San Diego 2023

If any of you are familiar with Southwest Airlines, you may know about their Companion Pass. Essentially, once you earn it, you designate one person as your companion, and they can fly for free on every flight you take. It is an amazing deal and I've been trying to earn it for 25+ years!

I finally succeeded last July and when I received the notification, I learned that my Companion Pass would be good until December 31, 2023 - so for 17 months, C and I would be able to fly with only having to purchase one ticket. Incredible!

We started making plans and looked at all of the destinations that offered nonstop flights from one of the three area airports. We booked a monthly trip starting in September and were so excited about being able to travel so frequently! Unfortunately, life happened. My mom got really sick in September, had her surgery and lengthy hospital stay in October, and we dealt with the aftermath of that in November and December. We ended up canceling trips to Denver, Chicago, Austin, and New Orleans. Extremely disappointing, but my mom needed us.

We were finally able to use the Companion Pass for the first time last month, when we flew to Orlando for the weekend. You might recall that the trip was a Christmas gift from B1 and S1, so it was nice to be able to save them some money because C was able to fly for free with me! Then a few weeks ago, we used it again when we went to San Diego for the weekend!

We had a great time in San Diego, with absolutely no particular plans other than to try and relax. C has a friend who lives there, so we met him and his wife for lunch and we hadn't seen them in far too long, so that was the highlight of our time there! San Diego is a beautiful place and I could do nothing more than sit and stare at the Pacific Ocean and I would be extremely happy!

In case you're wondering how I earned the Companion Pass, Southwest had a promotion with its credit card and C and I are all about taking advantage of as many travel perks as possible. It had to do with spending x amount within the first three months and also x amount over the course of 12 months to earn the Companion Pass. All we did was shift all of our regular spending to that credit card, of course paying it off in full every month, and voila!

We are going to try to use it as often as we can before it expires at the end of 2023 - as always, jobs get in the way of being able to travel whenever we want, but we're aiming to get at least ten free flights from it, and I hope we can meet that goal!

we had an empty between us on the flight there

AND on the flight home!

Happy Tails to you!

Harry Potter Forbidden Forest

Tickets to this event were my birthday present last year from S1, and we waited a long time for this night! You may recall that the two of us were supposed to go back in December, but it was cancelled due to flooding after some prolonged terrible weather. We then had to find a time to go that worked for both of our schedules, which is no easy feat, but let me just say that it was absolutely worth the wait! It was really cold that night, with clear skies and a bright moon, which definitely added to the ambiance and everything about it was really well done. It was cool to walk through dark woods filled with colored lights and be immersed in a magical world! Some of the effects were pretty impressive, including seeing a unicorn in the woods, and there were several stations where you could stop to cast a patronus or duel with wands. Best of all, S1 and I had a chance to spend some time together alone, which rarely happens!

This was an exceptionally great birthday gift and I'm so lucky to have such a fabulous SIL!

Happy Tails to you!

WDW January 2023

For Christmas, B1 and S1 gifted us a weekend in WDW with them and our niece and nephew! They were going for five days and invited us to join them, which was incredibly thoughtful and generous - flights, hotel, and park tickets! We went with them last January as well, so maybe this is the beginning of a yearly tradition! We made some great memories together, did some character meals, and took advantage of Genie+, which was a huge time saver! We went to Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot, which was hosting the Festivals of the Arts - one of my favorite things at WDW!

Our niece and nephew didn't know about us coming on the trip, so that was a fun surprise when we appeared at Magic Kingdom! Other than a few sprinkles for about 30 minutes, the weather was fantastic the entire time and the crowds were pretty manageable. We wish we could have stayed longer, but as usual, jobs prevented that!

We spent one night at the Swan Reserve and one night at All Star Sports. The Swan Reserve was absolutely beautiful; we've never stayed at either the Swan or Dolphin before because if I'm being honest, I don't think of them as "official" WDW resorts because they're not run by Disney. But that's just me being snooty! It was a great resort and the only downside was not having more time to spend there!

Avalanche had his first stay at a kennel and he did very well! He was very excited when we picked him up on our way home from the airport, which made me happy because I'd been worried about confusing him since we'd only had him for three weeks at that point. He'll definitely be staying there again when we travel!

My uncle was kind enough to come from Canada and stay with my mom for the weekend; it was great that they got to spend some time together because they hadn't seen each other since before the pandemic started!

The worst part of the weekend was with TSA on our way to Florida. It was the most miserable experience. Not only was I pulled aside for "random" screening, it ended up escalating into a full-on, very thorough and uncomfortable pat-down in a private room and all items in my carryon bag being individually swabbed and scanned. Have you ever had each of your toes fondled one-by-one to ensure you weren't hiding anything between them? Because I have! The whole thing took almost 30 minutes and it was beyond absurd. They kept telling me different things: "too many electronics" in my bag (complete nonsense); my hoodie was "setting off" the machine (I offered to take it off and put it through the x-ray machine by itself, but was not allowed to do so); and then my shoes were deemed "suspicious" and they had to be removed and individually swabbed and scanned (more nonsense). Once they couldn't find any reason to detain me further based on my clothing, they emptied the entire contents of my carryon and of course found nothing. I've written many times before about what light and efficient packers C and I are when we travel, and I was so grateful for that because they went through every little thing and asked questions about each item. I can't even imagine how long it would have taken if I'd had more stuff with me. DID I MENTION THAT I HAVE TSA PRE-CHECK?!? Of course this happened at one the worst airports ever - Reagan. Not a great start to the trip!

Although it was a very quick weekend, we had so much fun! My 5yo niece is extremely entertaining and she did not disappoint. My favorite quote from her was when we went into the Tangled bathrooms together. She was washing her hands in the kid-level sink when she looked around, and then said, "I like this bathroom because it's beautiful AND accessible!" SO precious!!!

Despite my desire to de-clutter my life, I did buy some souvenirs. Not sorry at all!

A huge thank you to B1 and S1 for such a fabulous time!

Happy Tails to you!