spring break '05...the first weekend

wow. its been a whole week since my last update. i've been on spring break...and it is sadly coming to an end. i have to get up way way too early tomorrow morning so that i can drive back up to school by 7:45 am to go on the geology field trip. yippy. i'm sure it will be, oh, so fun. i'm being sarcastic, if you can't tell. but oh well, i'll get my extra credit and have one less class to stress about come finals time.

so, now onto the fun stuff... spring break! saturday morning anna and i drove up to tech to pick becca up and then we headed over to the mall. did some shopping, bought some stylish sunglasses (since anna insisted that my old ones should only be worn on the boat...in other words, i shouldn't be seen in public with them. thanks) and two cutesy tanks to go with one of my skirts. not that you would really care. afterwards, we drove the three minutes from the mall to visit jon and marla (my old youth pastor and his wife)...the whole reason we were there in the first place. mary hannah (their almost two year old daughter) has gotten to be so big since the last time i saw her. back in june, right after graduation, she had just started standing. now, shes running all over the house and the yard rambling mostly incoherent words. but still, thats quite a change from the mary hannah i last met. we chatted and caught up with each other and had a good time being entertained by mary hannah. her favorite word seemed to be "yuck!" it made me laugh. marla is pregnant again...they find out in a few weeks if they're having a boy or a girl! it was good to see them...hopefully we'll get back up there before the end of the summer.

i had to get back home asap to pack really quick and get back up to atlanta, where amy would pick me up and take me to her house so we wouldn't have to go through all the chaos in the morning of trying to meet up. when amy and i walked in, her mom was all scared because she had gone down into the basement to get something and later went back down and saw that a door was shut that she didn't remember shutting before. we made rusty (their friendly dog that would prolly lick and try to play with a burglar rather than attack him) go down ahead of us and we followed...amy with her cell phone in hand. i'm sure if there was a bat lying around, we would have had that as well. after checking all the doors and dark corners, we called olli olli oxen free (that’s my spelling of "all's clear" in hide and seek terms) and made our way upstairs. early to bed and early to rise...slept about seven hours because we had to get up at 6 am to make sure we were out the door by 7 am.

we were actually on the road by 6:50 am...ten minutes ahead of schedule. and so began the longest car ride i've ever been on. it only takes about 8 hours to get to our hotel in nc to meet up with my aunt, uncle, and cousins on our way to the beach. mapsquest had the trip guestimation at 10 hours and 30 minutes. pretty rough. and i thought a nine hour flight was bad. anyway, time went by faster than i thought it would. i broke out the ipod and played the trip dj the whole drive down. i'm really impressed that it lasted the whole way! the ride was pretty uneventful, which is a good thing. there was this one van with maybe three college guys in it, "florida or bust, spring break '05" painted onto their back window. they provided some entertainment. we played leap frog with them for about an hour or so, then we pulled off to get some gas. it was so memorable because the guy in the passenger seat had his face and hands pressed against the window like he was saying "nooooooooo!" haha. it wasn't too great of a stop for gas. it was like an ant farm of harley riders. they were crawling all over the place. leather, long hair, heavy set, bandanna on their heads...typical motorcyclists. there must have been some kind of convention or something going on down there, cuz we passed hundreds on the way down. anyway, we got back on the road and hopped a few more exits down to get gas at a place that looked a little more safe. amy did such a good job driving...what was supposed to take us 10 hours and 30 minutes on the road only took us 9 hours and 55 minutes, from start to finish, including all stops. quite an accomplishment. so that was the trip down to florida.

i'll have to write about the actual week later. i'm off to tech as soon as the car battery is replaced and the tires. we'll be swing dancing until midnight and then off to bed so i can get up early for my morning drive.