Looking past all the chaos we got to have some fun. I got to have an unexpected quality time visit from my dad. The older I get, the more important the time I get to spend with my family gets. So even if the purpose is just to help me find my stolen car, I'll take it.
At this assignment, there were four IMs. Where there are IMs, there are IM wives. It was very exciting to have other girls around to hang out with. We got together a few times, but the last time we all hung out we crotched. Abby is super advanced so she was working on a huge blanket. Kelly and I were both beginner so we made infinity scarves. After we were all crotched out, we headed to Chick-fil-A for lunch!
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| Abby the professional. |
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| Kelly was cracking us up. She told everyone that she was making the scarf for them. |
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| My finished product. |
Jesse came to town later in the week to visit Justin and me. It was fun. Jesse and I spent most of our time together running errands while Justin was at work. He had to be my chauffer. I have recently developed a fear of driving in McAllen. Probably, a rightful fear, since every time we got in the car we witnessed at least one wreck. I think the craziest thing that we saw was a little car shoot out of a parking lot with out even pausing before entering the road, the car then proceeded to cross three lanes and then drive up the side of the on ramp to enter the ramp to the interstate. Thank God it did not result a wreck, but it definitely made our jaws drop. We also did a little Christmas shopping. Jesse bought Kayla and Ava a planetarium for Christmas. He could not wait to check it out and insisted that we play with it as soon as we got back to the hotel. I was like, "Seriously? We can't play with their toy before we give it to them." But, despite my resistance, I somehow ended up lying on the middle of the living room floor with Justin and Jesse looking at all of the stars in our galaxy being projected on the ceiling. I must say, it was a pretty cool toy and the guilt of playing with their toy seemed to disappear as we gazed up at the stars. That weekend we went to see Star Wars in 3-D. We had a great time.
The day after Jesse left, my parents came down to celebrate Christmas with us. My mom is one of the greatest cooks. She pulled off a delicious Christmas dinner in a hotel. That requires skill. You could seriously smell our meal all the way down our hallway. We of course continued our tradition of Christmas pajamas and a movie on Christmas Eve night. We watched Fred Claus and snuggled up in our pajamas. We had to skip the hot chocolate this year though due to the 91 degree weather. Santa came to see as us usual, and we were super spoiled as usual too. It was a wonderful weekend that ended all to quickly.
Saturday, Justin and I took all of our boxes to Fed-Ex so they could be shipped up for our transition to Iowa City, Iowa. Sunday, we headed to the airport at 8:00 AM for our flight. At 6:00 PM they finally officially cancelled our flight and had us reschedule for the next day. We were scheduled for the first flight out of McAllen at 5:40 PM the next day. Our hotel was kind and sent someone to the airport to get us since we had turned in our rental car that morning. The next day we woke up and checked the airline website to see if any new flights had been scheduled. There were listing of flights every two hours so we called to see if we could get on an earlier flight. The lady was very helpful and scheduled us for a flight that was leaving in exactly an hour. So we did the flight of the bumble bee to get all of our things together and make our flight. When we arrived at the airport the line was so long. Half of the people were trying to reschedule flights and the other half were just trying to get checked in for the flight they were going on. After what felt like an eternity, we made it to the front of the line. The airline attendant then let us know that our 12:44 PM flight had been rescheduled for the next day at 8:35 PM. By this point, Justin is stressing out. He is ready to get to his next assignment. He called his travel agent and they were able to book us on a flight out of Laredo first thing the next morning. So we grabbed our bags and headed down to the rental counter.
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| The very long "Please help me fly to anywhere!" line. |
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| A scarf I made for Garth while we waited for our plane. |
Justin rented us an SUV and we were told that ours was being pulled around and to meet them on the curb for our vehicle. He was told we were getting an Equinox, but when we got out side the man handed us keys to an FJ. Justin questioned then man and the man told him that this was the correct car, so we took it. We must have been 20 minutes down the road when the car rental company called us and asked us if we took the FJ. I don't think the people who rented the FJ were pleased that it was missing, but we were too far gone to turn around. We were almost to Laredo when we entered a sleepy little town. On the side of the road was an adorable lab/beagle mix puppy who was trying to cross the road. It was almost hit three times and it even tried to jump up on the step of one of the trucks passing by before it was flung backwards. I yelled for Justin to pull over and we grabbed the puppy and pulled him in with us. If we would have been home, I would have had to keep him. But, there is no way we could have a big dog and travel all over. Justin pulled me up to a little grocery like store where I had them call the local dog catcher. They told me that it would be a slim chance that he would actually come. They told me to leave him outside. I walked outside and told Justin what they said. My lip started to quiver and I told Justin that we couldn't just leave him. "We will bring him with us to Laredo, but then we have to take him to the pound," he said. So I held the flea and tick infested puppy as we headed out of town. Just on the outskirts of town we saw a firework stand. We pulled over and found some people who agreed to keep him.
After we arrived in Laredo, we met up with a family we had been with in McAllen. We had our last hoorah at the little restaurant across from our hotel, where we indulged in cake and milk. A great way to end a crazy few days trying to escape the McAllen mayhem.
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