Monday, June 9, 2008

Oh my!

Most people would have looked at the last week of our lives as an absolute disaster, but not I! No, for me I saw the wonderful opportunity for a marvelous blog post so here we go....

Friday (May 30th) was the day that Brian and I left for sunny Florida, one of our favorite vacationing spots in the world, to attend John and Whitney's wedding!! We intentionally took the early flight in so that we would have time to do our own thing before the rehearsal dinner on Friday night. We got in around 11:00 and that is where the fun began. We’re standing at the luggage carousel watching everyone grab their bags and scurry away and then and nothing...no more bags. So a nice gentleman told us that we would have to make our way over to the baggage claim desk, a place that I have never had to visit before and hopefully will never have to do again. Fortunately for us, our bag just didn’t make it on the flight that we were on, but was already aboard the next flight and on its way to us. The nice people at baggage claim explained to us that as soon as the bag arrived at the airport they would have it delivered to our hotel. So we headed off without our bags and decided to take the "scenic" route to our hotel in Jupiter Beach. Before we went to the hotel, we decided to have a bite to eat and check out the town of Jupiter (where we were staying and the location of the wedding....also home to Burt Reynolds). We ate at a place that sat right on the water called the Crab Shack or something like that. I had shrimp scampi and Brian had snapper. Mine was not good at all! In fact, I blame that plate of shrimp scampi for my stomach issues (food poisoning) for the rest of the weekend and a week after we got home! We go to the hotel after this horrible run in with shrimp to find that our bags haven't made it there yet. I was not happy! I called customer service and explained to them that we had a rehearsal dinner to go to in just a few hours and that we weren't about to show up in our tee shirts, shorts and flip-flops! After no help what-so-ever from the customer service lady, we walk in to the rehearsal dinner in our tee shirts, shorts and flip flops. We were so embarrassed but thankfully John and Whitney have an amazing set of friends and family who were all more than understanding of why we looked like two vagrants who just wandered in from off the street and we ended up having a really nice time.

After the dinner (and after about three or four glasses of wine for me), we make our way back to the hotel to make sure that our luggage has arrived (it's 10:00 p.m. at this point) and guess what....still no luggage!! I decide to call the American Airlines customer service desk to give them a piece of my mind (remember I have had about three or four glasses of wine)! The conversation ended up with me yelling at the MOST annoying lady in the world who felt it neccessary to tell me over and over again that me not having my kuggage was not her problem because "she's in Dallas, what do I expect her to do"! Arrrgggghhh!!! I was more than mad...I was in tears!! Brian took over and found out that it wasn't the airline who was delaying our luggage, but the courier company that was hired to deliver the luggage to us. So, he got the number to the courier company and they explained that the person delivering the luggage had been involved in some sort of accident in Miami and would not be able to deliver the bag tonight, but that it had been put on the special delivery list and would be to us by 8:00 in the morning.

Unfortunately, we already had plans that involved us leaving around 7:00 a.m. to catch a fishing charter the next morning so it looked as if we would be fishing in the same clothes that we flew in with yesterday...Saturday morning comes and we were late for our fishing charter...I was getting sicker by the minute from the food the day before and to make it even worse we were still in the same clothes! We called the guy running the charter who told us that he had another boat going out in about an hour, but the port was about 45 minutes away. So we high tailed it up there and were the absolute last people to arrive, but we got there! Finally, something was going to go right for us! Nothing makes life better than an awesome fishing adventure in the middle of the ocean, that is, unless you got food poisoning the day before! I was sicker than a dog and when I was able to drag myself outside of the bathroom (one that EVERYONE was sharing because the guys bathroom was broken) I just kept catching the same stupid little sea bass ("just a 1/2" shy of a keeper") over and over again! In between my trips to the bathroom and sleeping in the cabin, I was periodically calling the hotel to check on our luggage arrival. 10:00 still no luggage....12:30 nothing.....2:30 still nada....4:30 Sorry! So here is our problem, we are still in the same clothes that we have now been in for two days and have now fished in and we have a wedding to attend to at 7:00. 7:15 our bags show up. Gee golly thanks. We missed the wedding, the wedding that we flew down here to see and neither American Airlines or the stupid courier company seemed to give a hoot! We did get to go to the reception which was BEAUTIFUL and lots of fun though so we didn't miss everything! You would think that this was enough of a weekend to wear anyone out, but not us...we got up on Sunday and drove around and looked at all of the beautiful houses and then headed off to the airport. Sadly, the food poisoning coupled with some motion sickness from the boat was still hanging over me pretty badly so when we got to the airport to find out that our flight had been delayed I was just ready to go home! I mean, what else could go wrong here? And then my phone rang. It was Jaiden explaining to me Sadie (our dog) had eaten something and when they investigated what it was they found that a duck...yes a duck had decided that out of all of the yards in Carrollton, ours would be the perfect spot to lay 6 eggs. Now there were only 5 eggs but eggs that the kids (our neice Emberlea was there also) knew would soon become baby ducks so improper disposal of the eggs was now out of the question. After Jaiden ran down all of the details of our newest "yard mate" I just smiled and handed Brian the phone...

A couple of days after we got home, I called animal control to find out how to get rid of our newest tenants when she told me...."Ducks are protected by the State of Texas and no one is allowed to move them, so enjoy 'em". I just hung up the phone and died laughing...it was the icing on the cake. Did anyone have any idea in the world that ducks were protected?!?!

So here we are. I finally got over my food illness a week later. The duck is still in the backyard swimming in our pool and nesting her now 9 eggs that should hatch by the end of this month. Her boyfriend also comes over and swims in the pool which is beautiful to watch, but has unfortunately just made a lot more work for Brian when it comes to keeping the pool clean. Sadie hasn't eaten any more eggs and strangly just watches the ducks as they swim around in the pool at night.

Now we are trying to get ready for our next wedding adventure at the end of this month in Las Vegas....We just can't wait! ; )