the essence

Today we leave on vacation!!! I currently have in my possession 8 cards from our company for 8 different hotel stays. We're leaving tonight and will be gone for two weeks and one day. After confirming all of the hotels I got even more stoked about our trip. I just wasn't sure how it was all going to come together before.

The "Magic" cards that get us free hotel stays



Our first stop will be to stay with Ruth & Ernie in Pennsylvania for a few days! It will be so nice to get to hang out with another my crafting-coffee-drinking-movie-watching buddy and for the girls to be able to play together!

The past few days have been hectic preparations and commitments. Our job is implementing a new system which requires three days of training. My training was scheduled for this past Sunday, Monday & Tuesday (Today) from 6am-2:30pm plus some piano lessons in the afternoon. We live a bit away from corporate so I've been getting up around 4:50 the past few mornings to make it to training on time.

The good news is I think we're almost completely packed for this trip & I even made time to hem a couple of cute pairs of jeans last night - cute, but way too long on me before.

I think Addison's bear is ready for the trip



So, TWO WEEKS! We're totally taking advantage of the hotel job perks that we now have & Ray has a wonderful trip mapped out for us all around the north east. After our stay in Pennsylvania we'll be staying in Boston (for free!), driving around Vermont, Rhode Island, upstate NY, the Blue Ridge Parkway & just seeing the scenery, driving the mountains & visiting places like the Ben & Jerry's factory.

Having friends who work at Starbucks, they totally hooked me up for the long road trip



I was a bit concerned about the weather as our clothes are more for temps dipping into the 60's & not the 30's. I really wasn't sure about the girls wardrobe until I actually started going through all of the clothes people have given us. I've since discovered that the girls have an abundance of cute sweaters & jackets; so many that I'm having a difficult time not packing too much because this is one of the only opportunities they'll have to wear all of those adorable sweaters & hats & I just want to pack them all!

I came home & while packing Addison went to her room & got very quiet. When I checked on her, this is what I found:



I hope she's not up all night in the car!