There should be a rule...

That the first 10 Sunny Days of the year where the weather is between 65-80, you get the day off. Working is difficult on a day like today.

And while I am at it, I want a rule that says all coworkers should have access to natural sunlight in their primary work environment...

Happy late Easter!

Its a day late, but Happy Easter! As my last post pointed out, Heather and I spent our Easter weekend in Ponte Vedra as has been her family tradition since before Heather was born.

As of yesterday, Heather is 35 weeks pregnant and looking/feeling great. Since she was so far along in her pregnancy, we decided to fly instead of drive since her doctor wanted us to stop every 90 minutes for her to stretch if we drove. We took Express Jet direct from Raleigh to Jacksonville, Florida. Based on this one experience, I highly recommend Express Jet. They give you a healthy meal and drink on every flight with $1 beers and $3 wine and XM radio to entertain you. They are also cheaper than their competition. We enjoyed it.

When we got into Jacksonville airport, we picked up the car we had rented through Hertz. Thinking, I don't want to carry down the car seat, we rented one for about $30 for the 4 days we had the car. One thing that I found difficult was that the car seat was just tossed in the back. It looked as if it had just been cleaned (it was covered in plastic) and it was a Graco which I had no experience with. So, in the parking garage (the rental cars in Jacksonville are across the street in a parking garage) I had to figure out the new car seat and the car. It took me about 15 minutes since it was a Toyota Corolla (which Hertz claims is a mid-size car like a Mazda 6?) which I am familiar with and the car seat was already set up for Latch and Tether. I used Latch and Tether as well as seat belt just to be safe.

Is it too much for the rental car company to put in the car seat? Is it for liability reasons? Frankly, I would be tempted to sue them anyway was something to happen to Anna and the car seat found to be the problem. Why? Two reasons. 1) It was an old car seat. 2) They put me in a situation where I could not have the same success I can at home. I don't know the car seat or car....also, here in Raleigh, the fire stations check the car seat installations for you and will ensure they are properly in. Without having any experts available to check, they are putting me at a disadvantage and charging me for it.

Ponte Vedra was great once again as was spending time with Heather's extended family. I hope you all also had a great Easter!

Ponte Vedra Beach Resort

Heather's family has been staying at the Ponte Vedra Beach Resorts just south of Jacksonville Florida for the past 30+ years every Easter. The resort lists the event as their family reunion...but in reality it is so much more than that. Heather's family spends time together through this interaction in a way that I can only hope we are able to maintain throughout the years. The different families spend time together intentionally and that has led to a lot of fun interactions. You can see my brother-in-law Kevin trash talking my 16 year old cousin, for example, on Facebook.

As a kid, we didn't have family reunions. Sure, we got together with family consistently at Christmas or Easter...but those were often just a short lived couple of hours. I fondly remember a family reunion of sort with my mom's side of the family as we all got cabins somewhere and spent time together. I remember playing basketball with my Uncle Paul...but that was now so long ago. Unfortunately, through moving away from Pittsburgh I have lost touch with so much of my own family. The only one I still keep in touch with is my Uncle Paul, who since Anna was born has visited us about four times. In the past couple days, my Aunt Carol and I have again been in touch exchanging emails. Beyond that, there is no and never has been to my knowledge significant regular time spent together.

Heather's family is fortunate to be able to spend that time together. Most of Heather's father's siblings and their families spend Thursday to Monday every Easter at Ponte Vedra. Since I have joined the family, they have done nothing but welcomed me into their family and treated me like I belonged there. We always look forward to this trip every year and I am happy that the time has come again this year. What is really neat is that Heather's cousins are some of the closest family we have. Two of her cousins have been having kids at the same time as us. You can see pictures of Heather's cousin Lauren and daughter Katrinca visiting when Anna was young and was the catalyst for her beginning to crawl. We also visited them this past November and had a great time. Another cousin has lent us maternity clothes and gear like a playmat and excer-saucer.

Ponte Vedra is not the only time we spend with Heather's extended family. We used to see them at Thanksgivings and Christmases, although since her grandfather passed on that does not happen anymore. Since then, there is a big gathering every New Year's. Also, the female aunts and cousins all go to NYC every summer together and see a show and shop. We also have traveled to Europe together and some of the other family has traveled to New Zealand and other places together. But, none of those are as significant as Ponte Vedra. I am not sure those trips would happen without Ponte Vedra as I really believe that these relationships would not be nearly as strong if this "family reunion" at Ponte Vedra did not happen every year. This is why we really look forward to it and why we are thrilled to be there once again this Easter.

Anna's first airplane trip

Well, we just got back home from Anna's first trip on an airplane. Heather, Anna and I took a short trip up to see my sister in Connecticut. What I learned from this trip:

• The time in the airport with Anna was the worst. We wanted her to run off some energy but she doesn't like to be told where she could go. I imagine this would make layovers particularly painful.


• She did great in the airplane...and really likes fruit snacks and lollipops.


• I have never been so happy to have 2 on-time flights. Great job American Airlines!


• When possible, I will rent a car seat instead of traveling with one


• It was smart not to rush off the plane. But, rushing on the plane wasn't a bad idea with limited overhead storage space on the little jet we were on.


• Next time, I will were a shirt I don't care about becoming lollipop colored :-)

We have another airplane trip with her in 2 months...when heather will be 8 months pregnant. That will be interesting.

Timeshares

Heather, Anna, and I just got back from visiting with my father and step-mom at Myrtle Beach, staying at the South Beach Resort at Myrtle Beach. My father used RCI to trade in some of his timeshare to go to another. Here Heather, Anna, and I are at the South Beach Resort:

This past trip, combined with memories from my last Myrtle Beach trip, had me thinking about timeshares. Two years ago Heather and I went to Myrtle Beach with our close friends Aaron and Suzanne in December. We had decided to go to the Dixie Stampede for their Christmas show. (Very good show incidentally. Everywhere in Myrtle Beach seems geared to sell you a timeshare, from Malls to restaurants, and unfortunately Dixie Stampede was not different. We were offered a free drink and appetizer during the preshow for filling out an information card. It wasn't surprising to us that Heather and I, being young DINKs (dual income no kids), hit their target market for anything they wanted to sell us. Well, they offered us a couple hundred dollars and breakfast if we spent a couple of hours the next day at the Sheraton Broadway Plantation timeshares. We didn't have any plans, so we said sure its worth a couple hundred dollars to us to check it out. So, we took the tour and enjoyed the place. Since I was familiar with Hilton Grand Vacation Club, I knew much of what this was all about. We enjoyed it and seriously liked the place. A 2 bedroom unit at the time would cost $18,000 and also need $750 maintenance per year. To Heather and I, that is not something we can make a quick decision on, and things then started to get bad.

The sales guy who was previously very nice to us, turned very rude when we said we were not interested in making a decision that day. Apparently, he thought we really were wasting his time. He badgered us a bit and we told him we definitely were not going to buy. Another person came over who we complained to (complaints on deaf ears) and we walked away with our couple hundred dollars, but very angry.

Since then, we have had other offers for free weekends or other things if we sit through timeshare pitches. I think that the experience was so bad, unless we were really interested we would never do it.

Incidentally, I loved the Starwood Vacation Ownership, even though I don't think I could ever buy into it because of that sales guy. I think Heather and I will just scrimp and save and hope we someday can buy a lakehouse. We may be turned off from timeshares forever...but we can still enjoy our parents like we did this weekend :-)



We liked the South Beach Resort, things seemed in good repair although the amenities were the bare minimum. They had cheap linens and an unimpressive workout facility and lazy "river" as well as some poor customer service. Maybe I will blog another day about the problems with many of these places as I have been to enough. Starwood solves many of these problems, too bad that bad taste will never get out of my mouth!