Vacation USA 2012?????

It's 8:45am on a Saturday morning, and I've already been awake for three hours.  Why was I up so early, you may ask?  Well, you can thank this for interrupting my sleep. 

This is Typhoon Guchol.  It is wreaking havoc on my Vacation USA 2012 travel plans.  Over the last 5 days it's taken us on a roller coaster ride of emotions. First it didn't look like it was coming towards Okinawa, then it looked like it was going to land right on top of Okinawa, and now the latest is that it's going to swerve east of Okinawa.  I've become a little obsessed with this thing.  It's not an exaggeration to say that I could have become a meteorologist based on the number of hours I've spent poring over the various typhoon tracking websites.  I've looked at the American ones, the Japanese ones, even took a peek to see what the Chinese and Koreans predicted.  I know what times they update their forecasts (every six hours.)  I've learned to translate the meteorological lingo and have become quite proficient at converting UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) into Japanese time.   I've googled wind speed and aviation and researched the maximum knots of wind speed in which a plane is safe to take off.  (Unfortunately, there's no magic number....it depends on about 17 different factors that you "lay people" probably wouldn't understand.)  I've called two different airlines asking when they think they'll know if the flights will be cancelled, and is there any possible way they might be able to squeeze 6 people onto on airplane on Sunday instead of Monday.  They've all been very polite and tolerated my frustration and whining quite well, but in the end the answer is they can't do anything until the flight is officially cancelled.  I've even enlisted Bill's help in this mania.  Yesterday I sent him this crazy email....

I told you....obsessed doesn't begin to describe my condition. 

My always-steady husband has taken a different approach on our situation.   His tone wavers from unconcerned ("Oh, we will be long gone before this thing gets here.....") to relaxed ("Okinawans get about 10 typhoons a year....it's no big deal to them...they fly in and out of typhoons all the time!") to mad  ("I can't believe this is F%&#g happening!")   (He didn't really say the "f%$#g" part...but I could tell he was thinking it.)   And, I just noticed an empty bottle of Gin on the counter, so either he had a crazy party during the 5 hours that I slept last night, or he's drowning his sorrows in liquor.  Some people drink....some obsess over websites and write crazy blogs.  No judgment people.....unless you've walked in these shoes you just don't know! 

This has all been very frustrating.  We are supposed to leave around one-ish on Monday afternoon.  Emma bravely asked me yesterday why this was stressing me out so much and I snapped back at her, "Well, we've had this thing planned for four months.  When  you plan something 4 months out, it's because you don't want any surprises, and THIS is a big surprise."  (You  "7 Lenses" people have probably guessed that I'm a gold by now.) 

In other news, the kids had their last day of school on Thursday.  I can't believe the school year is over!  We started the morning off with the official last day of school pictures.

"Mr. Cool" Michael thought this was so embarrassing (because every neighbor is watching us at 6:45am)  So, of course, I had to do this.....

Emma and Andrew were a little more cooperative in their pictures....

Forest Gump here didn't blink on accident.  He thinks it's funny to close his eyes in pictures.  See that sneaky smile on his face? 

I took a break from my meteorological research to go to Emma's awards assembly,

then we officially ended the school year with a celebratory lunch at the Exchange food court....

and then dessert at Big Dip Ice Cream.

Now, we're just playing the waiting game trying to figure out what ol' Guchol is going to do.  The girls and I have pre-Vacation pedicures scheduled for this afternoon.  At this point, we're still hoping to make it Indiana this week and our high school reunion next weekend.  I had hoped to look well-rested and put together by then so that my envious classmates would think that the last 20 years were a breeze, but there's a good chance we'll look harried and exhausted.  So, when you see us, just smile, lie and say we look great, and show us where the bar is....because we'll probably need it.