Vacations

Silence, I know, I’ve been leaving you hanging. It was a busy weekend and I left Sunday to come to San Jose. I feel like I’ve been away from home all week but there’s a note at the top of my note pad that I keep at my desk that says “It’s only Tuesday.”

The Sunday travel was nice because the airport was not busy, but I’m not use to the extra night away from home and I feel like it should be my travel home day already. I’ll be home soon enough and don’t have a planned return trip until right before Memorial Day.

I’m at a new hotel this trip because of my change of employment. It is less expensive than my other hotel, but is higher up on the hotel brand chain. Nicer hotel means no free breakfast – I don’t understand that but that is how it works.

I like my room, the bed is fabulous, the bathroom is spacious but the tv is some strange relic from the past. It is has an actual tube in it. It is about 4 feet deep and only 27 inches wide. What gives? I know what it is, the hotel furniture was configured for this strange tv and they haven’t figured out how to mount a flat screen in the room. I think maybe I’ll have to get beyond $139 a night to get the tv that zips up out of the foot of the bed.

I’m sure the double tree has a better tv situation, but I’m collecting Marriott points and I like the food options better at this hotel (I’m drooling over my options for tonight.)

In my real life I’ve been planning business and pleasure trips for the summer. It turns out if I don’t get things on the calendar early they just don’t happen. We planned a trip with Becky & Brett to go to Walla Walla in August and I’m so happy that we not only planned it but pre-paid for our hotel. How nice to get there and only have to shell out for wine and food.

We’re headed to Yakima to visit my parents for Memorial Day. I hope the weather is good, I want to do some ‘golfing’ and other outdoor activities. I’d like to invite some of the family over for outside food, but as there is lingering drama from goodness knows what it may have to be a smaller than normal group. I did book us the ‘glamour suite’ at the hotel – it has a king sized bed AND a whirlpool tub. Woo woo. I ‘m not sure what I’m excited about, we have a tub at home that fits two people. However, I don’t have to clean the one at the hotel so I guess it would be ok to bring on the sparkly, fizzy bath bombs that I won’t let into my own house.

I know it’s more than 5 months away, but we’ve also booked our romantic 1 year anniversary celebration. We’re headed to a concert at a winery here in the bay area and then to Monterey for a weekend of playtime. I’m happy to report that I parted with some of the free hotel nights I’ve earned for this weekend. I’m pretty stingy about using those, but a romantic weekend in wine country with my hubby of one year seems like a worthy cause. We booked early to get the free rooms and to get good tickets to the concert. You have to be on top of those things or you’ll be sitting in your car wishing you were inside.

We’ve booked a lot of fun weekends this year, and will be camping in August, but I am short on vacation time because of my newness to the company. It feels strange to only have one day of vacation on the books. By the time I get 5 days I’ll be taking them for the camping trip and then will have to build up for the holidays. This company has nice holiday days off and unlike MegaBank they give us the day after Thanksgiving so I don’t have to pretend to work. Sure, I’ll miss the Columbus and Veterans holidays, but I can get behind the Thanksgiving thing.

I’ll have built up vacation time again… oh yes I will.