THE ROCKY ROAD

We got back Monday afternoon from our trip to Nashville for my friend Chaitra's wedding and seeing my friend Genevieve for the first time in over 8 years. We had sooo much child free fun but the trip started out incredibly rocky. Our flight was supposed to leave at 11:30 am on Thursday and we were supposed to be at the airport by 10:30am. However, my dad called early Thursday morning to inform me a transformer blew or something and we needed to be at the airport by 9:30 am which messed with the arrangements for the boys and my sleep since I stayed up until 3am cleaning my house for my nieces. I didn't believe my dad and it took a lot of him convincing me to just turn on the TV and watch for myself. So my mom came to get the boys and my dad came to take us to the airport through the torrential downpour we were having. We got to the airport and there was no electricity which means besides no lights there was no air conditioning, no escalators, no elevators, and no computers. The only lights were emergency lights which basically lit the way to walk and that is it. A dark airport is a scary airport. I immediately thought we would be sitting there ALL day. Seriously I wondered how an airport could function without computers and correctly get everyone and their luggage to the correct destinations. Can you imagine how many years they've run completely by computers? They had to hand write our tickets and luggage claim tickets. Well we left only about ten minutes late but so did the rest of the airport flying Northwest on OUR flight. They decided they needed to get all their passengers out of Tulsa and to Memphis which is the Northwest hub then get them to their final destinations. I think they would've set people on our laps if they could. It was crazy. THEN we sat right next to the bathroom and I truly believe EVERYONE on the plane with the exception of me and Martez took a trip to the bathroom to crap! Every time the door opened a nasty wave of toxic waste remains came our way and I gagged and Martez just looked like he wanted to puke. I think some of them were dying inside. We could actually hear the nastiness going on in there. Why did we have to sit there why???? Well we had a layover in Memphis and walking through the airport Martez sees Young Buck who apparently is from Tennessee. I didn't really care but he was excited. He just kept saying he is really walking through the airport without security. Hmmm obviously there is a reason for that - he isn't that famous yet! Then on our connecting flight to Nashville Young Buck was on our plane. It was rather funny because he was in first class which I know he payed more for but first class was not the normal first class. Generally they go a different way from the other passengers to a posh area of the plane. Not this one baby! He was in a seat exactly like ours and first class consisted of about ten seats separated by a piece of plastic that went from the ceiling to the top of the last first class seat. I just laughed! Those suckers paid more for THAT! Ha! Well we made our connecting flight to Nashville and everything seemed fine. Notice I said seemed! We landed and met up with Chaitra and Larry since we were getting a rental car they were just going to ride with us. I got up to a counter to a gentlemen that barely spoke English period so me understanding him was quite a feat. Sometimes he repeated things about five times trying to sell me all the bells and whistles for the rental and didn't want to take no for an answer! His computer completely crashed three times always right at the end of everything so he had to start all over. Then his shift was over so someone else took the information on that same computer and it crashed again. While she was trying to start over I said I am not giving you anymore info until you switch computers. I explained that was the fourth time I had been through the entire process and I was tired of it! She switched computers and it crashed twice. I guess it would flash something at the end and then reboot. It was flashing not to rent to me for an invalid drivers license. WHAT? I just renewed my license a month ago. Only in my world! Then I remembered when I got my new license they had added a V in front of my license number but I didn't notice it for a couple of weeks. I explained this to the clerk and asked her to try it without the V because my license was valid and if it wouldn't work then we would use my husband's license. She tried it and it worked! Finally an hour and a half later we had our car they even upgraded to a durango for all the problems!! I don't know why the V is there and I intend to go back to the tag agency and ask. Chai said they were going to start to put A's and V's in front of people's license number but we don't know why. They really shouldn't do that if it makes the license invalid in out of state computers. That could cause a big mess. After Martez almost killed us on the highway we were insanely relieved to be at the hotel. Chaitra went to eat with her family and we stayed in the room! Hehe! Later we walked to go eat and afterwards decided to walk around. There were beggars everywhere we looked. I told Martez I wanted to go back to the room and leave off my purse because we were really uncomfortable. On our way a man stops us and asks us if he could wash our car windows for money to get food aka alcohol. He continued to ask three times! I wanted to say "Are you serious you big idiot we are walking how do you expect to wash our car windows!" BUT I didn't! We just walked to the hotel where we met up with them to go out. Next morning Martez took them to get their marriage license and I stayed back to get ready and told him to call on his way back and I would meet them downstairs. Long story short three hours later he calls to tell me they were told the wrong place to get their license then they got extremely lost and Chaitra was pissed and hungry! Uh oh! You don't mess with her especially if she is upset - I love her but she can be brutal! We were all starving and went to eat late breakfast when I got the call! In the middle of breakfast my dad calls to say there was an accident at my house that I am not even going to get into and my niece Monika was being rushed to the emergency room. I seriously thought it was a truly sick joke. It wasn't! She got 8 stitches in her bottom lip! I was soooooo upset, on the phone wanting to fly home and cried all day until 5pm before we went to the rehearsal dinner. Can we say red puffy eyes?!?! The only funny part of the day was when Chaitra's friend Chelle arrived and found out we rode in a plane with Young Buck! She LITERALLY fell to the ground crying in disbelief that I didn't give him her number. Seriously!!! That cracked me up and I needed that. So after the BBQ we went downtown with some friends and Larry's family. We had a good time and found out Larry's uncle Greg is actually Martez's cousin. It seems like everywhere we go he knows someone or is related to someone! I was determined to make Saturday a good day and calm Chaitra's jitters!

Today was going to be all about her except for the next phone call. I talked to my dad yet again with bad news. My water got shut off! WHAT?!?!?!? He asked if I wanted him to go pay the bill but I informed him the bill was already paid and I would call to check on the problem. I pay most of our bills online but I called City of Tulsa and she couldn't find my payment so I went downstairs to use the hotel computer and saw that it had already come out of our account. I called the lady back to inform her of this but couldn't give her a confirmation number from the payment because I was in Tennessee and it was at home in a pile of papers. Long story short somewhere along the way the computer messed up and put the wrong balances on Choicepay so I underpaid a bill by $7.60 at sometime and they kept carrying it over as past due instead of applying money to the past due first. Beware of this if you use Choicepay to pay City of Tulsa utilites. Yes you read that right the messed up city of tulsa turned off my water for a past due amount of $7.60. Seriously only in my world!!!!!! I paid the $7.60 and the water was back on in a couple of hours! Why in the world would they shut it off? They should be able to look at my account history and see I must have just made a mistake worth $7.60 because I always pay my bill but no that would actually take effort or concern!!!! I then informed my amazing father that I would no longer be answering phone calls from him so he could either have my mom call or he could just call Martez's phone! Well the wedding went off without a hitch and Chaitra looked so happy and beautiful!

My feet however were a different story! I wore new heels that I should have worn in before the trip but I didn't realize everything would be so close so we would be walking almost everywhere! I thought I had just calluses in a weird spot but would find out Monday night after 2 1/2 painful days that they were dime size blisters. Now I am in desperate need of a pedicure!!! Genevieve showed up Saturday afternoon. I really needed her she just didn't know how much! We went out that night and had SOOOOOOOOOOO much fun! Then we tried to walk through 2 drive thrus! Don't even ask! Sunday we went to Hard Rock, the mall then back downtown where we took a horse drawn carriage ride and went out for a little bit. Sunday night though we were all about to crash. I called and got an earlier flight home and there it ends. I realized after getting home about in tears over my feet that they were blisters so I popped them and all is well. I have been soooo tired this week! I have fallen asleep at my computer all week at work. Shhhhh don't tell! Then crashed when I got home for a couple of hours. I have realized I am getting older and glad I grew out of the club lifestyle. At least to that extent! I like to go out don't get me wrong but I am too old for four nights in a row!! Those WERE the days! I think the best part of the trip besides the wedding was watching my babies run to us down the corridor of the airport. I didn't realize Elijah could run that fast and Isaiah trying to keep up was just hilarious! It felt great! They missed us and we missed them! They make my world go round and I can't imagine my life without them! I am very very happy to be home! So much for a stress free, child free vacation! I think we'll just take the kids next time and ignore the phone