Anticipating summer

Our big, once-in-a-lifetime vacation is over, and yet there are still trips on our calendar, albeit smaller and closer to home. It's amazing how the summer seems to fill up so quickly.

In a couple weeks, we'll be in the South Bend area for the wedding of Josh's friend since elementary school. He was the Best Man at our wedding, and Josh will be the Best Man at his. the excitement for this trip was finding a place to stay. We were hoping for a nearby bed and breakfast, and then saw that the wedding weekend was also Notre Dame's graduation weekend, which filled all the local rooms. Even if we went with a hotel, we'd be looking at $200 or more a night, more than we hoped to spend. And THEN, the day after we seriously started looking for somewhere to stay, the speaker for Notre Dame's commencement was announced- President Obama. At that point, we gave up finding anything in the immediate area, knowing that everyone who could be in town would have already snapped up those rooms. Thanks to twitter friends, I was able to get some bed & breakfast leads, and we ended up finding space at a place not too far away in Michigan. One of Josh's friends, a groomsman in the wedding, was running into the same problem, and they'll now be staying at the same place! That's exciting. More time with friends is good.

At the beginning of June, I'll be heading to Georgia to celebrate my grandad's 80th birthday! I haven't visited southern Georgia in at least four years, so it will good to be back, and see everyone. Just as my trip to Hawaii was very much about food, and making sure to indulge in foods I can't get at home, it seems my trips to Georgia are much of the same. "Comfort food" is the food we remember from childhood, whether it's musubi or butter beans.

Other events are sprinkled throughout the summer... friends' babies will be born, the annual family reunion, camping trips, maybe a trip to an amusement park, a trip to Chicago. For Casey's sake, I'm trying not to be gone two consecutive weekends. Hopefully we'll work with him enough, and he'll get to join us on some of the trips!