Pre-Flight

I took the Wednesday off before my flight. I wanted to spend time with my parents and see my Grandmother before I left. So Monday night since I wasn't pack I through stuff together or in anything that made it easier to carry. I loaded up the car and parked it in the garage. Tuesday morning I woke up and finished loading the car, shut off the certain utilities for my townhouse and drove off to work. After a crazy, hectic day at work, leaving later than I had planned I drove the 3.5 hours to my parents house. I forgot to call when I was close so I parked on the drive way, it also made it easier to unload my car. My dad worked extra hard the week before to finish cleaning out their garage so that my car could be parked in the two-car garage with my mom's. I didn't think they needed to go through that effort because my car has always been and outdoor car and my mom would be driving to work but I learned to just let my parents do whatever makes them happy. So anyways my neighbor had just got home also and saw us unloading the car. She stopped over to say hi and chat a little. I will shamelessly make a plug for her awesome chocolates which you can order from http://www.cynthiassweets.com/. I can tell you from being a taste tester and a recipient of many of her treats that they are super yummy and reasonably priced. Anyways she stopped by to chat like I said.

The next day my Mom and I went to do some errands and I got my birthday present early. My parents were nice enough to treat me to a Swedish massage and a manicure at a Mario Tricoci Salon. After the nice treat we picked up Dad at home and drove into Chicago @ like 4:00 pm. I forgot that it would be rush hour when we reached the city and that people would be traveling back into the city from the suburbs. I tend to think of rush hour as people leaving the city to go back home to the suburbs, silly me :) So after sitting in traffic talking with my parents we finally reached Grandma's house. It was great to visit with her before I left. She is looking really good since she started physical therapy, she also has more energy. I think my parents are going to bring her up to their house so she can talk with me over skype and see me in the live video.


Thursday was spent organizing and packing my luggage, weighing it and then repacking it. Then we set up my parents computer with skype, a webcam (thanks again Erin), and how to pay bills online. We didn't quite get the webcam working before we had to leave to drive into the city again but my dad got it working after two days. :) So we drove down to O'Hare. I checked in, they weighed my luggage (still had to take out a few items from each), checked my luggage then it was off to go through security. The think I love about O'Hare is their efficiency to get people through security fairly quickly. There was this lady in front of me traveling by herself with her kid (must have been about 1 yr). She had to take her kid out of the stroller, try to collapse it and get it on the belt to get scanned while holding her kid. I tried to help some. Oh yeah FYI I learned (I swear every time I go though security I learn something new) that my carry on bag needed to be laid sideways so they could scan it not standing up like it was meant to be. Yeah they stopped the scanner and then took it out, laid it down correctly and ran it again. And this time I thought I had everything covered, shoes off, hoodie off, belt off, liquids out, electronics out....apparently not. So after that I walked down to my terminal for the 1.5 hr wait. I entertained myself with my iPod and a book until we were able to board.