The Final Wedding Weekend of the Summer

For us this has been a summer of weddings.  Denver, Chicago, Cleveland and now Charleston.  It’s weird how after a couple of summers with no weddings… BAM we get hit with 4 in one summer.  Certainly not complaining – we had a BLAST! (See: I Poked The Wedding Cake, Combos, Fireworks and Canoes – The Bachelor In Brookville and A Weekend With The Boys Part I and Part II for details).

This weekend’s travel was not without incident (is it ever?)

There’s no way to get directly from Cleveland to Charleston so we had to connect through Charlotte.  Not a big deal except for the fact that Amanda nearly froze her feet off on the first leg.  The air conditioning apparently had a vent right under her seat that was conveniently blowing at top speed for the entire flight.  I was sitting across the aisle from “woman who falls asleep before we pull back from the gate”.  Not only was she sleeping the entire flight but she also decided to wear a top that was two sizes too small.  Let me tell you… sleeping with a top on that’s too small leaves little to the imagination.  Thank god she was only about 250 lbs or things could have really gotten ugly.  Directly behind us was “I snore so loud you can hear me over your noise canceling headphones” guy.  Awesome.

So we get to our destination in Charleston, head out on the town, do some shopping, etc.  Anyone that knows me knows that I absolutely detest shopping.  I don’t “browse”.  When I’ve got something to buy, I walk into the store, buy it and leave.  A on the other hand loves to window shop.  She moseys from store to store just looking for stuff in the off chance that she might find something to purchase.  Kill me.  Amanda has but one weakness – options.  It is her Kryptonite.  So you can imagine the predicament I found myself in when we entered a store with a zillion pieces of jewelry.  Let me just say it was quite some time before we were out of there.

After an amazing dinner where we didn’t have to spend time feeding a 1 year old or chasing a 3 year old we met up with the guys for a night on the town which was a great way to kick off the wedding festivities.  We then returned back to the room to settle in for the evening.  I was dozing while the wife was getting ready for bed until she let out a blood curling scream (she’s got a career in horror movies if she ever chooses).  Cockroach.  Hell yeah.  Let me tell you – nothing like moving rooms at 1:00 AM after having a few drinks.  To their credit, the Hampton took care of us and even comped the room.

The wedding took place on Saturday evening (special thanks again to Chris & Katie for including us – it was awesome) which meant that we had all day Saturday to fill.  We took the opportunity to head to the beach for a nice relaxing day.  It was overcast so I figured I’d be OK for an hour or so without any sunblock – boy was I wrong.  Being as I was in the ocean for that entire time I’ve got a nice line of white/red running right across my back where the water level was.  I (of course) was told on multiple occasions by my loving wife just how stupid I was not to have worn sunscreen from the get go.  She was right (of course) but I’ll never tell her that.  At this point two days later my back feels kind of like my skin is 4 sizes too small.  The shower felt like hot magma cascading down on me.  Good times.

The flight back was full of interesting tales as well.  We got to Charlotte and were met with rain.  The airport was closed down for about an hour for this.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to a lot of airports where it was raining and I’ve never seen the airport be shut down.  Thank God it didn’t hail or even * gasp * snow.  Apparently we’re not the only ones traveling from Charleston to Cleveland that ran into issues.  Bryjack was booked on another flight into another Cleveland airport (scheduled 2 hours before ours) and got home 2 hours AFTER us.

And finally… from the “we have too much time on our hands” department, check out what my friendly co-workers greeted me with this morning when I got back to my desk.  I took two days off and they of course took the opportunity to bust my balls about “how often I’m off”.  Thanks guys.

I can only imagine what will happen if I ever take a full week out of the office.  I’m guessing my desk will be nothing more than a pile of smoldering ashes when I return.

And after all of this our summer of weddings is now officially over.  That said, we’re certainly not done with our travels.  Our fall is shaping up quite nicely: family clam bake, a trip to State College to hang out with the KillTheCan.org crew and a trip in October to get crazy with Pip.  Stay tuned!