Friday was the day! Mr. Guy is not tired anymore. He is officially retired! To celebrate, we went on a trip Norfolk, Virginia to meet some of The Lady's picture taking friends. Well, I'm not sure that Mr. Guy thought of it that way, but I was excited to get to go on a trip and I think that Mr. Guy had fun once we got there. He met The Lady's picture taking friends and their Guys.
When we fly on trips, we usually leave very early in the morning. This time, because Mr. Guy had to go to school one more time, we left at night. When we got to the airport, they were glad to see me. The computer told me that!
This is where we got our tickets. There was one for Mr. Guy and one for The Lady. They called me a lap baby so I didn't get my own ticket. I guess they know that I prefer to sit in Mr. Guy's lap when I'm on the airplane.
Everything went smoothly until it didn't! Our plane was delayed because there was lots of rain.
We waited.
And then we waited some more. Then they changed our gate so we moved. Then we waited some more.
I'm glad that Mr. Guy always carries me in the airport. There are lots of things with wheels in the airport and they don't always watch out for people, let alone little blue and orange furry monsters. It is kind of scary. People pull and push and roll boxes with their clothes in them and they don't watch where they are going. Then there are these wagons that drive inside, right down the middle of the sidewalk; there isn't a street. They make lots of noise. "Beep, Beep, BEEP. BEEP!!!' They always seem to be in a hurry but they are full of only empty seats. They never seem to stop to let poeple on. They just beep their way through the airport nearly running over people and their boxes of clothes!
I was getting to be a hungry and tired little monster. The good thing about the new gate was that it was right next to a pretzel store. The Lady went and got me a cinnamon sugar pretzel, but just as she got back with it, they called us to board the plane. FINALLY! But then I had to wait to eat my pretzel.
Just as we were about to step on the plane, we had to wait again because something spilled on the airplane and they had to bring a special truck and a special person to come suck it up. While we waited, I got more hungry and more tired.
Then finally we got on the plane!
And I ate my (cold) pretzel.
The good thing about being an hour late leaving Dallas was that the storms all passed and it was time for sunset. Sunset above the clouds is so pretty!!! The Lady let me borrow her phone so that I could take some pictures.
Look at all that beautiful blue and orange!!! My monster belly was full and my monster eyes were full of pretty sky. In the end, everything was good! Then I went to sleep and slept through the rest of our flight.
We got to our hotel very late and all of us went to bed because The Lady told me we had a very exciting day the next day. Well actually, it was that day because it was 1:30 in the morning!!!
We met The Lady's picture taking friends at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. I remebered The Lady telling me last week that I was going to have a chance to see lots more pretty flowers. I could tell exactly who the picture taking ladies were because they all had cameras around their necks and carried boxes of stuff, but not like the boxes with wheels that people pulled around in the airport. They carried them on their shoulders.
The Picture Taking Ladies were full of smiles and laughter and headed off together to take pictures. Fortunately, one of The Picture Taking Ladies, Ms. Sherri, brought her Mr. Guy with her. So, my Mr. Guy, Ms. Sherri's Mr. Guy, and I spent a lot of time sitting on benches talking and watching The Picture Taking Ladies run around pointing their cameras at anything and everything...including us! At least they didn't forget we were there!
The Lady thought the flower was prettier than us, but there we are in that blurred background!
We were happy on our bench talking to Mr. Ray Well, really we sat on lots of benches; this is just one of them.
We also walked around and saw lots of green stuff.
The Picture Taking Ladies saw lots of things. The Mr. Guys and I sat on our benches and enjoyed fresh air, the fragrant flowers, and conversation with each other.
I did see a funny looking water monster!
We had lunch under a tree. We got our lunch from a truck. The food guy piled a bunch of ingredients on a long paddle and stuck it in a big box on wheels. This box on wheels was much bigger than the boxes on wheels that people had in the airport. It would not fit in the airplane's overhead bin and it wasn't full of peoples' dirty clothes. It was a magic box!
The food guy put the pile of ingredients in it and when he pulled it out, it was pizza!! He cut his pizza into nice even pieces. I liked that.
After we ate our magically made pizza, we went to look at the roses. These are the flowers like we have in the gardens in our town. The Norfolk Botanical Garden had rose rows of rowses roses. That was hard to write! I don't like all of these phonehomes or homephones or whatever these words are called!
I saw pretty colors that weren't roses, too!
And I found this funny dead flower.
Mr. Guy said it was a pine comb. A pine comb?? I asked Mr. Guy how I was supposed to use this to comb my fur. It didn't look to me like it would work very well.
"Pine CONE!", he said, "Not comb."
I was so glad that I didn't have to use it to brush my fur, but I still didn't know what it was for.
The Lady told me that is the female, or seed bearing part, of a pine tree and...
I told her to stop. This seemed like more information that I really needed. The most important thing is that I don't have to use this female seed thing to comb my blue boy fur!
I had a super fun day at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens and I think all of The Picture Taking Ladies did too!
Ms. Sherri, the lady that goes with the guy, Mr. Ray, asked to have her picture taken with me. That reminded me that I have not done well with my 100 People Project. Almost a year ago, on my "birthday" I decided that I would try to have my picture taken with one hundred people before my next birthday, which is next week. That isn't going to happen. I got sad and disappointed about that. Mr. Guy and The Lady said that it was okay and reminded me about our conversation about disappoinment a few months ago. They said that we could just continue from where we are and eventually we will get to a hundred people. That made me smile!
So, Ms. Sherri is #24 in my 100 People Project and I am on a roll again! Thank you Ms. Sherri for helping me get back on track!
Sunday morning while we were at the hotel, someone knoecked on our door and gave us food, already cooked! It was another magic food moment.
I wish the mailman in Dallas would bring our food to the door already cooked! Then The Lady would not have to make meals when she is tired. Oh wait...Mr. Guy is not tired anymore so he can fix the meals and the mailman doesn't have to bring them.
Another thing that was not a disappointment on this trip was that Starbucks in the Norfolk airport is open 24 hours, unlike the one in the Dallas airport. When we got to the airport at 4:40 in the morning to come home, Mr. Guy got us all a cup of coffee!
Oh, and if you want to see more of The Lady's photos from her visit to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens, check out her blog! Give her a day or two, though. She has been busy sorting through her photos and she is not retired and had to go back to work this week.
