So, this past week some guy from Home Depot came out to give us a spiel about a water softener system. Blah Blah Blah...I was not really sold, Trav was though. Until he saw the price for this awesome system. $6995. It is so nice though that it isn't an even $7k. Well, for our time our compensation was for a free 3 day and 2 night stay at a hotel in a list of different places. Sooo, this post is about a list. A list of wonderful vacations you get to help pick out! We have to choose our top 3 places we want to go. We narrowed it down to 11. In no particular order

1. Aruba
2. Outer Banks, NC
3. Puerto Vallarta
4. Ft. Lauderdale
5. Calgary, CAN
6. San Luis Obispo, CA
7. San Carlos, Sonora
8. Ozarks
9. Hilton Head, SC
10. Padre
11. Hershey, PA

Numbers 8, 11, and 10 are Travs picks. (Hershey would be fun and all (CORLEY) but for the same price for the airfare we could go to a beach in another country). And I have been to the Ozarks a million times when my Dad worked for Silver Dollar City, so that doesn't impress me much. But we could save on airfare, same with Padre.Numbers 1, 3, and 9 are my picks. Hello beaches haha! Airefare for all of these places are pretty much the same. I really wanted to go to Hawaii, but plane tickets are twice what they were for all the other places :( All the other numbers are places we would like to go that sounded fun. We picked them together, but are not really set either way for them.

This is what we are doing with our tax return this year. We are taking a relaxing trip just the two of us to take in everything from this past month. Granted, we are also paying off my behemoth car and taking a family trip to NC. Yay for first time home buyers credit! (Corley find a way to sneak down to NC in June ok!)

Today I am going to the doctor to have her look at my ear. Ya know, the one my son punctured with my glasses back in August? It has been killing me for the past two weeks and T got tired of me complaining (I can't even lay on my left side because of it). So he made me go to a real doctor (I just wanted to go to urgent care, but he insisted if I had to go to an ENT it would be better to start with a real doctor office yadda yadda yadda).
This weekend while watching the big game (WAY TO GO SAINTS) I spent a lot of it crocheting some new hats. If I have time later I will upload some pictures of the awesomeness!

So this past weekend had the makings of a fantastic time with the fam. Trav and I loaded everyone up (everyone being Casey Jones and Wyatt) Thursday night and hit the road to Tulsey Town. We dropped the dog off at Trav's brother's house and continued on to my Grandparents house.

Early Friday morning (7am lol), we loaded up the G-rents, my sister, baby, husband, and I into our ridiculously large, horribly un-efficient, but comfortably spacey Suburban and headed for the oh-so-wonderful state of Nebraska. By the time everyone was loaded, we topped off our gas tank, got some drinks and hit the highway, it was a quarter til 9. We stopped for an hour for lunch in KS (the state I plan to turn into an ocean when I become President) and arrived in Kearney, Nebraska at 6:15. It was a boring drive, no one died of cholera or got exhaustion.

After having dinner with my grandpa's sister, we went swimming and went to bed.

Up again at 7 am to go see the ol' homestead. A year ago this past weekend, I found my Great Grandmother dead on her North porch. We had driven up for a funeral, and ended up having 2. Its an image I will never get out of my head. Well, we sold her old house (built in 1915, gorgeous details) for $10 as long as the lady would move it off the site, fill in the basement, and remove all the out buildings by August 1 this year. Well the house is moved, it looks pretty nice. She is adding a walk in basement under it. Grandmother would be happy to know her house is still being lived in and maintained.

After seeing the progress, we drove through the corn fields to show Travis the land that one day will be ours. Then off to see the Renter to make an agreement with him for the price of corn/bushel for this year. Then off to the Big O, yup Omaha. Woooo! Lol. The whole reason for our trip was the Travis Family Reunion (yes, I married a man whose name just so happened to fit perfectly in with my family ha)! We stayed the night in La Vista, NE, went swimming again, and ate at the Cracker Barrel. Sunday we all got up and went to the reunion. I saw my cousin Mandy's new lil daughter Hope. She has Polycystic Kidney Disease, but she is a beautiful little girl. Mandy also has 2 very ornery twin boys who are 4. They are just so fun!

About 3 pm we loaded back up in the Burb and headed for Beverly Hills...er...I mean Tulsa. We arrived home about midnight.

So over 4 days, we spent about 21.5 hours in the car. Well, Monday morning, Wyatt was sitting on the couch just to my left and playing with my glasses, they were his favorite toy. When all of a sudden BAM, (no more enthusiasm than Emeril), My glasses ear piece is in my ear. I have blood coming out of my ear, and Travis is FREAKING OUT! So we stick the baby with Aunt Lissa and high tail it to ErGent Care. My baby tore the bottom part of my ear drum! I now have a sore ear, a sore arm from the evil Tetanus shot (which honestly hurts worse than my ear!), am $85 poorer because between the co-pay and 3 Rx it cost an arm and a leg. Now I am praying that the ear drum will heal on its own, otherwise they will have to put a patch on it. I have been having a little trouble hearing, apparently I am talking louder, but everything is kinda muffled through my left ear. I think though it is because it is swollen due to the damage and it will get better. We will find out on August 3 when I go in for a follow up. Happy Birthday Trav, we get to go to the Dr. Woooooooo...

So that was my weekend. Now I am sitting at home with a napping baby, a pigsty of a house, drugged up on Loratabs for the pain, and wanting to clean but getting dizzy from moving around too much. Oy. At least the baby is napping for now. I love it when that child sleeps, he is so precious. My favorite pictures are of him sleeping, he really does look like an angel.

"He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions." (Psalm 107:20)