Okay…finally getting all caught up with all the travel we did this last year! We were traveling so much! This trip was only a couple of weeks, but we had four flights as we crammed a lot into the time we were gone.
We started by flying to Kansas City for Zac and Megan’s wedding. Zac has been our Joe’s best friend since the 7th grade. It was so wonderful to see a big group of Joe’s friends and to celebrate with Zac and Megan. They had photos of Joe on the table of those missing from the event, which caused a few tears…especially when I saw his leather radio strap that Joe’s and Michelle gave to Zac to wear. After Zac had a dance with his mom, he had a special dance with me, to honor Joe. It was to the song, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables”. The two of us cried through the whole thing. Michelle, Joe’s widow, was in the wedding, so it was good to see her and Lily came with us as she has had Zac as a big brother figure in her life since she was 2. We absolutely love Zac, his sister, and parents. We are so happy we get to see them when we are visiting Lily and Michelle! We stayed with Lily at her place, which was fun. Here are some photos of that couple of days in Kansas City:
We then flew to Florida for our Cruise Planners Annual Convention in Fort Lauderdale. We were there for a couple of days when Hurricane Milton started barreling towards Florida. Rich’s parents and sister live about 4 hours away near the Tampa area and so Rich left me at the convention and he grabbed some groceries, water, and gas, and took a rental car into the storm to be with his family. Thankfully, there wasn’t as much damage as they predicted, and he just got to spend some quality time with his family. I continued on at the convention and trade fair and then went on a 3-day cruise on the Sun Princess. It was the inaugural cruise for that ship out of the U.S.. It was short and sweet, but I tried a lot of things on the ship….took Spanish lessons, Salsa dancing lessons, did some name that tune contests, and learn to play spoons at the Irish pub on board. We only had one stop and that was in Bermuda. It was my 51st country. I chose to go swimming with seals at that stop. It was pretty cool. The entire ship was only travel advisors, press, or social media travel folks. Only one of us could go, and Rich let me go. It meant I was rooming with a total stranger, which was odd. We ended up having a nice time though! They had a pretty spectacular drone light show before we left Ft. Lauderdale. Here are a few photos from Florida time on this trip:
Rich and I then flew to Houston to spend some time with my parents, brother (and his family), and Rich’s uncle and his wife. Rich and my brother and our nephew went to the Formula 1 race in Austin. My dad’s siblings were all in town to visit my dad at his memory care facility. He has been living there for almost 2 years now and he doesn’t know he is married, has children, or siblings. It is hard to deal with, but he is still in good spirits a majority of the time. We were able to spend some time with our nephew, Alex, and our niece and Goddaughter, Emily Jo. We also went to a Houston Rockets game vs. the San Antonio Spurs with my brother, Craig. That was a lot of fun as well.
Messina Musings 