Bittersweet day

Today was a bittersweet day for me.   I went to pick up a few remaining things in my old car and get the license plate.   I really felt like I was saying goodbye to a great friend, Tina says that I'm just a sappy old lady and too sentimental.

About 2 weeks ago the insurance company totaled out my Jetta L   A little over a month ago while driving home from work in Baltimore I hit a deer about 125 miles from home at 2am.   This deer was pretty big (10 point) and it hit so hard that the airbag went off.  The car did all the safety things that Volkswagen say it will do.   It shut off the engine, unlocked the doors, turned on the 4 way flashers, turned on the dome lights and cracked open the windows.   It is one of those things you really don’t think about all the safety features until you need them.   I was lucky and didn’t get injured in the accident, the deer wasn’t so lucky though.  

I normally don’t get to attached to things but I had really grown fond of my Jetta,  it got great fuel economy and in the 107,000 miles I put on it in 3 years I only had to replace 2 tires and a battery.   The reliability has just been great!  It is funny too when I first got it I really didn’t care for the color, and solely got it for the fuel economy.  The sales person said that after driving it a while you will really come to love it and in the end I did.

I was talking with my youngest today and we were talking about some of the interesting things that the car has seen and done.    One of her cool memories was last year for the last day of school I picked her up from school and I had brought Pat (my chicken) for meet her.   Pat road to and from that day on the emergency brake handle happy as could be.  Christa thought that it was the coolest thing too.

In my former job my Jetta was a working office.   I had a inverter wired up on the back trunk and had a laser printer in the trunk where I would print up paperwork for the aircraft that I would be handling that day.   I used to drive her out on the ramp next to the airplane on many different air force bases.   With the big trunk I carried everything I needed to be able to do my job and still have room.   I can't count how many hours I sat in it awaiting the plane to depart.  She transported many crew as well to and from the aircraft.

She was there through 2 major surgeries that I had; I still to this day remember each trip back from the hospital and home.   At that time we were living in Summerville and both trips were 12 hour rides and they were the 2 most painful drives home I have done. 

Over the last 5 months I have been traveling back and forth between Rock Hill and Baltimore and she has kept me safe when I have taken naps in rest areas in my travels as well.

So today I said goodbye to my old Jetta as the tears of sadness came out.   I wanted s something to remember her by and all the good time I had with her.   As I was leaving the wrecking yard I pried off the VW emblem off the trunk.  I hung it from the rear view mirror today of  her replacement.  I got a 2011 red Jetta with the exact same package as the last one and it too has the same diesel engine.   I am looking forward to all the new memories that this car and I will get to share.   If she is anything like the last one I am not going to be disappointed at all!

   

Road Trip

We had a wonderful weekend at my 2nd Home. J   We left Rock Hill Friday morning and got up to New Hope pretty late in the evening.   Like usual pulling up the driveway was like pulling up to home.  This is the 1^st time that I have seen snow on the ground there though.   It was just a light dusting but very pretty.

Saturday was a special day for Christa because it was her birthday.  We got a wonderful salted caramel cake, it tasted so good!  

One of the other reasons was we also needed to make plans for Brenna’s wedding in December.   We are going to have all family that is coming to the wedding stay there, as well as we are going to do the wedding there too.  

On Sunday we took Brenna to Virginia Beach to spend her spring break with Monty her fiance.   We got a late start so when we finally got back to New Hope it was close to 1 am in the morning.  We were dragging Monday morning for sure.

In total we drove a little over 2000 miles this long weekend.   The only bad thing that happened this weekend was I broke off a 1/3 of my tooth.   I had been babying it until we got insurance so I could get a crown on it.   

Planes and Wedding Dresses

Well I have been crazy busy sense my last post.   I left Miami and stopped a few days in Savannah GA on the way home to work 2 planes.  

I got home for 5 days and back to Miami for a day and back home to catch a plane in Charleston.   I have driven over 7,000 miles on the rental car sense the end of October when I rented it. The last 2 weeks I have had the opportunity to work a the MCC Food bank as I was passing through going home.   Seeing the huge need for food in Charleston makes me so blessed that I have a job!

Tomorrow I will get to go the church that the family has been going; I’m excited to see the church service.  Not sure how they will be with Tina and I though, they kind of seen a bit conservative.

I will head back to Miami after church for a week of the Christmas rush.  I don’t think it will be too bad we will have a plane in the early morning and in the later evening.   Last year I was working in Minneapolis and the way the planes were coming in we were only having 4 or 5 hours in-between and you had to decide between sleep or eating.

Today Tina and I took Brenna to shop for a wedding dress.  I was not really sure if we were going to find the dress of her dreams but sure thought that we could start looking anyway.  She tried on several but it was the 3^rd one that caught her eye.   I just loved how her eyes lit up; you could tell it was the one for her.   I think this was the easy part, now the work will come in planning the wedding though.   Brenna has decided that she wants a fairly small wedding and mostly inviting immediate family members.  We are thinking of having it at my 2^nd home as well to make it special.

My last weeks travels

I have been busy from my last post.   I have driven around 3000 miles in about a week’s worth of time.

A brief summary I drove from Miami home, and then the next day we drove to Tina’s mom’s house in Pennsylvania. The following day Tina and I drove up to New Hope Pa to spend a night at the Fox and Hound Inn to celebrate our 20^th Anniversary; we were kind of late being it was the 3^rd of the month but this has been the only time that I have been home though. The next day we drove back to her mom’s house so we could do Thanksgiving the next day.  The day after thanksgiving we drove home and the next day I drove to Miami back to work.

Out of the whole trip the time with Tina was so special to me.   It has been over a year sense we have spent any alone time without the girls.   What really made it special was that we stayed at The Fox & Hound Inn.  For us it is such a special place with many cool memories as a couple. For me I have so many happy memories from there and it really is my second home because of the amount of time I have spent there this year.  The last time Tina was there was when she and the girls joined me for last Christmas.   What really made this visit cool was we got to stay in room 101.  Because I have stayed at the Inn so much I have names for all the rooms but this room is the most special room out of them by far.   I call this the Rebirth room, being it was the room I recovered from after surgery and it is the starting of the new phase of life for both Tina and I.   So when I was booking this trip I was overjoyed that we could spend a night in the room and it was very fitting to celebrate our anniversary.   That night we started celebrating with a nice bottle of wine and got to share it with Sara my good friend that works there.  It was so nice to catch up on what was happening in her life and share what was happening in ours as well.  Lisa and Michael the owners of the Inn joined us later on and we all had a great time talking.   After that we headed off to dinner at DeAnna's for a wonderful dinner.  It was so romantic and the food was so good!   It was such a nice way of to end a wonderful day with Tina, what a way to reconnect with each other.