This morning started with a text message letting me know that our flight to New Orleans, scheduled for around 9 a.m., was being pushed back until around 9:30 a.m. because of aircraft maintenance. Given my obsession with being at airports super early, I’m sure this development — while minor — would have led to some extra whining from our kids in different circumstances. (“Why can’t we get on the plane NOWWWWW?”)
But, of course, we aren’t going to New Orleans today, after all.
We initially booked our flights in mid-June when we became convinced that Chris had not gotten the job in Sicily because none of his references had yet been contacted. It was a fuck-it-all trip, basically.* We had booked a trip for this time last year in similar fashion when Chris didn’t even get an interview for a job in Spain that is basically the same as the one he was offered this year. Last year, it was Panama City Beach for our first nuclear family-only trip with the kids. We rented a condo and had a blast!
For this tantrum vacation, my condition was that I wanted to fly somewhere because every time we do a long road trip (we’ve done three in as many years) I swear off them forever. Plus, I wanted the kids to experience their first flight. We ended up choosing New Orleans because a) it was on our list of places we’d like to visit someday and b) I saw flights from Chicago to NOLA for $88 RT for September. SOLD.
We actually did consider still going on the trip, given that the flights were nonrefundable and we love vacationing in September anyway. It is kind of our month. We were married on the 11th, and every anniversary so far has been spent either on vacation or hugely pregnant/snuggling a newborn. Plus, I’m cheap and traveling in September means everything is less expensive but the weather is still usually beautiful. However, given that we have to be out of our house on the 21st and don’t have money or vacation days that we should be burning, we did come to our senses and realize that going on the trip would be insane. Oh well!
We are thinking that Oktoberfest in Munich next September sounds great though, and family members are already expressing interest. Let us know if you are interested in meeting up too ;-). We’ll have to book a table (tables? seriously, join us!!) in January.
*Chris and I DID both later admit to hoping that by booking a nonrefundable trip that we might jinx ourselves and he’d end up getting the offer after all. I thought I was the only one who thought like this, but apparently he was too. Guess it worked
