Friday, April 22, 2005 - The Triumphant Return of ShadowAngel and Her Family

Hey howdy hey; we have returned!

As I mentioned before, I managed to bring the bad weather down south with us for the first part of the trip, but that wasn't a big deal. We spent a lot of time outside and the weather went up into the 80's for the last few days.

We got to go out on some fun excursions - swimming at the local YMCA, a road trip to the nearest Chuck E. Cheese's (an hour away), a picnic at a lovely state park, and a day of excess at Myrtle Beach where we went to an awesome aquarium (including a tunnel where the tank is around you on all sides and a pet-the-rays area), a boat trip, to an amusement park, and to a seafood buffet.

But of course what was best was getting to see my family. We miss them a lot and I know they miss us too. They'll be up here in 6 weeks for my sister's wedding.

We had one bit of excitement during the visit: we were swimming in my parents' pool (which was super-chilly). Zipper was playing along the side and yup, you guessed it, he fell in. My dad grabbed him and had him out of the water in a few seconds. Zipper was no worse for wear. He had held his breath and was fine. It still put me on edge for the rest of the day.

The trip home was a little rough because it was a late flight and the kids were cranky and I had baggage problems. I bought a rolling backpack at Evil Walmart during the trip to use as my carryon. They put it in the scanner at the start of my journey and it came out with a strap torn off. Well, that kind of negates the purpose of bying a backpack, doesn't it? They gave me a form to file a claim with TSA, but I don't much see the point of filling out several pages and getting a repair estimate for a $20 backpack. Then my bags didn't show up when we arrived - it's 11:30 PM, I'm towing two tired, whiny kids, and I have to deal with this too? Ugh. Anyway the bags were found and sent to us the next day.

I am happy to report that Ironwolf is zipping through the atmosphere towards home this evening. His transpacific flight went fine and he'll be home in about five hours. Yay! And for my present he'll be bringing home lots of illegal DVDs, including Kung Fu Hustle (which was released in the USA today).

Unfortunately Ironwolf will be off to Boston next week. Boooo.... He's going to miss my tae kwon do belt test next week. Booooo...... Well, what can you do? It's the price we pay for being able to live on one income.

Until next time... xoxo to all of you from the ShadowAngel...