On the Eve of my Birthday

So, tomorrow is my 43rd birthday...what's scary is that that means I am beginning my 44th(!) year on earth. My sister is turning 40 tomorrow as well. (i know, it's strange, I'm not sure how my parents worked that one out!)

I'm not getting my birthday gift until the end of the month, though. RevHub's best friend is getting married in San Francisco, so we are headed there for 6 days! Both of us have been there before, but not together. RH has been to visit his friend several times as well as a "family" trip that he took a few years ago with his father and two sisters (the year before his dad died). My one trip there was as a chaperone for our Youth Choir Tour. It was an amazing and awful trip one and the same time....it was wonderful in every way except for the fact that we were what I would call "transportationally challenged." here are a few of the highlights:

• before we ever got on the plane in Raleigh, they had to fly a completely new plane from Atlanta to RDU for us. Needless to say, we missed our connection in Atlanta and only half of the 65 of us got on another flight that night and made it to Oakland
• Half of us made it there, but for some of us the luggage made it and for some of us (including me) it didn't
• the tour bus that was supposed to pick us up could not be found upon arrival at Oakland--evidentially it did
• one of the children got left on the bus sleeping when we arrived the hostel. When she woke up 20 minutes after he'd dropped us off, she about gave the driver a heart attack when she walked to the front of the bus.
• the next night, the second half arrived --having to take the subway with their luggage from the Oakland airport to the Giants stadium to the baseball game
• we were the last ones to leave the game because once again, the bus could not be found. In talking with a woman who seemed to be using more Chinese than English (and none of us spoke Chinese), we figured out, it had a flat tire.
• One day the driver showed up with a significantly smaller bus and we had seven people who sat on the floor in the aisle
• Finally, to top the week off, the bus failed to show up to take us to the airport. That was after the choir director and most of the choir had decided to stay awake all night since the bus was coming at 5 a.m. anyway and they could sleep on the plane. We got about 15 folks to the airport via alternate means and they made the original flight. when the rest of us finally got to the airport about 10 a.m. on Sunday, we were told that the next flight that we could get on was at 4 p.m. Monday! However, they would good enough to divide us up with a few youth and at least one adult in a group and put us on other flights...the only problem was that we were in Oakland and all the other flights were out of San Fran or San Jose and we had to hire transportation between airports. I was in the last group that flew out at 11 p.m. on Sunday, but we were the first to arrive in Raleigh at 1 p.m. on Monday (we were supposed to be home on Sunday by 5 p.m.)

SO....I only hope that this trip is better transportationally speaking than my last!!!

Well...I forgot to mention, part of my gift is that we are renting a convertible mustang! Surely that will be better!