Off to the Beach

Well, the girls are gone... (sniff, sniff.) They are so excited about the beach! I hope they're not disappointed that it takes so long to get there (2 days.) My girls usually require instant gratification, so spending 2 days in a car will be really hard for them. They will be there for 3 weeks, including the 4th of July. The 4th at the beach is awesome, they shoot fireworks off the pier over the ocean. It is spectacular!

Their cousin Sammie is also going to be at the beach this week, too. Isabelle and Sammie are "best buds," as you can see in this picture. They actually work out great together, Isabelle never stops talking and Sammie rarely says a thing. Isabelle loves talking for everyone else, too.

Now that the family is gone, I get to pack. I'm sure I'm taking too much stuff, but it's hard to resist the "what if" temptation. Of course, I guess I could take nothing and buy everything there. Not that I need an excuse to spend money. (Good thing I've been working! I just paid myself, so I actually have money to spend.)

A little bit about my trip:

My Aunt Angie, my Mom and I are going to Japan. My Aunt's friend, Janet, is organizing and heading up our trip. She is a Japanese language teacher and is taking a group of high school and college students, and the three of us are tagging along. It is going to be a VERY LARGE group, 32 of us in all.

We are going to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima and Tokyo. It is a cultural trip, so we will be seeing lots of castles, shrines and temples. Janet has been taking student groups for 20 years or more, so she knows all the really good places to go and the most interesting stuff to see. She has lots of pretty cool stories of past trips.

I pick up my Mom at the airport this afternoon, but I think we'll hang around here tonight. Then tomorrow we'll head off to Springfield. We get up bright and early Monday morning to get to the Springfield airport by 5:30 am. Luckily, it is very easy for me to sleep on any type of moving vehicle (cars, trains, boats, planes.... if it moves, I'm asleep!) I'll be able to nap on the plane.

I've been looking at options for downloading movies onto my netbook for the long trip over. We have a 5 hour layover in Minneapolis and then a 12 hour flight to Tokyo. I think I'm going with StarzPlay download service. Wish me luck with getting that set up!