Girls being Girls and Getting Ready

Mom came to visit yesterday. She, of course, was all over the shopping end of this trip I'm about to go on. We started at Old Navy, and then I went to Wal-Mart to get my hair trimmed up one last time before letting it go wild over the next few weeks. While I was doing that, Mom and Carly went shopping for shoes. I was able to find locks for my luggage and electrical adapters, oh... and a gold mine of panties at Old Navy. Underwear usually aren't a difficult item to find, but I really needed a lot of nude and white colored underwear, because the pants I'm taking are pretty thin. I have to keep my skin covered due to mosquitoes and trying to prevent Dengue Fever, but it's also going to be an average of 72 degrees.

Mom wound up staying the night here in Morgantown, and we went out to dinner at Applebee's. I had the Cowboy Burger as usual, Mom had the Oriental Chicken Salad, and Carly had a half rack of bbq ribs. We are creatures of habit. It was nice to just have the time to relax and enjoy their company. I know it's only a few weeks I'll be gone, but with the actual physical distance, it makes it feel a lot longer in the whole time-space continuum. Here's a pic of Mom and me at Applebee's. (Oh yeah, and she finally made it to one of my Zumba classes! Woot woot!)

Carly and Mom both slept in my room, Mom in my bed, and Carly on the roll out mattress. Since they went to bed at 10:30, and I knew that was nowhere near sleep time for me, I went out to the couch instead. I had intially planned to come back to my room and crawl in with one of the two of them, depending on who was taking up less space in their bed, but I fell asleep on the couch, only waking up for a few minutes when John called to say goodnight.

Mom left at about 5 this morning to go to work. I talked to John pretty early and got started on my laundry and what not. John had his first day in the field. He talks like it's a lot of work. I think it sounds exciting, with all the hiking and seeing new places. He said he's been taking a lot of pictures. Well, he better be. Also this morning, I've been getting a good bit of my packing done and trying to do some reading for the class. Pesonally, I feel that the amount of reading required before the trip is obscene. I wish that we had received the syllabus much earlier, so that we could have budgeted this into our time, but oh well. I'm just saying... it's difficult to visit with everyone before leaving, get packed and go shopping, continue working, AND read about 400 pages.

I have to make this quick, though, because I need to get down to the bank and get a bank statement. Apparently, I need to be able to prove solvency in order to receive a visa once I enter Bolivia. I love all these last minute tasks and necessities. Grrr...