No thank you New Jersey

The day after the Miami peeps left I packed a bag and headed to the Jersey Shore for an all-staff retreat for work. It was really incredible to be able to meet the 300+ people in our organization. Since I work in a remote office (read: alone) with only one co-worker (Michelle) who travels more than I do, my favorite part of retreats is getting to hang out with people.

I roomed with my co-worker Michelle, and once we checked into the hotel we checked out our first view of the Jersey Shore. We were underwhelmed. “Shore” is the closest term I could use because a “beach” it wasn’t. We have discovered that we are what someone might call a “beach snob”. This is compounded by the fact that we have absolutely no problem telling everyone how much we love Sarasota and how no one has seen a real beach until they’ve been here. Ahem, we are occasionally capable of modesty, but we don’t particularly enjoy it. (haha)

We were there for 4 days and I only made it outside once, but that was enough. See, I even took a picture, and I tried my hardest to make it look nice:

However, flying out of Newark airport was all it was cracked up to be, and more. I have always been told that if you have the option of flying through Newark or going to hell, that hell is the better option. And now I see why. After encountering a myriad of “helpful” and “charming” people at the airport we could not get home fast enough. I quite literally almost lost it when the security folks dropped my new laptop on the ground and didn’t even notice. Thankfully, I had it in a protective sleeve (NEVER put your laptop through the machine without at least a protective sleeve) so it seems to be ok for now...

Miami comes to us

The third weekend in October was our last weekend with the beach house. To make it an official party though, some of our Miami peeps came to join us to revel in the last days of summer. Unfortunately, it seemed that summer decided to head out early before Marilyn, Jason, and Rachel actually arrived. The weekend was cooler than we expected, but we toughed it out at the beach anyway to play some bocce on Saturday.

When we couldn’t take it anymore we headed to the house to play some games (Pass the Pigs and Uno), enjoy my special rum punch, and push the Uno loser into the pool (Jason) - which Rachel seemed to particularly enjoy.

It was all downhill from there as the rum did it’s job (one of the perils of starting drinking at 11am I guess...). As per Jason and Wade: “ You guys got all girly and sappy and talked about weddings... there was hugging and stuff, so we went outside to have beers.” We grilled out, had a nice dinner, then began dropping like flies. I am embarrassed to say I was the first to go and the indicator was when I laid on the floor using the dogs as pillows.

The next morning the gang headed to Busch Gardens, minus me. I was in no shape to ride roller coasters, let alone ride in a car. I spent the entire day sleeping, then eventually reading and snuggling Marley (it seemed I did not have a choice in that matter).

Once they all got back we went out for a last dinner (at which everyone looked wiped and a little green around the gills) before the Miami folk headed home. It was a lot of fun and wonderful to see them. I did however require a prolonged detox period afterwards...

Fall at last

The second week of October we headed to Waynesville, NC to visit my mom and step-dad and take in the mountain views. It was a much needed break for both Wade and I since we haven’t been able to take a vacation since our honeymoon almost 3.5 years ago. We have squeaked in little trips here and there around other events, but none that have been planned solely for the purpose of just sitting and relaxing. We’re hoping to remedy that in the spring. We were lucky enough to be able to make this trip happen after a project at work forced some rearranging and we had to unexpectedly go to PA for Wade's grandfather's funeral.

We flew into Asheville where Mom and Larry picked us up and we headed into town for a little shopping at REI (we don’t have any stores in Florida) and a fantastic good southern vegetarian meal at Tupelo Honey Cafe. It was delicious and the perfect beginning to the trip. The nights were cool while we were there and the days just the right temperature. We went hiking in Smoky Mountains National Park to see Clingman’s Dome one day (see below), we drove to Cataloochee in the Park another day to see elk and turkeys, we strolled main street Waynesville for some shopping and an art fair, and we enjoyed the mountain vistas as the leaves were changing. The last day we were there was Larry’s birthday so we opened presents then went to see a movie in Asheville. Afterwards we did some shopping at REI again (sale!) and met up with my old coworker Kellyn. We said our goodbyes to Mom and Larry and took Kellyn to a nice dinner at a cool vegetarian place in downtown Asheville called Laughing Seed. Our return flight was absurdly early the next day, so Kellyn offered to let us sleep over and take us to the airport since she lived so close.

We really enjoyed being able to photograph all the beauty of the mountains while we were there. We were a little early for the peak of fall, but we did see some nice color. You can check out our Picasa site here to see more pictures.