If I had my way, we would not leave the night before our flight. Steve however is a fan of doing just that. When we fly to FL, it is a long travel day. It often starts very early. Getting from our house to the airport can take an hour. Given that we need to be at the airport 2 hours before our flight that means we have to leave 3 hours before our flight. Given that we had a 7am flight that would mean leaving at 4am and getting up
Ok, so maybe Steve has a point. That extra hour may be worth it.
So there is a hotel we like to stay that has a nice shuttle service to the airport and allows us to park for the duration. It also is cool that they serve something "close" to what could be called dinner and then has a breakfast too.
So when 1/7 came I had to still finish up work. As I mentioned I had been working pretty non stop to get things done. I managed to get everything done in time as well as be packed with the car loaded by the time Zoe arrived home from school.
Once Zoe got home, all of us (except Steve) loaded up into the car and left our house. It was just a matter of a few errands.
First we stopped at the pharmacy. Any of you reading my PTR will know that January we found ourselves with some insurance issues. We had been waiting and waiting to get into the system in order to pick up some prescriptions needed before we left for our trip. Luckily, we have a great pharmacy staff here in town. When we still were not in the system, they fronted us enough medication to get through the trip. The plan then was that once we returned and the script could be ran through our insurance, the prescription would just be shortened by that same amount.
With pharmacy taken care of it was time to head to the licensing agency. With everything going on I had totally forgot that 12/31 was the day my car tabs expired. Well, a week past is one thing. Letting a vehicle sit in a parking lot with expired tabs and then driving nearly 2 weeks later home on them was another thing.
It was now getting later than I would have liked. So I was anxious to get to our next stop. It was to pick up Steve from his office. As we drove my poor ds who should be old enough to know better realized he was needing a bio break. This became urgent for him so rather than pick up Steve first, I dropped Alex off at what would have been the next stop and then went on to get Steve.
Steve was leaving his car at his office for the trip so that we could avoid his travel time back to the house (since in theory we were driving right by his office on the way to the hotel) With him now in the car we had to drive back to get Alex and to accomplish our next task. This was to go to Road Runner Sports. Steve decided he needed new shoes. Well, okay... maybe I thought he needed new shoes. He was complaining about shins and other aches and well, I am kinda weird when it comes to shoes. First sign of these things and I just don't like to mess around. He had his current pair for about 6 months. They looked great though. (unlike mine where I totally wear the black tread down to the white midsole in spots cause I wear unevenly) However they were not feeling as resilient and probably were cause for his pain. Now, normally you don't get a new pair of shoes right before a big race to run in for the FIRST TIME durning that race... but since they were the same kind he had before we both felt it would be fine.
With shoes purchased it was time to hit the bank. It was getting later and later. In some ways, I think a nice relaxed evening would have been better than all of this running around. In retrospect, I should have had Steve do the banking and shopping and even the car tabs the previous weekend or even the day before (since RR is not far from his office) Still, we went to the bank made our deposits and withdrawls and were on our way.
During this time, Kira and Josh were texting that they anticipated arriving to the hotel later than they expected too and would not be there in time for "dinner".
We arrived and checked in. Then we immediately went to the dinning room to grab dinner since it was about to end soon. Dinner that night was not too impressive. Salad, veggie sticks, clam chowder, bread rolls, lemonade and dorritos
Not great but included in the room charge so we figured it would do.
Once dinner was done, Zoe was dying to go swimming. It was then that we realized that Alex had not followed my lists and packed two swim suites. He had not even packed ONE.
Steve had some extra shorts that would work or so we thought. So Steve took Alex and Zoe to the pool while I went and had my epic battle on the dreadmill. First, why do they keep exercise rooms so hot? I thought I was dying of a heat stroke by the end of my run. Second, not running on a treadmill often has left me kinda of "illiterate" when it comes to their use. Push this button to start.. go faster... just how fast is my pace.
I spent the entire run "tinkering" with the settings. Finally, I was not only at the right setting but had run the few miles I had planned.
The kids had a nice long swim and were done at the same time as me. Since the pool was next to the exercise room (the view on the treadmill is that of the pool) we all headed up to the room together. It was then that I realized that the shorts Steve had given him would NOT work for the trip. Lets just say white shorts when wet are NOT the right thing to wear in public.
So with Zoe and Alex cleaned up, Steve and I decided to make a trip to a walmart that is near by. Oh my goodness this was the wrong choice. First, this walmart is probably the SCARIEST place I have EVER shopped at. Second, they had NO swimming trunks. We did see some flip flops though that would work well for Zoe on the trip. So we grabbed those and some snacks and left.
It was very late at this point. Too late to head to the actual mall (which we should have just done to begin with) and Kira and Josh were about to arrive.
We beat Kira and Josh to the hotel. I showered to get ready for bed since I knew it would be better to take care of that then rather than in the morning. (which would really be more like the middle of the night)
Once Kira and Josh arrived, we all got settled in to go to bed. We had booked a 2 room suite. So there were 2 queens in one room and a king in a separate room. It was far later than I had hoped, but getting to bed at 10pm didn't worry me too much. After all, I figured I could get some sleep that night...followed by some sleep on the plane and finally get caught up the next night or so. Or so I thought...
Next up:
1/8 - Official Arrival Day
How very exciting that you are going down for PHM weekend! Don't say "just the 10k" You should be proud to be able to do 6.2 miles. So many people can't even go a half mile. And as for nerves... I get nervous before each race...even my 5ks. Plus... the princess weekend is so very fun. Don't get me wrong, the Donald was great. But the fact that it was a weekend devoted to a wide array of races and had a lot of men... it just was a different sort of feel. 
Glad you are here. 
I understand being busy... just in case you want to though... know I will have the link in my signature. 
I am so glad you are here.
