Eastward Bound

This summer will be very interesting for our little family because Lucy and I will be spending a month and a half on the east coast - specifically in Massachusetts and Washington DC! The biggest downside is that most, if not all of that time will be spent without Brandon.

I have two high school friends that are getting married - Tracy on May 19th and Jamie on June 30th. I was both honored and flattered to be asked by both brides to sing at their respective weddings. Instead of making two trips out to Massachusetts (where my brother, Chris lives) in a relatively short period of time, I decided to stay out east for the whole time in between weddings. Fortunately, I found some great deals on my flights and we had points to apply to our tickets so the actual cost of traveling was quite low. And since I had so much time in between weddings, I'm taking a little trip down to DC to visit my sister Elaine for a week!

One of the very best parts of all this is that my mom decided to come out to visit from Japan(!) since I was going to be out here for so long AND my other sister, Emily (& daughter, Olive) decided to come out to visit too after Em found some great deals on airline tickets. And of course, the flight is so short from DC that oldest sister, Elaine and her family (hubby, Mike & daughter, Maya) are coming up to Massachusetts before we go down to visit them in DC.

So here are all the travel plans in case you couldn't keep track:

Tuesday, May 16th: Mom arrives in Boston from Japan
Wednesday, May 17th: Annie and Lucy arrive in Massachusetts from Utah
Friday, May 18th: Brother, Chris, who lives in Mass, flies to Aruba for long weekend (Boo!)
Saturday, May 19th: Elaine, Mike, & Maya arrive from DC
Monday, May 21st: Emily and Olive arrive from Utah
Tuesday, May 22nd - Chris returns from Aruba
Saturday, May 26th: Elaine, Mike, & Maya fly back to DC
Thursday, May 31st: Emily and Olive fly back to Utah
Friday, June 1st: Annie, Lucy & Mom fly to DC
Saturday, June 9th: Annie, Lucy & Mom return to Massachusetts from DC
Wednesday, June 13th: Mom flies back to Japan :(
Wednesday, July 4th: Annie & Lucy fly back to Utah
Monday, July 23rd: Dad arrives in Boston from Japan
Sunday, August 19th: Dad returns to Japan

Phew! Is your head spinning? That is going to be a lot of trips to the airport. I feel like I am the most fortunate because I get to spend the most time (almost an entire month) with my mom. And it's been a year and a half since we all saw her last. We usually only get to see her when one of us girls has a baby. But lucky for all of us, she'll be out to visit sooner rather than later because both Emily AND Elaine are pregnant (and hopefully, I will be joining their ranks soon)!

The only thing that is missing from the schedule above is that I am hoping to find some cheap airline tickets for Brandon to come to visit us. The original plan was for him to take time off of work to visit us in DC while we were there but now that he has been laid off from his job, our financial situation is less certain even though he has plenty of time. We thought we would just deal with the extended period being away from each other but after just a few days, we realize we should probably make plans for him to come out because it is just too long to be away from each other and Lucy already really misses him even though she is currently loving the attention from her Baba and Uncle Chris.

Also, even though my Dad will be missing out on the impromptu family reunion, he will visiting us Utah folks while he is stateside so there are a couple more trips to the airport for my brother (thanks for hosting and chauffeuring us around, Chris!). My dad couldn't make it out with my mom because he is working in Japan and doesn't have vacation until July/August.

Since the Sturgis family is so spread out, it's not often that we get the chance to have so many of us (though not all) be together at once. It will be really cute to have all the siblings together and all the grandchildren together as well as beloved Baba. The last time all of us siblings and the grandkids were together, we got family pictures done. I'm wondering if we should do that again...

I'm sure we will have a plethora of our own pictures of the three granddaughters all together as well as with their Baba. Hopefully, we can give plenty of blog posts to the hubbies and daddies that couldn't be here all together with us; Grandpa Mark, Brandon, & Jared.