Vermont: Friday and Saturday

Michael and I slept a solid 12 hours from Thursday night to Friday morning.  We both got out of bed at some point for a bathroom trip, but were able to fall back asleep, no problem.  It's amazing what staying awake for a whole day will do to your body and how much you can sleep when children are not there to wake you up.

After a leisurely breakfast and some chill time at Aunt Sandi's house we drove in to the bustling metropolis of Enosburg for lunch.  I hope you read into my sarcasm, because there were two restaurants for us to choose from.   

After lunch we walked around a bit.  This is one of Michael's cousin's houses.  We sent him this picture (he was at work at Ben and Jerry's) and told him we were going to eat his food, watch his tv and take a nap in his bed.  He wrote back and told us to mow the lawn while we were there. 

After our walk we stopped for soft serve ice cream.  In Vermont these are called "creemees", but I absolutely refuse to use that word.   What's fantastic about this soft serve is that you can order a million different flavors- not just chocolate and vanilla- that they mix up on the spot.  I got espresso and Michael got black raspberry, although it was rather blue.

The plan for the afternoon was to visit with a bunch of different family members at their houses.  And here is where I will fill you in on some important background information.

About thee months ago, after I had a ticket to join Michael, I started sending messages to his cousins to make plans.  And then I decided.....no. I have always, for almost 14 years of marriage and almost 19 years of being together, made all of our plans.  Every party, every social get-together, every vacation, every weekend, every everything has been completely planned by me.  And I need a break.  So I told him that this was his family, his home state and his friends.  I was just along for the ride.  I really didn't care where we ate, what we ate, who we saw and what we did.  So I handed over the reigns and told him to plan the trip.  

OK.  Back to Friday.  We first drove to his Aunt Jeanine and Uncle David's house.  They own a dairy farm and live right next to it.  Nobody was home.

So, we drove down the street to his cousin Pat's house.  Nobody was home.

So, we drove further down the street to his Aunt Louise and Uncle Dwight's house.  Nobody was home.

There were no more relatives right in the vicinity so we sat down on their porch where I asked Michael if he had actually talked to any of the people and made "real" plans with a specific start time.  His answer- "not really".

Aunt Louise and Uncle Dwight actually had cell phone service on their porch (rare in that part of the state), so we called his parents to get the phone numbers of these people so we could call them.

Good planning, Michael, good planning.

After about 30ish minutes of waiting, Aunt Louise showed up, being driven by her daughter Amy (Michael's cousin).  She had been in St. Albans having an endoscopy and was still recovering from the anesthesia.  Amy warned us that she was a little loopy and saying crazy things.  That is an important piece of information for something that happened on Sunday morning, so keep it in mind. 

We ended up visiting with Aunt Louise and Uncle Dwight (when he got home from work soon after) for over an hour.  But I was a blogging failure and didn't take any pictures.

After we left we went back to Pat and Sarah's for dinner.  Another blogging failure, because they built a gorgeous new home last year and I took exactly 0 pictures of it.

I did get these calendar worthy pictures of the sunset from their front porch though.

I think they are presented in reverse order and I am not going to go back in to fix it.  Sorry.

We had a delightful time with Pat and Sarah and their kids Brady and Aliana. But the kids are not pictured, because Sarah and I were busy drinking 2.5 bottles of wine.

On Saturday Michael and I did something in the morning, but dang if I can't remember what.  In the early afternoon we went to part one of the reunion.  This was a "family" event at a park by Lake Champlain .  We went, even though we had no children with us.   If you have ever heard of the lake monster "Champ", this is the lake where he lives.  I looked, but I didn't find him.

Part two of the reunion was held at brewery that night.  We had been told that the brewery had delicious food and was known for their delectable grilled cheese sandwiches, so we didn't eat before we went.  Well, it turns out that this brewery is fairy new and not only do they not have delectable grilled cheese sandwiches, they don't have any food at all.  After two beers I was nearly on the floor. Luckily, the brewery orders 20 dominoes pizzas every night and give the slices out for free, so I was saved from having to be hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. 

There was a photo booth with props for fun pictures.

Michael graduated with close to 250 people.  Except for 3 people that are missing from the picture, this is everyone that came.  It was kind of sad.

Part three of the reunion was an after party at a bar down the street from the brewery.  I don't really know any of these people, so I will not label any of them.  We'll just call all of them "Michael's former classmates who are all now almost 40".

I also didn't take all of these pictures.  I borrowed some of them from facebook.

This is from facebook.  It is also a part of a story for Sunday morning, so remember it.

This girl in the green dress actually recognized me in the brewery without Michael being next to me.  She came up to me and asked if I was Michael's wife.  When I gave her a "look" she said she recognized me from facebook.   That is hilarious!  There were also people who approached me and said they didn't remember me from high school and that they were sorry for not remembering my name.  It was funny to be able to tell them that they had never, in fact, ever met me and that I grew up in Arizona. 

We closed out the party and left the bar past midnight.  Michael was a little bittersweet on the drive home as we talked about how he might not see any of them for another 10 years or, in all reality, ever again. 

Up next: an awesome coincidence on Sunday. 

Vermont: Getting there and Day 1

Yes!  I did it again!  Another unintended one week break.  This time I am blaming it on traveling and more traveling.  I always have good intentions but not always the best follow-through.  So, I'm going to power through and get caught up as quickly as possible before the kids go back to to school in two weeks.   There's lots to talk about.

Michael graduated from high school in Vermont in June, 1995.  He didn't go to his 10 year reunion in 2005 because it was over Thanksgiving weekend and that's a lot of travel in a short amount of time.

When his classmates started talking about their 20 year reunion Michael wanted to go.  It's also been 5 years since we visited his family in Vermont, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity for a trip.

Michael bought his tickets back in January to fly into Burlington a few days before the reunion. They were pretty expensive, so we decided that I would just stay at home with the kids in order to save money.  But that didn't sit right with my parents.  They insisted that I needed to go with him. They had already agreed to watch the kids and even though I said they didn't have to, they ended up buying my ticket.  Since I was spending their money I wanted to be as frugal as possible. which meant flying into Boston instead of Burlington.

Unfortunately, the cheapest tickets possible meant 21 hours of travel.  I left Phoenix at 1 pm on Wednesday and got to Burlington at 1 pm on Thursday. 

This was before I left on Wednesday.  Thanks for participating in the picture, kids.  Your smiles are so genuine and uplifting.

On the way to the airport.

I flew from Phoenix to Chicago and then had a two hour layover before flying to Boston.  I got into Boston at 1:00 am.  And then, I sat.  And sat.  And sat.  I couldn't take the silver line bus to South Station for my Greyhound Bus ride to Burlington until 5:48 am, so I sat on a bench in baggage claim and read for 4 hours. 

Jeannette was checking on me periodically from home in Michigan and Michael was just barely leaving Phoenix, so I took some pictures to share with them.

This was an accidental picture.  I wasn't actually giving the peace sign.

My bench home for the next 4 hours.

My "neighbors".  They all tried to sleep.  I didn't even try.

At 5:00 I got up, went to the bathroom, sprayed dry shampoo all over my hair, reapplied deodorant and brushed my teeth.  Then I went outside to wait for the bus.  I took it to South Station where the only thing open at that time of day was McDonald's.  I ate breakfast, which was simultaneously disgusting and delicious.  Seriously, how is it possible for fast food to taste so good but also so bad?

Then I waited for the Greyhound Bus.  Which was an hour late in arriving.  But the time I was standing in line I had been awake for 22 hours and I was starting to feel woozy and close to falling over.  Finally, at close to 8 am the 7 am bus arrived. We left Boston, I plugged my phone into this handy outlet next to me,

took this picture for Michael and Jeannette,

and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up 2 hours later in White River Junction, VT.  I was actually a little freaked out that I slept that deeply and for that long.  I slept through about 5 stops where people got off and got back on.   I'm surprised I wasn't murdered in my sleep. 

I finally got to Burlington, an hour late and an hour after Michael's plane landed.  His Aunt Sandi picked us up and we went to Al's French Fries in Burlington.  I had never heard of this place, but apparently it's a Burlington institution and has been around approximately, for forever. 

I did not take the next two pictures.  Thanks google.

There is only one location, so this is exactly what it looks like.

Our fries. 

Then we drove to St. Albans where Michael's grandfather lives.  The scenery was not terrible on the way.

We haven't seen him in five years.  He's not doing so great.

The view from his back door.

Michael's grandfather was letting us borrow his truck for the week. He can't drive anymore, but it was still incredibly generous of him.  On our way to Sandi's house (a little further north but a lot east of St. Albans) we drove by Michael's childhood home.  This is the fourth trip where we've driven by, but Michael still hasn't worked up the nerve to go knock on the door and ask to come in.

His parents built this house and it was the only house he had ever lived in when he moved to AZ for college.  They sold it when they followed him to AZ two years later.

They put this wagon in the front yard and all these years later it's still there.  

I took one thousand scenic pictures while we were driving.

Michael rolled his eyes when I made him stop for a picture of these cows.

We got to Sandi's house (these are her flowers) and unpacked.  Then we took a little one hour nap.  It was just enough to take the "verge of hallucinations" edge off.

After dinner that night we took a little drive in Michael's uncle's ATV and I took some more scenic pictures.

Including some totally adorable ponies.

ATV selfie

Sandi has two sons that work for Ben and Jerry's, so pints are always readily available at her house.  We shared a pint of this delightful stuff, 

before we collapsed into bed.  And didn't get up for a solid 12 hours!