We're back from Augusta! Our visit was mostly wonderful - lots of fun, great food, swimming on Saturday, spending time with our little niece Eliza. The hotel was nice and it was great having the pets with us on a road trip. The not-so-good things:

(1) My sunglasses and Alan's GPS were stolen out of our car sometime Saturday night/Sunday morning. We can replace the GPS, a gadget we thought we wouldn't use much, but which has come in very handy. While we can probably replace my Ray-Bans too, what irks me most is that there was a much more expensive pair of sunglasses in the passenger door compartment, but I don't like the expensive pair nearly as much as the ones that were stolen. Grrr.

(2) As usual, my car is broken! Every time Alan drives my car for us to spend the weekend in Augusta, something breaks either during the trip or immediately after, though the curse does not seem to hold for day trips. Each of the 4 times I've had to have my car repaired, it has been the result of Alan driving to Augusta (clock spring, CD player, fuel pump and now this issue). My car worked fine right up until the moment we left his parents' house Sunday afternoon. When we loaded up to leave, the radio/cd player/clock weren't working, nor were the electronic door locks or remote boot entry. All of these work off the same fuse so we were hoping for a quick and easy fix, but when we got home and checked, the fuse is fine - so it's something else electronic on that circuit.

I don't want to come across wrongly - I don't blame Alan for this nor do I believe that he did anything, intentionally or accidentally, to tear up my car. I just think it's a funny coincidence that it happens every single time, and that it only happens when he drives to Augusta. We've gone other places, even further away, and he's driven my car without incident.

To end with a positive, during our visit we gave Alan's mom this present. I've been working on this cross-stitch piece for her for quite some time, but even though I was itching to post pictures once I finally finished, I couldn't because we wanted it to be a surprise for her. Here is a picture of the design. We framed it too, and have some pictures of the finished product which I can update later - those pictures are on a different computer.