Pre Holiday Recap

I have been out of the blogging routine for a little while now. I have many good excuses including being in New York for six days and braving high waters and landslides. Luckily, I survived all my recent adventures relatively unscathed. So, before posting some pictures I just wanted to give a quick recap of the past few weeks, starting with my friend's wedding.

I headed to New York on December 18th for my friend Jen's wedding just outside of New York city. It was great to be able to meet up with so many of my good friends. I really enjoyed being in NYC again as well. It has been several years since my last visit, so I enjoyed walking amongst other tourists and city dwellers. The first night I met up with my friend Beth who is now living in Princeton, NJ. I met up with Beth at Penn Station after arriving at JFK. We had a great evening reconnecting and walking around the city. We spent some time at Bryant Park and Rockefeller center. I actually saw Al Roker, and the rest of the Today show crew doing a taping in the evening. It is always so surreal seeing people on tv in real life. After doing some walking we had a nice dinner on the upper west side. Beth's good friend Meg, offered her apartment for us to stay at. So, we headed over to Meg's for some shuteye before meeting up with the Cortland girls at Grand Central Station.

The next day, Beth came with me to meet up with the wedding crew. It really worked out well that we all came together on Friday morning. I loved how we came from so many directions to meet in one place. Erin, from Germany. Tricia, from North Carolina. Lesley, from California and myself from Oregon. We were lucky all of our planes arrived on time before the wedding. After saying goodbye to Beth, we got on a train to go upstate. It had started snowing heavily so the city looked amazing as the train took us up north. Due to the snow it took us awhile to get our rental car and make our way to Lesley's parent's house. Also due to the snow, Jen's rehearsal and dinner were cancelled. We were sad that it had to be cancelled, but also so glad we could at least be together. The wedding and reception was an amazing event. Jen and Jonathon went all out and put together a very fancy reception. The seven piece band was steller and the food was amazing. It was so great to be able to celebrate with everyone.

The next few days we just spent hanging out together and relaxing before we all had to head our separate ways. I was the designated driver for the weekend, which was kind of fun to drive through all the snow with a four wheel drive vehicle. Everyone else was a bit scared to drive in the snow. They never have to drive in the snow anymore, so I was the only one with the most recent snow driving experience. The weekend really was great until I was on my way to the airport on Monday. I arrived at Grand Central with Tricia. Her mom was checking our flights for us and told me that my flight had been cancelled. I about died, because I knew it was going to be tough to reschedule my flight. When I finally arrived at the Delta desk after waiting for an hour, they first told me that the first scheduled flight I could get on was on the 27th. Keep in mind it was only the 22nd. There was no way I was going to miss Christmas with Meadow and Todd. After some deep breathing and walking and talking to another Delta agent, I at least had a flight coming back on Christmas day. I just had to hope that I could get on the standby flight the next day.

After a restless night in a hotel that night, I headed back to old JFK airport (which had quickly become my least favorite airport.) I might also add that my other horrific flight experience involved JFK. After a long day of waiting in a line, just to activate my standby status, and slowly watching my number go up and up, I received terrific news. I was one of the last people to make it on the flight. Thank God for busy traffic in NYC. The woman I sat next to on the plane told me her husband had missed the flight. She actually was really happy for me that I got her husband's seat because he actually was fine waiting one more day to get to the in law's. The whole experience made me very grateful for many things, including time with family. I just couldn't believe I was going to be one of those people stuck in the airport over the holidays. I just felt so blessed that at least Meadow wasn't stuck with me having to deal with all the lines and the waiting. It felt so good to see her and Todd that evening. I can't even put into words how I was feeling when I was able to finally give her a kiss and hug that night.