Magical Days

I had nine (count them NINE) wonderful days with Lt Dan. Oh yeah, it was awesome!

He surprised me by showing up way early on Friday and promptly said "let's go get the insurance and tags done so they are done." We did just that. Dropped by the insurance people who I had already arranged all the paperwork for him with. Shuffled around vehicles, getting one out of storage and each of us drove one of his vehicles to the county place got the titles and tags. Shuffled the storage one back to storage and then went out for an awesome breakfast at this little local bistro that I love. We were all done by noon and back home enjoying the afternoon.

We went to Disney for a couple of days and had a really nice time. I had no idea how my husband would be in a Disney-like circumstance so it was an adventure of sorts. Lt Dan was awesome. I just told him the general plan, meaning I think you will want to go here, here and here and in this order because of various events on those days. Then I handed him the maps and let him say "follow me!" (He's very practiced at saying that by the way, maybe not necessarily those words but yeah, telling somebody to do something...fortunately he did not say it at his normal work volume!) It was so much fun, just watching him forget himself and ride the rides and listening to his comments as we watched people and just generally getting to be together without any demands but to have fun. We did that having fun thing very well.

We were able to go see Beth's Mom and family and give hugs where hugs were needed since this was also the one year anniversary of her death. We didn't go to the Coke Zero 400 (I liked it better way long time ago when it was simply the Firecracker 400 but meh) at Daytona with them because that was my last day with Dan and I didn't want to spend it at the race, not to mention his having to drive back the next day. Still it was really good to see everybody and Dan got to meet them all for the first time. It appears he has passed muster ;)

Fourth of July we took Megan and her husband to the beach and spent the whole day there. It was a perfect beach day and we had a blast.

Then a relaxing day at home and suddenly...he was gone. Bleah. Still they were magical days and I'm very happy to have had them.

Confessions

I love noisy powerful fast things. Yep. I took the weekend off and went to a Living Green Expo on Saturday and an Air Fest on Sunday.

I love going to the air fest and watching/hearing /feeling really loud, really powerful, really fast jets and planes. There is also a certain thing about the smell of jet fuel. I don't know, don't ask.

My sister finally went with me, I've been trying to convince her for years. She had such a great time and since her passion is meteorology having all the NOAA planes and the Air Force Hurricane Hunter there for her viewing pleasure was quite the thrill for her. I was so surprised and proud of her normally shy self bombarding the crew of the Hurricane Hunter with questions. They were thrilled, apparently nobody even asked them what it is they do and how they do it. Weird here in hurricane land, at least I think so. Lisa knows a lot about what they do and how they do it but this gave her the opportunity to see the equipment and ask lots of informed questions. It was wonderful to watch her and to watch the crew light up when given the opportunity to talk about what they do.

I didn't take my camera so the picture I posted was taken with Lisa's little one. She took the picture, I was too busy crying like a dork. Something at the air show always gets me. This time it was the F-4/P-51/F-15 Heritage Fly-by. Between the music, a haunting Celtic song that reminded me of the one I chose to play at the end of Zach's memorial service, and the dedication, and seeing those generations flying by, together (which takes a huge amount of skill for them to do by the way) I was a suddenly a puddle. I've said before that my family is military, my father's side way back, my mother's side way back and my siblings and niece as well. So the fly-by brings back for me, my heritage also, and memory of those that are gone now. I really am proud of our country, with all it's youth and foibles and those in the military who serve on our behalf, are some of the very best in the world.

The living green expo was awesome. Lots and lots of ideas and things to do either to this home or the dream house. Technology is coming along nicely, if only we had easier access to it, either in terms of being able to afford it, or plan and have the option to include it in our houses when we build them. I could have a rant here but I won't. There wasn't much for me to learn about ways to recycle and make less of an impact than I already do, but it was still really an interesting day.

I had great fun taking the weekend off, got a sunburn on my forehead in spite of my ginormous hat--I had to take it off sometimes to let wind blow and cool my head off, got my picture taken in some rediculous fingers-in-ears, mouth-open pose (I hope that doesn't show up in the paper really) and had a blast!

Wordless Wednesday?