I spent my 40th birthday in tears.
It was the day we realized just what a horrible mistake I'd made by getting Julian a nonrefundable ticket to reunite with both his brother and his sister (and me) in Spain. I felt absolutely humiliated, and I was devastated that Julian could not go with us because of my own stupid mistake. I hoped to give him the gift of a lifetime, and instead I felt like I'd waved a million dollars in front of his face and then threw it in the fire. Not only did the opportunity vanish, but so did all the money. (If you don't know the story, it's long and complicated, and just trust me, it was ugly and heartbreaking on so many levels.)
Thankfully, after going back and forth for two months straight with the airline over the ticket's "non-transferability", they finally settled with me by giving me a voucher in Julian's name for the amount of the ticket, one that I could use to purchase tickets for anyone. We just had to use it within a year.
A ticket from Argentina to Spain was anything but cheap (thus why I felt so horrible when I thought I'd lost all that money). In fact, there was enough money on that voucher to either go somewhere pretty far or even for all four of us to fly somewhere together.
We looked into Hawaii and other exotic places, but the voucher didn't quite cover it, so then we asked ourselves where we might all like to go together. Mike wanted to go to Indiana to spend time with his family, and I wanted to go to Pennsylvania to take Juan to meet my brother and his family and to show him where I grew up. The voucher didn't have enough to cover two different trips, but when we looked into combining them into one trip with multiple stops, we had more than enough to cover the cost.
So, after coordinating our schedules and both of our families' schedules, we booked our tickets and started planning out this rather unexpected trip. We purchased the tickets at the end of October, and about 7 weeks later, we boarded our first plane with one backpack and one carry-on each to spend the next two weeks together.
Here are a few pics to show you our first stop, or leg, of the journey.
Boarding our first of five airplanes, on our way to Columbus, IN to spend our first two nights with Mike's brother, Matt, and his wife and kids.
The boys' sleeping arrangement, The Man Cave, one of their favorite places in all of Indiana (really just a transformed loft above Matt's garage).
Playing darts, doing "guy stuff"
Meeting our littlest nephew for the first time
Hanging out with Chrissy, one of my favorite people to hang out with. Marrying brothers who are alike in so many ways gives us a bond like no other. I love her dearly and wish Indiana and Texas weren't so stinkin' far apart.
David's little cousins just adored him. They're country, boot-loving little boys, just like David and Mike, so they couldn't get enough of David. (Juan is more the city boy, so they weren't quite sure what to make of him. But don't worry, more cousins will surface on our trip.)
We thoroughly enjoyed and embraced every minute of our first two days in Columbus, reconnecting with people who really get us. We also really appreciated them loaning us a car to visit with the rest of the Alspaugh family about three hours away. I'll fill you in on those visits on the next few posts. Stay tuned. :)
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