Last weekend’s vacation

I got last Friday off of work as “comp time,” in exchange for working on a holiday last Monday. I kinda wanted to get out of town — I wanted to go somewhere warm. I have a zillion frequent flyer miles with United, so I looked up all the flights to warm spots: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami. But all the free seats on those flights were taken. (Go figure!)

Since I couldn’t go there, I thought “Where else would I like to go?” And I realized, I should go back home — to Iowa — to visit my family. My grandfather has been in and out of the hospital a bit recently, and my parents had been pretty stressed about that, so I figured it would be nice to get home and cheer everyone up.

I called my sister last Tuesday night and asked her if my parents would like it if I went home over the weekend. She responded, “Are you SERIOUS?” She knew they didn’t have anything going on, so she said I should come. But we decided to keep it a surprise, and not tell them I was coming.

On Thursday, after work, I flew to Chicago and then to the Quad-Cities, where my sister picked me up from the airport around 10:00 P.M. She drove me home and she went inside. About a minute later, I rang the doorbell. My mom came to get it, and sure enough, she was incredibly surprised. My dad and my grandparents were all really shocked too!

I had a good, relaxing weekend. I stayed in the Quad-Cities until Monday afternoon. It was nice to see everyone again, and I think they were indeed glad to see me. It was really nice of Allison to help me plan everything! Now if I could just get somewhere warm…