The end of 09- Time for a wrap up!

****I had to break up these posts, because I find blogger to be really hard to use with more than 6 images in a post. I get really impatient with it and having to move them one by one.

We just got home from visiting family in Illinois and yes, I did say "WE"! Caleb's back! Woohoo! After an entire 4 weeks apart- our longest yet, we were finally reunited. And of course, because there is travel involved, and it is us... there was of course a snag.

I flew in to St Louis Thursday (Dec 17th) late at night, landing just after midnight and set to stay with my dad. Caleb was to land in Chicago the next afternoon and then drive the 5 hours to Carbondale to meet up with me. He lands and all is well... except the car they're driving in breaks down on the side of the highway in Chicago! After an hour of calling rental car places, we discover that no one will rent a car for a one way trip. Boo. He ended up having to take the Amtrak the next morning arriving about 18 hours later than expected. But we were FINALLY back together! He did have quite a bit of jet lag and ended up falling asleep at 6pm that night and waking me up at 4 in the morning though! But I missed him so much I didn't care at all! He was surprised to see how big the baby had gotten and felt her kick for like an hour in the middle of the night.

While I was in Illinois, Makaya and I ran out for a quick last minute photo session for some maternity pics. I can't wait to see them and will post them here or link to them when I can.

We both ended up catching colds. I'm just almost over mine now.

We then both ended up catching the stomach flu- luckily it was 24 hour variety, but unluckily- CB came down with it on the way to the airport before our 7am flight. He threw up in the backseat of my dad's car, so we called Southwest- cancelled our tickets and rescheduled for the next morning. We went back to my dad's and spent the day hanging out (on opposite sides of the room, since I was still trying to not get sick) and watching Food Network. At about 10pm and an entire day of quarantine, I threw up too. So we got back on the phone with the airline and rescheduled our tickets for a few hours later in the day, cause there was no way I was going to get up at 4:30am not knowing if I was still sick. Love that Southwest doesn't charge fees- just makes you pay the fare difference. By that time, we had already paid the max, so no additional fare for the 2nd change. But it did mean that our boarding order was reset to the C group. Boo. We had been in the A group. She said we could pay $15 to upgrade the ticket the next day to business class to board first. We woke up feeling pretty good, so we decided to make the flight. BUT when we got there, she couldn't upgrade one ticket to business class. I mentioned that I was 6 months pregnant and not wanting to sit separate and the lady said they'd let us pre-board- Just like that! Woohoo! We got seats together for both flights. I felt a little bit guilty about pre-boarding, but considering all that we'd been through the last couple days, I decided to get over that guilt. I guess pregnancy is considered enough of a disability to allow for pre-board.

We finally make it home and at some point, checked our bank statement to see the holiday damage and start planning our maternity leave budget... We then discovered that someone had gotten my debit card number and charged 14 different purchases at various gas stations in Southern California for around $75 each!!! We got had for $1049 total! After about 30 minutes on the phone, Caleb got the ball running on getting the money back and I faxed in the affidavit saying they were fraudulent charges and we hopefully should get the money back in a few weeks. Bummer, but it was money we were saving for my maternity leave anyway, so as long as we have it back by the time she's born, I'll be okay with that.

All in all it was a great trip home (pictures follow in the next few posts).

We had an amazing 2009. The band had a lot of awesome opportunities- which also meant that he was gone a lot though. I was top booker at work- casting about 22,000 people- I wonder if that is a record. haha We also had some sad times in 2009- both of us having a grandmother pass away in August.

Looking forward to an amazing and life changing 2010. Our baby girl will shake things up in a way I don't think either of us can even fathom yet. I'm also really looking forward to taking some time off work when she comes. The band will be releasing their first full-length album in the late Spring, which we will be awesome too.

Happy New Year everyone!!