Home Sweet Home

Sorry for the quick post, but we wanted to let everyone know that we made it home safely. Needless to say, returning to a home that has been unoccupied for almost 7 months makes for some very interesting problems. Let me see if I can recap some of our adventures!

Get ready for a marathon post!!!

Sunday:
We left our apartment in Cabarate about noon to make the 20 minute drive to the Puerto Plata airport. Our friends were so kind to take us and drop us right at the door. We arrived and were through the initial X-ray by 12:30 and found that the counter didn't open for our flight until 1:00 so we proceeded to wait at the entrance to the line for the counter. We were glad we were the first ones there so that we could hopefully get our seats together and make sure all the problems with our reservations had been fixed. Well, at 1:00 we are the first ones up to the agent and guess what, the problems had not been fixed. We had been worried about mine mostly because they seemed to be the most messed up, but they were fine. Delta still had Matt departing on Nov 30, 2007 which was our original departure date. Well after an hour and them trying to charge us again for the ticket change (that we had already paid for in October), we finally got to head into the airport.
We had very good and on time flights into Atlanta and a small delay on our second flight into Denver. All of our bags made it and we hoped into a cab and proceeded home. We arrived home about 1:30 in the morning and found a drift of snow/ice on the driveway that we dragged the bags over. We stuffed everything in the garage and proceeded to head in to turn up the heater (did I mention that it was in the 30's when we arrived here), turn up the water heater and check on the sump pump to make sure the basement wasn't filled with water. All went well and we collapsed into bed after adding an electric blanket to the down comforter.

Monday:
We work early (a little before 7) due to the time difference (3 hours from the DR) and set out to get stuff done. Well, it didn't start off too well. The water was not hot even though we had turned on the water heater the night before and NEITHER car would start! We adjusted the water heater up and thank goodness it kicked in. Matt's truck was deader than a doornail but mine had some juice left, just not enough to start. Matt immediately put mine on the battery charger and several hours later it was charged enough to start. Matt spent the morning outside shoveling snow/ice and in the garage as we had to move everything that we had stored there back to its original place. We had to move the outside table & chairs and the huge BBQ grill back around to the patio on the back side of the house. Did I mention that this was a noisy process, what a great way to announce to your neighbors at 8 in the morning that you are home!! I unpacked all of our bags and started sorting out laundry so that we could wash everything before we put away all our summer clothes (not much need for them here now). After I finished unpacking, Matt took the air compressor and blew all the sand out of the bags (its amazing how much sand we accumulated).

He tossed my snow tires in the back of my car and off we went to the garage to have them put on. While waiting on the tires, we went to one of our favorite coffee shops for great coffee and these wonderful breakfast burritos that they have (yes, you will hear lots about food because we have missed our favorites for 7 months now). The car was ready so we went back home so that I could shower and get ready for my meeting at 2:00. On the way to my meeting, we stopped and got our cell phones turned back on so we would have some way of communicating with everyone. We both have new numbers so if we haven't given them to you yet, we will soon!! I had my meeting at Gambro and it went well. I will start work with them on Monday, Feb 4 and I will be there until at least June and most likely into 2009 as they get ready to implement a new Accounting System (yep, the stuff I love to do). After my meeting we stopped off at Jayme & Andy's to pick up the baby tree and our computer backup that we had left with them. It was great to see Jayme & Hannah and to chat a bit. We were starving by that time and headed off to Texas Road House for their wonderful BBQ ribs. Yep, more food that we missed!! After eating we headed out to the grocery store to get a few things that we needed as the refrigerator is empty. We were both exhausted by this time so thank goodness we weren't pushing two carts out, although I did think I was going to have to pry a drooling Matt away from the ice cream cases! It was an early to bed night for two very tired people.

Tuesday:
The day started out by waiting on the Comcast guy to come install our cable and internet. We spent the morning working on laundry and continuing our unpack. As everything came back on, we were testing all the TV's and resetting them all up. Well, the VCR downstairs is DEAD!! Won't even turn on!! We have an older TV down there that requires the tuner so we have to figure out what to do! After the comcast guy was done, we headed off to pick up our car insurance cards (no idea where any were) and to have lunch at Subway (yep, more food we missed). We were all dressed in our ski clothes and we headed up to Loveland for our first day of skiing. They had received 5 inches of new snow the night before and very heavy winds. As we left Denver, the gusts were in the 30 - 40 mph range so we weren't too sure we'd be doing much skiing. As we climbed near the Eisenhower tunnel and the ski resort, the thermometer dropped to 6 degrees! Yes, 6 degrees!! Thank goodness the winds had calmed down up there and we had a great day skiing. I managed to make 5 runs and Matt did 6, not too bad for our first day. Needless to say, we returned to Denver very tired and legs were already sore!! Matt worked on the office all night long and got all of our computers up and running (in addition to our home phone via vonage). I think we might have managed to stay up until 8 in the evening, but it was a huge push!

Wednesday:
We woke a bit stiff and sore and decided to postpone our first back-country ski day. We attacked the kitchen and cleaned out everything. We had probably 5 bags of stuff that we threw out (and I had done this before we left also) and the entire kitchen got scrubbed from the tops of the cabinets to inside the cabinets to the fronts of the cabinets. We finished up early in the afternoon and decided to go run some errands. We headed over to Denver West to go to Best Buy to try to fix the VCR problem (no luck there) and then to Office Depot for some supplies and then to Bed, Bath & Beyond for some stuff. We were starving again so we headed over to Outback for some great steaks (Definitely missed that place!!). As we were finishing dinner, the snow started to fall. It was very heavy. We decided to go ahead with our trip to Costco to replenish the freezer with food and while we only spent an hour (and an amazing $360), there was a good inch of snow everywhere when we came home. On our way home, we got to see a nasty little accident from the road conditions (yep, Matt was driving and not me thank goodness). We made it home safe and sound! We spent the evening relaxing and Matt even managed to play a bit of guitar.

And that brings us to today, Thursday:
As I write this, there is snow everywhere and its in the 20's. We haven't ventured outside yet today. We had planned on going skiing but with the temperature there a NEGATIVE 16, we decided that our blood probably wasn't thick enough for that yet. We're in the process of going through 7 months of mail and sorting and filing (YUCK!!). We hope to hit Loveland tomorrow for one more ski day.