "What we did on Summer Vacation."

BECAUSE it really was a wonderful trip filled summer, but a MUCH BIGGER reason is...

We've planned a trip over Christmas break to spend 24 days in London and Paris. If I don't blog summertime before London, I'll never get back to it.

But first, a little about the upcoming trip - Last spring, Lee Ann, my daughter-in-law got a job offer to spend 12 months in London. She went in May. Tom, Sarah and Ben followed in June. Casey followed in July.

When Lee Ann found a 4 bedroom apartment in northern London Tom announced to his church that, "Lee Ann found a 4 bedroom flat so we have a guest room and would like any and all of you to visit." A woman came up to him and said, "Tom, does that mean that I now have a bedroom in London that I can trade for my apartment in Paris?"

SO - with a free place to stay in London and an apartment in Paris, we decided this was, as Tom so beautifully put it, "the opportunity of a lifetime, or at the very least the opportunity of a childhood for Emily and Andrew."

We've bought the airline tickets and I'm working on line to buy "Wicked" tickets because we couldn't afford them in NYC last year. Yeah, we couldn't afford NYC theater prices, so we'll see it in London instead.

NOBODY ever said I was a logical person.

You've probably gotten tired of hearing this, but

MY GOODNESS, I love Salem,VA.

The high school has a published zero tolerance attendance policy. Miss 10 days in a semester or 20 in a year and you receive 0 credit, regardless of your grades. I talked with the Vice-Principal. He said, "Give me the dates when you have them and we'll work something out. I'm certainly not going to be the one to tell a 14 girl she can't go to Europe."

Salem Schools' motto is "Children First: Every Child; Every Day."

It should be, "Common Sense RULES !"

God is GOOD and LIFE - in Salem - is GREAT !