Here's my 1st blog as Mrs Stephens!

Can you believe it?

Saturday was a GREAT day...actually it was a wonderful weekend, not even just one day!

So far our honeymoon has been wonderful too. Our 1st two nights were spent in a Suite at the Ambassador East Hotel on North State Parkway in Chicago. I'm very proud of this...when I booked the room for last night & tonight I just put a little note on the reservation request that said that this would be the 1st stop on our Honeymoon & anything they could do to make our stay extra special would be appreciated. Well, I guess they listened...we checked in and we got up to our room and it says "Suite" on the door. Well suite it is...two very lovely rooms...one sitting room with a TV & mini bar and a view of Goethe Street and one bedroom with a king sized bed, desk, nice bathroom & huge walk-in closets. It also has a view of the city & is very lovely! Well, when we got into the suite we were a bit shocked & I called down to the front desk to check if we had gotten the right room, etc. It was the correct room & for the correct price! Very cool! LD has asked me how long one can one say their honeymoon is lasting...how long can we milk this for?

Next stop...Wilkes-Barre, PA. We headed out Monday morning and drove all day until we got to Wilkes-Barre, PA after dinner. We didn't push ourselves too hard with the driving...we just really enjoyed while covering some ground. As we drove we got a call from Mark Rapo, and so while in Boston we'll be having dinner with him (& his sweetie, Shannon)! Oh, in Wilkes-Barre we stayed in a Hampton Inn that had a very nice view too – the room was decent & we got a hot breakfast for our $89. Not too bad!

Tuesday morning we continued on our trek to New England. After a lunch stop at Friendly's somewhere just west of Hartford, CT I took over driving for a while. That meant that we would be making a stop in Whitinsville, MA. I took LD on the "Laurie was here" tour. We saw the 1st house I lived in there, the other apartment I lived in the rest of time I was there. We stopped at Whitinsville Christian School & saw some folks I taught with. Linda Johnson was there & we visited with her some more (She & her husband Bob had made the trek out to Chicago for the wedding...wasn't that sweet?). We also saw Don Godeke, Mary Youngsma, Mary Masselink, Dick VandenBerg, Lance Engbers, June Bloem, Dawn LeFrancis (I may be slaughtering names here...who remembers how to spell them all!) But Larry was a trouper and he claims he enjoyed the tour. It was sort of fun for me...made me glad that I had moved on.

Now we are in Boston – and this is where I've been brought back to reality. When I booked the room we're in I asked for a King-sized bed. We got two doubles. Doubles suck next to King-sized beds. I called the front desk & was rudely told that when you book on line what do you expect? So we're in a kind of small room with too many beds. Oh well, it is near Boston...we'll just not hang out here that much!

Well, I suppose I should see what the day brings...we're operating with NO Schedules right now & it is glorious!

Am I still glowing??