The rest of the week, outside of purchasing, parenting and working was engulfed with planning and making arrangements for Spring Break. With the warmer Michigan weather, I was no longer in the mind frame of skiing (although it actually SNOWED today!) and wasn't up for driving across country to ski. T and I had been looking at condo options but none of them were really warm and I wasn't feeling energized to spend days in the car driving with T roundtrip without being warm!
Mom offered again for us to come to Florida. I'm really anti-Florida, only because I feel fried out on Florida. A few years back the Ex-Bf and I went as well as TS and I. T hasn't been to Florida in 7 years. I also invited JC to join us for some of the vacation and he hasn't been to Florida since he was 7!
It seems like ages ago when we had to make plans and arrangements with live people. When you had to use a landline (pre-cell phone) and actually talk to someone and when that didn't cost extra money to have the personal attention! After a few days of searching for good airfare rates, I finally found something that fit our schedule (T would have flipped if I had pulled him out of school for his half day and ruined his perfect attendance!) and we come back in time to see JC participate in his first off road race of the season. I booked the airfare and we were on our way. I then searched for a park and fly out of Chicago online and then made some calls to learn that online is definitely less expensive. I linked to a site through Trinity (Triune) Travel and booked a room for $40 less, but then I feared that maybe the site wasn't legit. I did receive my hotel confirmation number and plan to confirm with the hotel tomorrow just to be sure it's valid. My credit card hasn't been charged yet, but that could be due to the weekend. Mom also suggested that I get a rental car since JC would be accompanying us. I thought that $190 for 5-days seemed like a lot. I was sooo wrong!
The following day when searching online for rental cars, the $29 per day rate at Payless and Advantage was no longer available! Rates were starting at $65 per day! I about died! It didn't help that I had learned my lesson the night before in booking JC's flights of two one way tickets as he's using multi-cities that I shouldn't expect rates to remain! I booked his return flight first and had to book it on Orbitz as Northwest wouldn't allow us to book online without being a rewards member, but allows you to get all the way to the end before learning this! I had another internet browser open with the flight out on our flight and when I went back to put in the payment information, the screen refreshed. In the less than 30 minutes it took to get through the purchasing of the return flight, the rates for our flight had gone up $80! JC tried to call the airline and it was even higher! So I booked him at the lesser flight two hours earlier. We are hoping that maybe T and I can fly standby, but if not, we will only be a few hours behind him in our arrival.
I attempted to purchase a rental car for a couple days with no success on priceline. Since I couldn't make any other changes to the reservation then the price, dates and car selection, I had to wait 24 hours. I did this for two days and nothing. Weekly rates before surcharges were up to $600 plus! I finally changed the dates to a rental for the entire week rather than 5 days with JC returning it on his way back home. I was greeted with an acceptance on priceline for the week of a standard car of $34 per day! While it was $5 more per day and two days longer than I really need it, we now have a car! My mom had offered one of her cars, but seeing that it's her winter car, I figured it would be best that we have our own sturdy, reliable means of transportation.
Today my issue was luggage. I do not have two suitcases that are carry on sized. I have a rolling duffel bag and duffel bags, but only one small suitcase with wheels. I would prefer not to check a bag to have to wait in line to check the bag and wait for it on the carousel as well. Tonight T pulled out all of his clothes and I went through them all. His clothes are all ready, I just have to pack them into something as well as his back pack. My suitcase and back pack is packed minus toiletries.
It's nice to be making progress, although I feel like after the crazy week of San Francisco, refinancing, t.v. and digital camera shopping (and returning!) and planning Spring Break that I need another vacation! I guess I shouldn't complain, I did spend the weekend laying low trying to regroup!
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