September

After I went to San Antonio with Justin for his TDY, he had to go back to Korea for work for three more weeks, while I went straight to California to be with my parents.

I mostly just tagged along with whatever my parents were doing- including but not limited to: church, brunches, museums, folk dancing, Rancho Days, running errands, meeting new Canadian distant cousins, washing cars, shopping, flying kites, you name it.

And for my birthday weekend I went to visit Allie in San Diego! We just ran around town looking at everything and having fun. I also got to be a law student for two classes, I had to bite my tongue to keep from talking in a class I wasn’t enrolled in and I had to read to stay awake in the other. I realized I had booked a PM flight instead of AM like I had intended to. But the flight got cancelled anyway, so I got to leave late afternoon. I fully intend to have more visits there, esp if I can find flight deals that cost less than it would take in gas to drive there (not to mention saving me 16 hours of my life driving round trip).

Justin flew into San Francisco, September 5th officially on vacation. We spent the first night he was in town at the Claremont Hotel. It’s this huge, historic, white painted wooden hotel on the next hill over from my parents house. It’s got a tennis club and pool you can belong to, but I had never had a reason to stay in it before, so that was fun. Then that weekend Justin went to San Antonio to visit his friends and family while Mom and I flew to Maryland for my college roommate’s wedding.

Mom and I arrived Thursday late afternoon and I don’t think we stopped driving the whole time. Luckily we had an AWESOME rental car, it was a little red Fiat. And thank god I brought the GPA, it would have been a rough trip without it. Thursday we had a girls night with Sarah (the one getting married), our other college friend Caroline, and some of Sarah’s other friends. Friday was nails, rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Saturday was getting ready for the wedding, the wedding, the reception and then a quick trip to Virginia. I know. My uncle and his family live in Virginia and we had already decided it would be too much to drive out and see them (it’s like 100 miles away from Baltimore). BUT my cousin gave birth on that Thursday to her second baby and it was pretty much the only chance we would get to see everyone for a while. So we showered, changed and drove to see them. We got there late that night, slept at a hotel and visited with everyone in the morning for like three hours before we had to turn around and drive back to catch our flight. It was totally worth it to see my aunt and uncle, my cousin Leslie and her new baby (and her family), and my cousin Thomas.

That Sunday happened to be 9/11, and we were a tad worried about flight, not because we thought something would happen, but because of how crazy other people might get. Luckily the only thing that happened was we had a plane delay for about 45 minutes because the President was flying over our airspace. So Mom and I got back to Oakland safe and sound, and Justin arrived at the same time as us and met us at our airport gate! I remember when you would see your family or whoever you were visiting at the gate instead of having to wait for them outside security.

It was a beautiful wedding weekend, it was wonderful to see our family and my college friend Caroline is going to have a baby in April! Kind of an exhausting trip but good.

Justin and I toured Cali, since he’d never been there before, looked at colleges, and spent time with my family. We spent a week in Hawaii visiting my brother (see entry ‘Hawaii’) then we had three days to pack for Korea before we flew back here. And that was September. Wow, right?