Flying All Over the Place: May 4 - May 8
May 4-May 8. I was officially certified on Monday morning. I found out that I’d scored 98% on my second project and 93% on my third exam. The scores are weighted, so I’d scored I scored 70.75 out of 75 on my tests and 24.5 out of 25 on my exams. My overall score was 95.25. That’s a nice ending to all of my efforts!
The rest of the week I focused on getting caught up on all of my customer emails and projects. I started making a dent in the pile, but there’s still a long way to go.
On Thursday morning, the family and I started driving to Cleveland, Ohio. We were on our way to Pittsburgh, PA for my college roommate’s wedding. We left Oregon right at 8am.
We would have made better time had I not been doing 45 in a 25 zone, driving through Stoughton. At least that’s what the officer said I was doing. I’m not totally convinced myself. Also, that portion of the road is much more like an open inter-city road than it is a narrow, slow village road. It should definitely be set more at 35 or 40 mph than at 25 mph.
But, we made good time once we got back on the road. We stopped once mid-morning to stretch Esther’s legs, and once for lunch. Katia slept most of the day away. Esther was awake more, but she was pretty good. She played with Blueby, looked at the passing trucks and trees, and read some of her books. She even used a spare wet wipe to “change” Blueby’s non-existent diaper.
We discovered that while Illinois and Indiana have electronic tolls — we could use our iPass — Ohio still requires you to stop, get a ticket, and then pay with cash. That caused us to make an unplanned stop at a rest center ATM to get some cash. But the unplanned stop did give Esther and I a chance to eat some ice-cream so it wasn’t all bad.
We arrived at my grandmother’s house around 7pm. She had a nice hot dinner waiting for us. Afterwards, we stayed up talking until almost midnight. She had a good time meeting Kati and seeing Esther again. Esther was the same as she always is: high energy and very chatty. But she mostly ignores people that she doesn’t already know well. So my grandmother (“Gi-gi”) got to see Esther but didn’t really get to hold her, hug her, or kiss her.
We left Cleveland around 3pm and drove 2 hours to Pittsburgh. It was good time. Neither Esther nor Katia took naps Saturday morning so they were both getting cranky by early afternoon. When we started packing the car back up, Esther climbed into her seat and proclaimed herself “tired”. Sure enough, 5 minutes after we left the driveway, she was sound asleep. She and Katia both slept the entire way to Pittsburgh. Neither woke up until we stopped at the hotel.
We checked in and unpacked the car. This trip, we reserved a 2-room suite at the Holiday Inn Express. It’s perfect. We have a decent sized living area with a sink, mini-fridge, microwave, and pull-out sleeper couch. The bedroom is good sized too, with 2 queen beds. We were able to dump all our stuff in the rooms without the suite feeling crowded or cramped.
After checking in, we gave the girls some yogurt. This put them in a good mood, so we could go out to dinner with Meredith — one of my college friends. That was a ton of fun.
Afterwards, back at the hotel, we were able to get the girls to bed fairly quickly. Katia slept in the hotel crib. We requested a crib for Esther, but discovered that it was too small for her to really fit in. Surprisingly, she fell right asleep on the hotel bed. She’s never before shown any interest — or willingness! — to sleep in an adult bed. I didn’t think she’d do it at all. For her to do it without any complaining or crying was both surprising and gratifying.
Now it’s 8am on Saturday morning. I was hoping to sleep until now, but Katia had other plans. She woke up around 7am and refused to go back to sleep. I ended up watching her crawl around the hotel floor while Christine and Esther slept in. Now Esther’s awake — getting Christine out of bed in the process — so we’re all getting ready to eat breakfast.
Christine’s parents will be driving down from Buffalo to see us and to watch the girls while we attend the wedding. We’ll drive back to Cleveland on Sunday (probably after attending morning services at ACAC) and spend the night there. Finally, we’ll drive back to Madison on Monday.
After that, I think we actually get to stay put for a while. Christine and I will be doing a night away (by ourselves, leaving the girls with a babysitter) in June and we’ve been talking about a trip to Virginia in July or August. But, for now, our schedules are clear. Time to enjoy some warm Wisconsin weather!