Day 1

Well, I got off to an early start today and I am really feeling the effects. I am definately not as young as I used to be. Patrick and I awoke at 4:30 this morning in order to do something we have never done before. We braved the Mall Crowds. My main motivation was the free MP3 player that Old Navy was giving out "while supplies last" if you spend $20 or more. Well, it just so happens, I love Old Navy so I decided to give it a go and see if I could get there early enough. What surprised me the most was that Patrick actually wanted to go with me. We had fun. Anyway, we arrived at the mall at 4:45 am, finding at parking lot full of cars made me start to get a bit nervous that I would not achieve my goal. But we kept positive attitudes and ventured in. The line in front of Old Navy was already starting to go down the length of the mall. I thought "this might not be good". How were we ever going to get in there in front of all those people and find our required items totaling 20 bucks and get to a register fast enough? After about 10 minutes of waiting my question was answered. The manager was handing out bracelets to all of the people in line, starting at the front and working to the end until there were no more bracelets. I overheard that he had 119 bracelets and I knew from earlier counting by another woman in line that we were somewhere in the 80's. What a relief! The best part was that not only did I get a bracelet but so did Patrick. Ok, so I was going to have to buy $40 worth, but hey...it's Old Navy. I could do that. We were successful and left about 30 min later with several needed items of clothes and 2 MP3 players (which I gave to the girls). After that we spent a little more time at the mall and headed to Target...after going to get Steven from the house. The lines at Target were horrible, but I managed to get the few things I had in mind that I wanted. After Target we headed home. What a start to what has turned out to be a very busy day.
When I got home I wanted nothing more than to get in bed and sleep for about...a day or two. But that was not in the cards. Due to the fact that I had to work Thursday my family was going to celebrate Thanksgiving today. I had two side dishes to make and clothes to pack for Jimmy and myself as well as for the girls. the plan was to leave later in the evening, after eating our feast, and head to Charleston for our romantic weekend away. Things went fairly smoothly and we made it up to the property on time. We had a very nice meal and were able to visit and even had time to play a quick game. Unfortunately, I was beginning to not feel well. In fact I actually never got around to eating. I think I was overtired by this point. I tried to take a quick rest to see if it would help. I did feel slightly better and we departed for our trip around 5:30 or so.
traveling in Mom and Dad's car has been a real God send. The car gets much better gas mileage and is not too large, unlike our Durango.
Thus far our trip has been good, we have stopped for the night. We actually have not made it to Charleston yet. We stopped just on the other side of Columbia at a Travelers Inn. The room is clean and the bed comfortable. What more could we ask for. I guess me feeling better would be a good start. I am achy and chilled. I am planning on taking some tylenol and going to bed. Wow...how romantic. Hopefully I will feel much better tomorrow. I will let you know.