Vacation

The last week of our trip in August was our "vacation".

That weekend, we drove to Louisville, KY. We went right away to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. It was a nice one...they have some awesome memorabilia, including a guitar signed by the members of Extreme (More than Words is Gene and I's song). From there, we walked around the downtown area and went to the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory & Museum. Along the walk, they have many models of bats of famous baseball players. Gene loved it! The factory and museum tour is actually quite interesting. And, they have a hug baseball bat outside the building, with a ball "smashing" through a glass window in a building nearby (I think it was a glass factory...how coincidental). We had a good time!!
From there, we checked into our hotel next to the Kentucky State Fairgrounds. We had tickets to the Tim McGraw and Montgomery Gentry concert that night (and the main reason for coming to Louisville). We tried to eat dinner at the fair...not quite so easy. We were really disappointed in the fair food there. Possibly that we were just not in the right area of the fair, but still...the Effingham fair was better than what we found! We then got into the concert about an hour before it started. We had tickets that were 4 rows from the stage!!!!! The speakers were RIGHT over and in front of us!! This was the closest we've ever been at a Tim concert. I know I've posted about it a little before...but, man this was a GREAT concert. Montgomery Gentry was awesome! It was super hard for Gene to get pictures as they were running around most of the time. They played a lot of their popular songs and performed for about an hour. Then, it was time for Tim!!!! Everyone around us started moving up to be next to the stage, so the lady next to me (Laura) and I went and joined the crowd. The local security was not happy about everyone moving up. They started checking tickets and telling people to get back. There was a photographer from Tim's crew near us and she was telling the security that this is quite normal and expected at Tim's concerts. So, he did not have us go back to our seats! Lucky us!!!! :) I was able to get up next to the stage...the extended stage that runs into the crowd. So every time Tim or any of The Dancehall Doctors (his band name) came out onto the stage, they walked right by me. As I posted before, I was able to slap Tim's hand TWICE!!! It was so AWESOME!!! The concert was mostly his fast moving songs and was quite a fun time!! Tim sang two songs right in front of me, which one was The Cowboy in Me...one of my favorites!! He knelt in front of me a few times, as well....he had some nice cowboy boots on! Oh man!! It was such a good concert! The only thing that could top it would be to actually meet him!! :)
I did experience a "Gene" moment before both of the concerts started. I went to the bathroom before, so I wouldn't miss a single minute of the concert. I was standing in line...it was long and outside the bathroom...and the lady in front of me started talking to me. She was asking where I was from (she was from St. Louis). I told her from the Effingham area, but actually living in Switzerland. She was shocked! She had moved back to St. Louis about 2 years ago from Switzerland. I asked why she was there and where she had been. She said that she had worked for Monsanto in Morges. Morges is the nearest town to us and we spend quite a lot of time there. She and her husband lived in Lutry, which is on the other side of Lausanne and we looked a few apartments near there. They knew the town where we live, too. It made the world much smaller!!!

The next day, we drove from Louisville to St. Louis. We went to the Cardinals game versus the Giants. It was a good game! The pitcher actually went the entire game and they won 9-0. It was a great day there in St. Louis!! Afterwards, we hit the Hard Rock Cafe there...we had actually never been there. :) Then, we headed home! It was a great weekend getaway!

The next week, we spent time around the area seeing family and friends. We saw my mom on Monday at her blood drive in Beecher City...then had YUMMY lasagna that Gene's mom made for us and my mom came over and ate with us. :) Tuesday, we went to see my grandma. She just had gotten home from the hospital...she had been in for exhaustion/dehydration from the heat. She was doing much better. We got to see Aunt Viv and my dad there too. We met up with Gene's high school buddies and their wives/kids for dinner at the ol' Iron Skillet in IGA. The guys loved the BBQ buffet. The next day, we met up with my dad for ice cream at Homewood and then went to the KC Hall for a bit. We met Beth and John, my old college roommate, for dinner in Charleston. On Thursday, we met up with my mom and Joan for breakfast at Niemerg's...yummy and nice to catch up! Then, we did the rest of our shopping in Champaign, doctor appointment for me and then dinner and some shopping with Angie and Nick again. Friday, we finished our packing (we had been trying to do some earlier in the week), spent some last minute time with Gene's family, then headed to Decatur for the night. We got Papa John's and hit the pool with the Brusky's. Saturday was an early morning take off to Chicago. We flew from Chicago to Newark then to Geneva. Our time in Newark was LONG, again.

We arrived in Newark actually early. We had a couple of hours before our flight left at 5:55 pm, so we grabbed dinner at a sushi place. We got back to the gate and the flight was delayed until 6:30...then it was 7:30. Then, got moved back up to 7 pm. Apparently, there was some kind of problem in the rain and A/C system. They boarded us and said it was almost fixed and we would be taking off shortly. We sat at the gate for another hour. They announced it was fixed and we left the gate. Then we sat on the tarmac for another little while. They finally announced that another problem came up in the A/C system and were not sure when it would be fixed. Finally, they announced they had to decide what would happen soon...either go back to the gate, unload us and wait or cancel the flight. We went back to the gate and sat for a while longer. They had to decide within 3 hours of leaving the gate...as there is a new law in the US that if you sit on the flight for 3 hours and do not take off, the airline is fined $17,000 per person. HUGE fine for a fully booked international flight! Eventually, we got off the flight (about 10 pm) and they told us to sit in the waiting area until further notice. Many people decided to not take the flight, rebooked or cancelled and went home. So, Gene and I were able to actually get seats next to each other this way....we were sitting on opposite sides of the plane and couldn't get people around us to move. We were hungry by this time, as we only had a small meal earlier. There was one place open...and it was only serving a few items on the menu as it had technically closed. We got some sandwiches, which were NOT good. I finally went to the book store and got some cheetos and a candy bar instead. THEN, they started offering to pay for the passenger meals AND they got some golf carts to take passengers to another area of the airport where more (and better) food places were still open. I was NOT happy, but had already eaten enough and didn't want to leave the area. Finally at a little after 12 am, they boarded the flight again and we finally left at about 1 am. We got put into the very back of the airplane with our seats together...the people around us were ticked off and yelling somewhat loudly at the flight attendants. FUN! We finally got into Geneva at around 2 pm instead of 8 am. We got home around 4 pm. It was a fun (NOT) walk up the hill to our apartment with all of our luggage, but we were home!!!

It was a great time at home! It was great to see everyone! We miss everyone already and will see you in December. If we didn't get to see you, we are extremely sorry...it's so hard to fit everything and everyone in. We end up running, running, running and more running the entire time we are home. We rarely get any down time.