Always, Alli

All I can think about right now is how exhausted I am and how early tomorrow morning is going to be. Courtney and I parted ways at the airport this morning and my aunt picked me up so I could spend the night in her home. Tomorrow morning she will kindly get up very early to get me to the airport and I expect to be home by 10 a.m.

So much was done this weekend, and a lot of it was done while walking or standing in line. By the time we got back to our hotel each night it was too much for me to stay awake for very long. I preferred to hit the hay immediately and get up early the next day before we started even more walking and standing.

The ten word recap of my weekend is: travel, visit, walk, eat, Courtney, Magic Kingdom, Trevor, Animal Kingdom, posties. I’ll fill in the gaps when I get back home to Chattanooga. And of course, I have lots of pictures to post but the free wi-fi provided by the city of St. Cloud would not be that great for uploading the many, many pictures I have from the weekend.

More when I return.

Courtney and I connected at the airport yesterday morning, managed to get a rental car, and headed over to Downtown Orlando. We wanted to be in downtown because that is where the Izea office is.

Courtney and I have both participated in paid blogging with one of Izea’s products: PayPerPost. In fact, I started doing paid blogging so I could earn money to buy my precious camera. And Courtney and I met at Izea’s conference in Las Vegas (PostieCon). We met a lot of the Izea staff in Las Vegas and we both thought it would be fun to meet up with them again.

While we were there we were happily greeted by Izea staff (in fact we met Ted in the parking garage, which was just a coincidence but still nice to have his escort). Ashley gave us a tour of the office and Courtney walked into a black wall. Next we were given a sneak peek of the next Rock Startup episode. It was very special because it is the episode Fuller and I are in. And just when we thought it would be over, they sprung an Izea specialty- the scavenger hunt.

We were put into two teams (Team Crumley.org and Team Traveling Thoughts) with various Izea staff members. We took pictures, I did a headstand, and we gathered items from about a four block radius of the offices. The points are still being tallied, but we think Courtney’s team won. But my team still had fun!

Alli’s Izea Report from mrscrumley on Vimeo.

Afterwards we went out for a light dinner and drinks with some of the Izea staff. It was a fun time of chatting and getting to know the fun folks behind the scenes of a neat company.

Technorati Tags: Izea, scavenger hunt

The phone rang 5 minutes after I went to bed. Wrong number. Some poor girl looking for her mom. It rang again at 11. And again at 12:15ish. And then again at 7:15. All different people (I hope), all wrong numbers. When Courtney gets here she gets to answer the phone in the middle of the night.

I had a goal of relaxing and resting until I met Courtney at the airport today at 1ish. So far I am meeting that goal, which makes me happy. I had breakfast at the buffet (not very good and overpriced) and am sticking close to the hotel until I leave. I did walk down the 192 strip last night to get my dinner and gave myself a little blister. Now with overpriced band-aids, I am ready to have some fun. Time to finish getting ready. I think I have a busy day ahead of me.

Orlando is big and I have my awesome Aunt Lois to thank for driving me around today, getting me from the airport to my hotel.

When I bought my tickets for the trip down here they were cheap because the airline flies to secondary airports. And in this case, Orlando Sanford is the airport of choice. But it is about 40 miles from the hotel I am currently staying in. So having my aunt pick me up and cart me around this big city was a great service to me.

I took a nap as soon as I got into my room, and it refreshed me a bit but I am looking forward to a good nights rest and possibly some sleeping in.

No ear infection, just congestion. So, in about two hours, I will be on my way to the Chattanooga airport to take off for Florida!

There is not much more I can say about how excited I am for this trip. I’ll miss my family and I feel badly for leaving them when their health is still not great, but I’ve been assured by Damon I can go. As soon as I am dropped off, I am sure the guilt will wane and be completely gone by the time I am tucked into bed this evening.

Time to finalize the details, pack the camera batteries, and wrap a present for my men.

Today will be spent list making, shopping, and general getting ready for my trip on Thursday. I had another travel nightmare last night- I couldn’t find batteries for my camera anywhere. And I had a laptop but no cords for power or anything. It really got my heart racing. My nightmare the night before was about not having my passport. I don’t need a passport to go to Florida, but it just fits in with what happens in my subconscious before traveling.

We head to Atlanta again in March (SEC Men’s Basketball tournament! War Eagle!) so of course the nightmares will begin again soon after I get back from Florida. I try to be better about each trip there since I have a wealth of information in my brain on how/ what to pack and what to expect. We have been looking at all the things to do in Atlanta for fun between the games. After going there for six years, I think we have lots of vacation ideas for visiting Atlanta.

Incidentally, Atlanta is one of the most romantic trips Damon and I took. He bought me a spa certificate for me to use there on one of our trips. It was such a treat to be pampered (massage, facial) while on our trip.

Now that we have Fuller, we tend to look for more kid friendly places. I spent a lot of time on the internet looking for ideas. Trusted Tours & Attractions really had a lot of great info on Atlanta. I am pretty sure we will be visiting The Children’s Musuem this trip. We did the aquarium last time.

Trusted Tours & Attractions is currently running a promotion where you can sign up for their newsletter and be entered to win a new camera! We love cameras in this house, so I signed up.

I’m looking forward to our family trip in March. Now I need to get ready for my trip to Florida, where it is all about me, me, me! Oh, and Courtney.

Technorati Tags: trusted tours, atlanta attractions, travel nightmare

In eleven days I am going to be getting on a plane and heading to Orlando for a hookup with my girl, Courtney. She is riding in the Tour de Cure on the 24th and I get to cheer her on. As a bonus we will be going to Disney World on the 23rd. Because apparently Courtney is able to ride a bicycle for 22 miles after a long day of walking and standing in lines. I’m thinking, when her blood sugar isn’t too low, she runs on pure energy. I’m glad I will just be the gal on the roadside with a camera in hand.

When Courtney asked if I would fly down and hang out with her for the weekend, I wanted to say yes right away. But good old Mommy Guilt snuck in and made me think about it hard. Leaving Fuller with Damon for several days bothered me because I am the stay at home mom, asking to not stay home. And I just got back from “Alli time” in Vegas back in November. And the actual travel part of it was tricky. The airline I will be flying only flies certain dates, therefore I will be gone a little longer than I like.

So like good couples, we talked it out. Then Damon put me at ease telling me to “go for it.” And ten seconds later I whipped out the credit card and bought the plane ticket.

And now that our family is back from our little jaunt, I have to say, I am getting excited. Eleven more days!

This morning our family had some excitement due to tornado warnings. And after the rain died down and the wind moved on, we got ourselves packed and on the road.

Right now we are visiting my in-laws in their spacious home on Lake Martin. The sun is shining (though they had the same rain and warnings this morning we had) and we are prepared for some rest and relaxation for the next few days.

Our trip does have a purpose. My husband wants to head to Auburn (War Eagle!) for the Kentucky basketball game tonight. And there is another game on Saturday we plan on attending as well.

I have real agenda for this trip except forgetting the mess we left at home, taking a few walks, and maybe getting some good pictures.

If I were still working, I would have failed my employee performance evaluation so I could go on vacation.

I really am glad we are not traveling until sometime in February. But, I can’t help but be jealous of my mom who is currently in England. She has a friend who is currently overseeing The Kilns, the home of C.S. Lewis. Mom decided to jump on the opportunity to visit her friend for a few days and get to experience England one more time.

The last time I spoke to Mom she had just finished deciding which piece of luggage she could take. She wanted to pack light, but have enough room to bring home souvenirs. The first suitcase she used didn’t even have room to come back with a postcard.

Visiting England was one of the highlights of living in Europe. They speak a language I can translate easily. And there is a charm and appealing history to the country. I miss enjoying golden syrup cakes (I have the syrup, I want the cake too!) and tea. I want to shop their markets and visit historic locales. I really hope traveling to the United Kingdom is on our family’s future. Or at the very least my mom gets me a neat souvenir from her trip.

Technorati Tags: the kilns, travel, England, Lyle’s Golden Syrup

2007 was truly a year of travel for our family. I was thrilled to be on the go and seeing lots of places, but I’m happy to be home with no travel until March.

But that doesn’t mean I have sworn off travel for good. I ache to return to a lot of the places I went when we lived in Europe. I want to show off my high school in Brunssum, The Netherlands to my husband. I want to show him the hostel in Amsterdam where I stayed with my art class. I want to take him to London, Cambridge, and Oxford to see the shops and markets I saw. We could head over to Rome and see the Colosseum and Spanish Steps. I want Damon to see more of the world than just the USA, Mexico, and the tiny village of Ramstein, Germany.

Of course, if I were to get an offer to go to a really incredible place for really cheap, I might just do it. Opportunities like that don’t just happen everyday.

Which is exactly what happened to my friend, Colleen. In nine days she and her husband Jim are leaving for a trip that kind of fell in their lap. It was such an awesome offer, she and her husband canceled another trip to take advantage of this one.

Colleen isn’t spilling the beans about where she is headed. Instead she is holding a contest and people get to guess. I recommend checking out her blog for the official rules (like no making guesses in the comment sections) and prizes (which aren’t too shabby!). So far there have been 6 clues:

Clue 1
Clue 2
Clue 3
Clue 4
Clue 5
Clue 6

And here is clue number 7: The place Colleen and Jim are going is somewhere I, Alli, have been before. For the record here is my list of past travel haunts: Germany (Koln, Geilenkirchen, Aachen) , The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Maastricht, Brunssum), Belgium (Brussels, Brugge, Ghent) , England (Cambridge, London, Oxford), Northern Ireland (Belfast, Newry), Italy (Rome), Luxembourg (Luxembourg), and Spain (Barcelona).