There's no place like home!

Wow. I didn't realize how long it's been since I last wrote. Chance's grandfather got out of the hospital a few days later. He is now on oxygen. He's doing as well as he can be with all of his problems.

The last Friday in June, Chance had a wreck in this horrible rain we've had. He was on his way to work and as he was pulling onto the highway, a guy came speeding by, hydroplaned and slid right in front of him. He of course hit the guy and they both ended up in a ditch. Chance went down to the bottom, up the back side and back down to the bottom again. He said it felt like the truck was going to roll. It didn't, thank goodness. The cop told him that he was very lucky it didn't. He said that in 99% of accidents like that one, trucks like his almost always roll. Chance was really shaken up that day. He's still a bit leary in the rain but is doing OK. The cop jumped all over the guy who was young and a serviceman. He told the guy that he could issue him a citation for driving recklessly in bad weather. The man said he understood. He said he was on his way to work and had just got back from Iraq. Since there wouldn't be any problems with insurance, Chance told the officer to let him off. He was fully insured and his insurance paid for the truck to be fixed. He wanted to do something good for someone who fights for our country.

My long awaited two-week vacation to visit Tina has come and gone. I report back to work on Monday. I do have to say, as much as I was looking forward to all our adventures, I was so ready to come home. So was everyone else. We first went to Nashville, and I must say, people in Tennesse drive crazy! OMG! I just couldn't believe it. There was tons of construction, but we found our hotel just fine. We dined at the Hard Rock that first nite and by coincidence, it was just across the way from the Titans' arena. So we killed two birds with one stone. Got some pictures and were happy to be able to leave straight away the next morning for Gatlinburg.

We found Gatlinburg very easily but had to endure Pidgeon Forge to get there. It took us 1 hour to go 12 miles. It was not fun! It was very crowded and touristy. We were happy when we pulled into Gatlinburg. It was still touristy, but was very quaint and people were able to walk down the sidewalks to get to everything. We found our cool hotel and I must say we were very pleased with it. I took pictures of that too. It was way on the mountaintop and we could look down at the city from our room. We loved it!!! We ate in the restaurant and swam every day we were there. On our day in the city, we took the kids to most of the Ripley's places: Believe it or Not, the aquarium, the haunted house, and the moving movie theatre. Tristan got to see the famous cars. And we shopped a bit too. Taylor and I got our pictures made with Johnny Depp and Keith Urban. Oh yea, that was fun.

We then ventured on to Pennsylvania. We were not as impressed with this state but we saw very little of it and our hotel was in a very industrial area. So, I can say I didn't get to see much of it to form a true opinion. We took the kids to Hershey Park and it was so fun. That was one of the best amusement parks I've ever been to. It has a water park, zoo and of course the chocolate factory as well as the amusement park part of it. Tristan got his picture made with all the characters. We got soaked on the rides. We chose not to do the water park part of it but if we ever go back we probably will. That's Tristan's favorite part. We bought tons of chocolate. It was a wonderful day and I was so glad we went. The next day we left our hotel and found Gettysburg. We stumbled upon it so we didn't exactly do the official full tour. But we followed the signs from were we joined up and went from there. It is a huge place and there are many statues. But Tina was right, it's a bunch of grass and trees. You do have to use your imagination. I took tons of pictures of neat statues and the big overlook place for the worst part of the battle. Chance was happy. This was his part of the vacation.

After Gettysburg, we went straight to Tina's house. She has a beautiful 3 story house (they get to use basements there!). Her husband John is a carpenter and let me tell you, he does beautiful work. He totally fixed up this house and made furniture and everything. She looks just the same as she always has. She took us everywhere we wanted. We hit the Smithsonians and this time I got to see the Natural History museum. It was really cool. I saw the Hope diamond. That thing is gorgeous! Took some pics of course. We went to Williamsburg. Our chocolate melted when we drove down there. Didn't realize we weren't going to the hotel first so yeah, the 3000 degree heat melted it all. I have tried to salvage it. It got cooked a few times on the trip. I am disappointed in that but oh well, it's just chocolate. We shopped while there. She knew all the good stores...they frequent Williamsburg quite often. We ended up not doing Busch Gardens. We opted instead to go to see Monticello. That was cool but my son got kicked out. He was a bit too fidgety. So Chance took him out even though I wanted to and he didn't get to see the inside. That was very interesting. Even Taylor thought it was cool although she was not fond of Williamsburg. Tristan was a bit too young to understand what it was all about. In hindsite, I wish we had done Busch Gardens, but we were so tired at that point, we were trying to make it easy. We learned that if you go visit someone, it is not good to have a whole week of vacation and driving before hand. Your hosts are happy and ready to go, and you are all tired and having a hard time keeping up.

When we got back from Williamsburg, she took us back to DC to see all the monuments. Taylor thought that part was pretty cool too. I was happy to see it all again. It was so freakin hot there...at least between 98 and 100 degrees each day. I know I sweated at least 50 pounds off, but alas, my clothes still fit. I walked so much, probably more that I have this whole year. It was good for me. I cryed the night before we left. I just didn't want to leave Tina again. I miss her so much. I wish we were closer to each other. We ended up leaving a day early. We were so tired and homesick by that point. We just couldn't pull out another day of sight seeing. We planned to stop in Nashville again, but we made such good time we kept going. In fact, we ended up going all the way home in one ride. Not sure how we did it. Got up and 5 a.m. (4 a.m. OK time) and left about 6:30. Got to our house at 2:30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. eastern). We were up almost 24 hours. But we made it and came in and went right to bed in our own beds.

So we got an extra day at home bonus before work. That was nice. I have been happy to cook. We are tired of eating on the road. Doing a ton of laundry again. But I am happy to do that too. Home sweet home. Nothing like it. I am so happy I got to see Tina. I hope it is not so long again before I do again. She mentioned stopping by next summer as they will be visiting a friend in Texas. I hope they do but I'm not sure where I would put them in this house.

I finally got a chance to read everyone's blogs today. I enjoy reading them and I missed them so much. I tried to log on in the hotels but spent most of my time checking email. I didn't have links on the laptop to check it all out. Plus, we were all fighting for time on the puter. I see more laptops in our future! LOL

Well I guess that's enough for now. I am going to download my 400 + pictures. Can't believe I took that many! Oh and we got some video too. That is cool. Been a long time for us. Our old camera is broken. If I can figure out how to download, I will try to get a clip or two.

Later gators!