This is a no-stitching post, so if you're here only for stitching, move along. Fair warning.

This past weekend Handsome Helpful Fiancé and I went to New York to celebrate the 80th birthday of his grandma. Practically his entire extended family was there, so it was nice to meet them before the wedding. However, the trip was not without its ups and downs, as follows:

The first day we caught our flight out to Jersey and all went well. HHF's dad picked us up from the airport and we promptly got lost in the ghetto. Which was brief and uneventful and therefore fun. As we're driving to grandma's house in New York, however, I get "the call." My wedding is canceled at our venue. It won't be done in time for the wedding. And I can't even process the emotions because we don't want to worry grandma. So I internalize everything, let my mom know (she begins to panic but doesn't tell me until after) and arrive at grandma's house. Where HHF quickly begins to succumb to food poisoning, the symptoms of which began to manifest during the flight.

While HHF is sleeping in bed, I get the task of navigating his dad to JFK to pick up his sister and her boyfriend. I'm eager to do this because I've never been to NYC and we have to drive through in order to get to JFK and since HHF's dad used to live there and is also a history buff, it was a great car tour. We went through Manhattan, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and through Brooklyn. Even though we didn't have time to get out of the car and do the regular tourist-y things, it was still awesome to see all the stuff I didn't think I'd be able to see at all.

[Image] Freedom Tower

[Image] Brooklyn Bridge

I survived the meet and greet with the extended family without HHF and the next day he felt better so all was well.

The next day was Grandma's birthday and HHF felt well enough to make it which was great.

[Image] Shameless Selfie

After the party we went out for pizza.

[Image]
You see the size of those slices? I ate three of those. And then followed it with cannoli. No regrets. None. 
I had really wanted the authentic New York pizza experience so Thomas' dad took us to Turiello's in Nyack and it was amazing. 
While all this is happening my sister and brother in law drove south for an hour and my parents drove north for an hour and a half and in one afternoon toured three different potential alternate venues for our wedding and we think they may have found one! The venue even had availability on my original wedding date and because of the situation is willing to honor all my vendor contracts! They penciled me in on their calendar and I just have to talk to them over the phone, hopefully today, and make a decision, but it looks promising!
Last night we flew back. Our flight from Jersey was stuck on the tarmac for a while as all flights to and from Dallas were grounded due to weather. We finally made it to Dallas, caught our flight to Midland, and then were diverted to Amarillo due to 70+ mph winds in Midland and a dust storm. We did make it back to Midland only about three hours later than originally intended. But we did make it home.
On the stitching front there was a little bit of progress but not a whole lot. That's because last week on Monday or stove was shooting out sparks, on Tuesday the A/C broke, on Wednesday the closet flooded, and on Thursday I found mold in said closet. Friday we flew to New York and yesterday we came back. So basically it has been a busy and weird week.
Lesli did decide to spoil me again, and in celebration of my finishing my school portfolio she got me this beauty from Tilton Crafts called "Magical World" (original artwork by Igor Morski):
[Image] That is going to be a fun one to stitch... someday.

So now that you know everything that has happened over the last week (crazy, right?) here are the stats:

Anticipated completion date for College: 9/13/2016
Anticipated completion date for Library Adventures: 12/22/2019
Anticipated completion date for "secret stitching": 6/13/2016
Days until end of school: 15
Days until wedding: 159

Happy stitching everyone!