I'm happy to say that we arrived home safely from our trip. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as planned...I'll explain later. I bought a new camera and I made a video with it, but the video was too large and youtube wouldn't let me post it. After I figure out how to compress video files, I'll be able to post vlogs with my new camera.

I want to start out with something positive. I'm glad I was allowed to go on this trip, even though I wanted to stay home for some time away from DH, because it seems like the break in our daily routine brings us closer. I like that. :o)

Tuesday, we set up the booth and it went rather well. The beach blast reception was in the evening and it was outdoors. It overcast, cold and windy! *brr* There were huge kerosene heaters placed around the grounds, but it was so windy that it seemed to blow the heat away. I could only stand around for about 20 minutes before my hips started hurting and the knee that I fell on the day before was really bothering me. I went back to the room, and DH and his father stayed for a little while before going to a wine tasting and then I met them at the hotel restaurant for dinner.

Wednesday was the first day of the show. When we walked into the exhibit hall, we'd discovered that I booth space had been completely rearranged. Apparently, the caterer was upset about something and brought the fire marshall in and he noted LOTS of violations with the placement of the exhibits. I actually like how they rearranged our booth because it we face the walkway into the exhibit hall and it was like we were the greeting committee. So we had a lot of foot traffic this year.

Other than that, nothing too exciting happened. We had a welcome luncheon in the afternoon and then there was an awards dinner that night. The luncheon was good, considering the food they serve is just altered hotel food. The salad was simply a half head of lettuce with bleu cheese crumbled on top (ew...I gave that to DH) with a raspberry vinaigrette (yum!). I've never had such a tastey salad. Every hotel should serve something like that. I loooooove lettuce and there was nothing extra to go with it and it was simply delicious. The main course was salmon (ugh). I hate seafood. I ate about half of it anyway. There's something about salmon that just feels bad in my mouth. It's squishy or something.

The awards dinner was preceded by a reception and it was all held at a restaurant called The Prado at Balboa Park. I had tried to talk DH out of going because we were both so exhausted, but he said we should go anyway. I wasn't allowed to drink anything at the reception. DH and I arrived a little late because instead of taking the bus, we decided to drive ourselves so we could leave early. We had trouble getting valet parking and it killed some of the reception time.

The dinner was delicious! It was sponsored by a company that I will spell as "Bowing"...it's pronounced the same, but the spelling's different. I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. :o) Anyway, they chose the dinner menu. The salad they chose was like a pile of weeds. I didn't eat it. *lol* The main course, though...oh my goodness. It was the most tender short rib in some kind of wine sauce... I tasted chocolate in it, but no one else seemed to. It was served on a pile of wonderful buttery mashed potatos and some asparaus. It was the best food I've had at any of the shows so far.

We left right after the key-note speaker gave his speech because it was after 9 p.m. and I needed sleep!

Thursday was the last day of the show. Other than attending a leadership luncheon, nothing happened. We spent much of the time walking around and chatting with people. One of the trinkets that we gave out was balsa wood airplanes. They were a hit! Well, they always are. No one has anything like them at the shows. There was 2 outdoor exhibits. At one of the exhibits, a guy was throwing our airplanes around and he kept getting them stuck in the palm trees. *lol* It was hilarious. He'd throw the plane down at the ground, but because of the wind, it was carry the plane straight up into the air and into the tree.

My father-in-law/boss went around the entire exhibit hall and recruited pretty much everyone who was exhibiting to be a part of an "airshow" was going to be happening at 4:30 that afternoon. I think everyone except a few people participated. The company that was running the entire show employed some young people and they wanted to watch, but they were too afraid to participate.

The first plane that was thrown headed straight for my head. *lol* I think they were heat seek planes. Everywhere I looked, someone was getting hit with one. One guy threw his plane and it flew all the way to the ceiling and hit one of the huge chandeliers. The entire ordeal was so much fun and I think our company will definitely be remembered for a long time. :o)

We packed up the booth in 15 minutes after the airshow was over.

Friday, I woke up feeling really bad, so we didn't go to the zoo. :o( I don't think I would've enjoyed myself if we did. We slept in and went to Denny's for brunch. Then we came back and slept some more and just stayed in the room for the rest of the day.

Saturday, we got up early to catch our plane in the afternoon. It wound being delayed by a couple of hours. We were really concerned because we had a connector flight at JFK and we would have to run to the gate to make it on time.

Well, that flight was delayed by a couple of hours, too.

When we got to Dulles airport, we discovered that both of our check-in bags were lost. DH and I both had prescription medication in those bags and our GPS and my make-up is in there... Argh. Our first trip using JetBlue and our flights get really delayed and our bags are lost. DH thinks that instead of transferring our bags to our connector flight in JFK, they instead put them on the baggage claim carousel.

We'll see if they deliver our bags sometime this week.

We didn't get home until around 5 this morning, so I out of bed about 2 hours ago (it's 4:15 now).

It was really nice to walk into the house and be greeted by two adorable kitty cats. Augustus has been following me around non-stop since I've been home. He's keeping my feet warm right now. It's nice to be missed. :o) My kitties are like dogs in that aspect. Hehe.

I'm really happy to be home. I like traveling, but it was a little too frustrating this time. I think the next show is in Thailand this September. I don't think I'll be allowed to go because I'll be quite pregnant by then and it would probably be a bad idea to fly to another country. I'll just have to wait and see.

I hope everyone had a great week and weekend.

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