flying fun and new jersey

so when we last left off i was trying to post my last post in the houston airport and board a flight sunday afternoon to dulles and then after a short layover the plan was to fly to the westchester airport where my dad was picking my up late on sunday night. well actually that was plan b. plan a was flying back to charleston monday evening after exploring houston on monday, enjoying charleston for a few days, then flying to nj on thursday for twin's shower this weekend. but we moved to plan b while i was in colorado when i got some good news which required me to be in nj on monday. so lots of flight changing while i was in colorado but we figured it out.

awesome coworkers - man i look short!

had a good conference weekend in houston. a great group of students and really saw a student who was so homesick on friday start to come out of his shell on saturday and by sunday was speaking in front of our group and his mom came up to us to say how much fun he had and thank you. it is reasons like this student why i love these conferences. and it was great to see some coworkers i haven't seen in a loooong time and to meet so many new ones. it was pretty much a reunion conference - staff from the past 5 years all worked. pretty crazy!

woooo! finally home-ish! yup - where they make peeps!

so back to my travel adventures. so i get to IAH sunday afternoon for my flight and the incoming plane is delayed about 15 minutes - but they tell us no problem we should be landing only 10 minutes late. (i only had a 45 minute layover) so i'm ok. so i look at the tv screen during the flight and see it is about 8:45 so we should be getting ready to land soon. in a few minutes they make an announcement "we are about 200 miles southeast of dulles and should be landing in 45 minutes" ummmmmm WHAT! 45 minutes. that gets us in at 9:45 not 9:15 like we were told. so it seems like half of the plane hits the call button and the flight attendants were also kinda surprised with the announcement. so i end up totally missing my flight - like got an alert that the flight took off while still sitting on the first plane (thanks united app) and this is where the fun in dulles began. so about 1/3 of my flight also missed their connections so we were all told to go to the service desk right by our gate. well i was about 20 people back and there was only one person at the desk. sooo after about 20 minutes and they helped 2 people i called and was put on a flight to lehigh valley airport (yesss much closer to home) getting in at 10am on monday morning. so by this stage i'm kinda stressing i was flying home because i had an interview on monday and just wanted to make sure things were going to be ok for that as well i reallllllllllllllllllly want this job. so my next step was to find my luggage - so i go to baggage claim and get on line for that where about 45 minutes later (no joke) i am reunited with my luggage since i switched airports. so next step talk to a customer service rep to get me a hotel voucher as i reallllly didn't want to sleep in the airport. so another 30 minutes later i have my voucher and i'm off to a hotel. so i didn't get to the hotel until just after midnight and was catching the 6:30 shuttle to the airport the next morning. luckily my flight home to allentown was easy and my mom picked me up and we were home around 11:15. 

fluffy kitty - a perk of being home! hi clyde!

so why i was freaking so much? as often as i fly this was the FIRST time i missed a connection. i almost always have connections due to flying out of smaller airports and if it had happened any other flight i wouldn't have cared as much. but with an interview the next morning, traveling for 2 weeks at this stage, plans being changed, working 60 hours in the last 4 days all i wanted was to be at my parents house and being able to get ready the next morning for my interview. but the interview went well. keep your fingers crossed for me! i found out on wednesday i made it to the next round so still thinking lots of positive thoughts and how i can knock the socks off the superintendent!

hi black bear! saw him driving up sunrise mountain road

so since i'm in jersey a bit longer than i thought (isn't that a common thought) i've managed to have some fun. tuesday i was super lazy, but on wednesday i went to one of my favorite spots in nj and did a little hiking. i went to sunrise mountain which is about 30 minutes from my house and along the appalachian trail. i was the only person at sunrise mountain so it was wonderful to sit and each lunch and just be with nature. especially after being in the rockies last week it was interesting to see my mountains which are so small compared to where i was, but to me to appalachians are home. they are where i fell in love with hiking when i was 11 and still to this day i love nothing than to hike near my home. i did a little bit of hiking but with it being about 95 i didn't do too much! 

favorite view from top of sunrise mountain

little hiking action! woooo AT!

wednesday night i went to dinner with erin and we caught up on life and everything, today i sat out in the yard reading and went to the driving range with my dad (in my attempts to learn how to play golf) , tomorrow i plan to run some errands & pick up twin's bridesmaid dress, then saturday is twin's shower and then sunday i'm hiking with twin at my favorite place in nj! so lots of nature time!

just something about the appalachian trail i love...