Happy Birthday(s) to two of my favorite lovebirds -> kieron and judecorp!!

We are home from St. Louis. Everything went frighteningly as planned. We arrived, Megan did her stuff, I hung out, we left. It was beautiful. I tried to do some geocaching at these nifty/easy downtown spots, but I picked a day where the St. Louis Forestry Department sent every truck they own downtown to CUT strings of lights out of trees. It was very bizarre and I felt very watched by all these people up trees everywhere I tried to went. It was sad that I didn't find any, but I did get a good walking knowledge of downtown.

Megan's presentation was really good. I'm not sure if I told her or not, so I probably should. It wasn't stuff that I've ever heard her do before and it was really interesting and smarty pants and stuff.

We took quite a few pictures, which I will get offa the camera and upload to flickr at some point.

How am I? (thanks so much to all of you who keep checking on me *smooch*) I'm doing really well. Like almost so well that I'm a little nervous about my dr's appt. tomorrow. I'm really holding my breath until I hear that heartbeat - this would have been the visit when both Tracy and Tonya didn't hear a heartbeat. So far along... I think things will likely be ok, but it is so easy to doubt.

So Megan presented at a "Media Stardom" conference this weekend in NH. It was right in the middle of the state at Plymouth State University. It was also our anniversary on Friday. :) Her presentation went very well, despite the 9 am on Saturday time slot. I did a wee bit of geocaching before the floodgates opened. I swear we bring torrential rain where ever we go on vacation. They should send us to drought-ridden countries and we could save the day. Anyway, we had a lovely time in NH. On our leisurely drive on Sunday from Plymouth to Manchester to catch our plane, we actually found an Indian restaurant and an L.L. Bean factory store.

So, we catch our flight from Manchester to Philadelphia. Everything is good. The flight is oversold. They wanted six people to voluntarily give up their seats. They offered a free roundtrip anywhere they go in the US, dinner, hotel and catching the 10:30 the next day flight. This was fine with me because I have the day off for Klumbis Day and we still have to buy plant tickets for our cruise and for my conference in December. The problem was that Megan teaches today. We told them that if they could get us home by 10 am, we'd do it. After a while, they asked us if we were ok with a connecting flight. We said we were fine with that. (seeing visions of $600 worth of plane tickets floating in our heads). This was about 8:30 pm. By 9:15 or so, we had all of our vouchers and headed to get some free dinner. We knew we wouldn't want to use our vouchers for breakfast because our flight to Columbus by way of CHARLOTTE boarded at 4:55 AM. Ugh.

~~Thus ends the happy part of this story~~

At about 10, we go out to the shuttle stop where the hotel shuttles come and where we had been told to go. At about 10:40 I called the hotel again to make sure things were still going, etc. I was told that the shuttle was full on the last trip (there were 5 stops before ours) and that he was coming back right then. At 11 I called again. I was told that the shuttle was getting flight crews, but that they would come and get us. At maybe 11:30, I called again. I was told that the shuttle was ONLY picking up flight crews and that we needed to go back into the terminal and asked for a transportation voucher to get a taxi. I told them that I was afraid that if I went in that I would miss him. She told me, "don't worry, he's NOT coming for YOU." So we go back in and everything is shutting down. We can't get back to gates because we don't have boarding passes. The check-in terminals are all vacant. At this Megan screams really loudly and maybe threw something. I swear I thought she was going to get arrested.

I was tired and cranky and couldn't deal with her screaming, so I went to the "my baggage isn't here" place and there was a guy working. We was VERY helpful and totally got us our vouchers and everything. So's we take them and head to the taxi stand. VACANT. We walked down a couple of terminals before we found a place where taxis were still coming to. We were told that because it was late, the taxis would only take money. Not even credit cards. ESPECIALLY not vouchers.

There was much crying and stomping done by both of us. Megan decides she is going to sleep in the terminal because (if you'll recall) she has to TEACH today and it is something she's never taught before. We got a tip that there are mysterious shuttles that will take the vouchers, but when we went to that place they acted like they had NO IDEA what we were talking about.

I called the hotel one more time. It was midnight. Our flight boarded in 5 hours. We were told that they had just picked up the last crew and that the shuttle would be back in 15 minutes "to begin picking up distressed travelers" and to go back out to the shuttle stop. At the stop, we encountered our firth other people who were abandoned like we were. I'm not sure how long it was (certainly more than 15 minutes) and the shuttle finally got there. There was a great deal of other drama, including the shuttle almost getting hijacked by 3 50-year-old women who had been waiting almost as long as we had and who would NOT take "the shuttle is full" for an answer.

We finally got to the hotel, had another terrifying experience by being told that the hotel shuttle didn't start running until 5 (recall that we board at 4:55), but that worked itself out. We were in our bed by 1:30 and slept until 3:45 because we caught at shuttle at 4.

I'm not sure if all that was worth the vouchers. I mean, in a way it was just one night for $600, but that was a bad strain on our relationship. It really got ugly for a while.

Oh well, it's over, we're home, the kitties are fine, the tv and computer are still here. Once I get off of here, I am going to SHOWER and put on CLEAN CLOTHES (all of our toiletries flew to Ohio at 8:00 last night...)

At lunch today, my subway sandwich came flying out of the wrapping so quickly that I spicy mustarded my right tit. Pretty... Other than that it has been a pretty good day. I *think* (knock on wood) that my barfiness is subsiding a bit. Last Friday was the worst day ever, though, I puked in the morning before I left for work and then again promptly upon arriving. Yep, AT work. Sigh. At least I had the whole restroom to myself and got a freshly cleaned pot. I've determined that it was because of the migraine I had. The only days so far when I have actually, really, puked, I have had migraines too. I think that must just step up the queasies to a level I can't handle.

This weekend was pretty good. We saw Corpse Bride (I TOTALLY didn't know it was a musical) and Flightplan (Megan has quite a thing for Jodie). Corpse Bride was really neat. I love the art and the music was good and funny. Flightplan was pretty much what you think it would be. Had some bubble tea with Chris and Stacey. Mmmm.... NEED TO CALL SHAWN!!! She probably thinks we've died or something.

We are going to NH in a couple weekends for Megan to present at a conference. I think it will be good for us to get away. We had a bad communication weekend. It was like we both thought the other was speaking in some kind of code all weekend. Needless to say there was a lot of confusion and grumpiness. It was tiring and upsetting. Hopefully things will be better when we see each other tonight.

Ahh... more recent news.

I got approved for the APHA trip. They will only pay for 3 of the 5 nights, but I think I am somewhat, begrudgingly OK with it. I booked our flights and picked out an AWESOME B&B for us to stay in. It is 20-50 dollars less than the remaining hotels and it is lovely looking. You just HAVE to check out these pics of it. I found it at the purple roofs website that lists all the queer and queer-friendly B&B's. It is pretty close to the convention center (but in the opposite direction than the hotels). It is right on magazine street so that meglett will have easy access to public transportation and all the shopping and stuff to see along there.



We also have plans for trips to St. Louis and New Hampshire in October. Those are conferences where meglett will be presenting. She actually hasn't heard back about the NH one, but here's hoping! If she doesn't get picked (which I can't imagine 'cause she's a smarty pants), then we are going to whisk ourselves off that weekend to Toronto to get hitched. It is our wedding anniversary weekend, and we were originally hoping to not add a 4th anniversary to the laundry list. I think we will likely still go *sometime* this fall to get hitched, if not that weekend. Fingers crossed for a shotgun wedding with a pregnant bride!

Speaking of which, here is this month's calendar of insems and stuffs. Not scary for those of you with delicate constitutions...