Vacation

Well, we think we have our vacation situation just about figured out. We're leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow morning, and will stay in that area for about a week exploring and visiting Matt's family. Then we'll come back to Chicago for a day or two, and then head out to Colorado to go skiing! Matt's never been, so this could get interesting. I worry he'll be really good and surpass even my excellent skill level on the first day. I'm fairly sure this will be the case. We haven't really booked anything and are kind of appalled at how expensive lift tickets and ski rentals are, but I'm sure it will work out. As you all know, we're terribly cheap, so anything over a couple hundred bucks feels like a fortune.

On a side note, we watched the movie Paranormal Activity a couple nights ago, and consequently, we've had two sleepless nights. I didn't think the movie was that terrifying at the time, but it has really stuck in my head and all the horror comes creeping out at night and keeps me up. I've spent the last two nights watching sports center on ESPN and trying not to wake Matt up. Pretty soon I figure I'll have to just keel over with exhaustion and that will cure me. Hopefully. In the mean time, I'll continue to leave all the lights and TV on.

That about sums up my news for the week. I'm really excited about going out east. I've never been in that to Philadelphia or NYC before, so it should be really great. Probably really cold, but I figure India will be hot enough for us when we get there, so we might as well live it up!

I just realized the date...

So, I just realized this second that it's January 19th and I just posted a bunch of pictures from Christmas... I'm way behind. While I'm still playing catch-up, I thought I'd post a couple pictures from Bali so you can all be jealous. The ones of the beach are from Kuta, and the others are Ubud, the capital city.

Expect the Unexpected

We had a fabulous time at Christmas this year! Thanks so much to the family for putting up with us for sooo long. I don't know when we'll be back again, but in light of recent events, it might not be that far away.

Christmas at Gram's

The night we returned to Chicagoland, we discovered Matt had been assigned to Vadodara, India. After cycling through the stages of grief, (I think I stayed on denial the longest) I finally accepted it. We picked up Matt's I

ndian visa last week, and went downtown to get mine yesterday (it still isn't ready. I think this is a sign of what to expect from India). All signs pointed to Vadodara. Even the Ca

nadian geese seemed to be mocking me with their calls of "Vadodara! India!" (That's what Canadia

n geese sound like. Trust me.) I was literally on my way out the door to go buy the Indian Lonely Planet today when Matt called. Apparently our February 1st start date has been pushed back to the 28th. So now, instead of using the

extra time to plan, I've reverted all the way back to denial. There's no way they'll still make us go there after waiting in Chicago for a whole month! But of course, UOP has done this to us before:

think back a year and a half ago... Matt got assigned to Dushanzi, and then went on four different assignments before eventually ending up there. I guess I can only hope this time will be different.

I don't know what we're planning to do until the end of February. The new roadmap will come out today, so if they haven't assigned Matt anywhere by tonight, he was told

to take "mandatory vacation", I guess to get him out of the office. The jobs must be really slow right now because there are a ton of people in the office. I don't know where we're planning to take our vacation... we've been so many places in the past two years it's hard to decide where else to go! And yes, I know that sounds arrogant and braggy, but I'm writing it with t

he utmost sincerity. Help us!

Not much other news from the U.S. as of yet. We've been to the movies several times since we've been back. It's hard trying to make up for lost time! We finally saw Avatar on Sunday... in IMax 3D, no less! Neither of us were crazy about the story, but the special effects were incredible! It's definitely the wave of the future. If you can stomach the 3D, that's got to be the best way to see Avatar. If not, then IMax is totally worth it.

Great Granddad Garland and Bella.

Modeling our new fleece jackets