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Happy New Year!

2012 passed in a blur of work, travel, conferences, pregnancy, and babies. Was it a crazy year? Yes indeed! And I wasn’t able to travel for several months. So I was about 50-50 with my 2012 travel resolutions:

Get to Chicago and South Texas. Visiting family is always a priority! I was able to visit Chicago three times last year! That’s a lot of sister time. The Home Warrior and I traveled to South Texas to visit my grandmother twice, and took the Mini Warrior once. As a bonus, we also went to North Texas to visit the Home Warrior’s family twice. I’m sure the Tours of Texas will continue this year!

Take at least one fun vacation. With all the conferences and work trips this year, it’s a wonder the Home Warrior and I had a chance to see each other, much less go on a fun trip. But we managed it! Some good friends of ours got married in Playa del Carmen this year, and we managed to get there for the festivities (and a little fun time before). At seven months pregnant there were definitely challenges, but it was a great trip nonetheless.

Make Executive Platinum. Well, not being able to fly for five months made this one nearly impossible. Maybe next year!

Get the Companion Pass. While I wasn’t able to make this happen in 2012, I am pretty certain that it will happen early in 2012. I don’t want to jinx myself though, so I’m going to hold off on talking about it too much for now.

Looking forward: Travel resolutions for 2013.

1. Visit family. Same as previous years, I want to go see our family all over Texas and in Chicago, plus we have family in New York now.
2. Companion Pass. Get it and USE it. This is the year!!!
3. Get Gold status with Hilton. I’ve been Silver for years without being able to cross that threshold. I am currently doing the Gold Challenge, so should have it soon!
4. Master travel with baby. Or at least learn to travel with baby without losing my mind.
5. Visit Wine Country. For a blissful year and a half, I was able to get to Napa every couple of months. The last time was three and a half years ago and I want to go back!!!
6. Visit one new place in the US. Hopefully the Companion Pass will help us out here! If not, well, we’ll make it happen another way.

My two main resolutions aside from the travel ones are to start getting ready to leave ten minutes before I think I need to (trying to deal with being chronically late to stuff) and do another triathlon.

(Pictured: Photo booth props from Etsy shop The Manic Moose.)

Readers, what are your resolutions this year? How did you do on last year’s?

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Back in August, my older sister and her awesome baby boy came to visit for a few days. We had a great time! It was my first time to meet my nephew, and much cuddling ensued. The day they left was a sad one for me, but since I’m a good sister I helped them pack and drove them to the airport. We left the house with lots of time, since it takes a while to get through the airport with an infant.

We got to the airport with over 90 minutes until departure. Great! Plenty of time, right? I helped her get all the stuff out of the car (as best I could, as I was 9 months pregnant at the time. In fact, I think this was the day before my due date!). Suitcase, diaper bag, stroller, car seat, baby, purse….Wait. Where was the purse?? We searched the car, pulling all of my crap out of the trunk. No purse. We searched the diaper bag. Nope. The front seat, the back seat…. You get the idea. What to do? Obviously the purse wasn’t there, so it had to be back at the house. Do we try to go get it and get back in time for the flight? We had about two seconds of indecisiveness, but I quickly realized that no matter what, we had to go back to my parents’ house where they had been staying. And if it turned out the purse wasn’t there, well, we’d end up back there anyway.

We threw all the stuff back in the car (except for the baby, who we placed safely and securely in his car seat), jumped in, and took off. Adding to the excitement—it was rush hour. I immediately called my parents’ house, hoping someone was there, while my sister looked for flights in case we didn’t make it back to the airport in time. I got my step-dad on the phone, and he looked all over the house for the purse, finally finding it near the baby changing table. Hooray! Now if we could only get there to retrieve it and get back to the airport in time…. Read more of this article »

Every year when September 11 approaches I find myself taking a moment to reflect. The tragedy, certainly. The lives lost and grieving families still haunt me. But I also remember the heroism in the face of danger, and the bravery of the first responders. It brings tears to my eyes to this day. So I will just take a moment to reflect, and remember.

(Marshall Jackson on Travel has an emotional, and very moving, remembrance post up today.)

The Mini Warrior has arrived!! He came late last Friday night. We got home from the hospital on Monday, and the Home Warrior and I are already so in love with our little guy. Thanks, everyone, for the well wishes!

I know I say this every year but….. has it already been a year?? Today is Road Warriorette’s third blogiversary. It seems like a blink of an eye, but 366 days, 52 weeks, 12 months have already passed. This year has been a whirlwind of excitement, including becoming a Boarding Area Featured Blogger and attending Blog World Expo in November, and traffic has doubled. Yay! Can’t wait for next year!

Just for fun, let’s take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of my favorite posts and some of the best discussions….

Is it rude to recline your seat while flying?

Happy Freaking Birthday

How to remember where you parked

Plane Etiquette Round Up

Top Five Secrets of Business Travel

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Happy Memorial Day friends!! I wanted to take a break from our festivities to remember why we celebrate this day. Thank you to the incredibly brave men and women who sacrifice every day to keep our country safe. We are so grateful for you, and for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Readers, I hope you are getting everything you need out of your three day weekend, whether it’s rest, relaxation, fun, productivity, or a combination. For those of you on the road (and everywhere else, too!) please stay safe. I plan to celebrate my best friend’s birthday today, spending some time in the pool and maybe eating a little barbecue.

Readers, how do you plan to spend your Memorial Day?

That time of year again! Time to reflect back on how 2011 went, and figure out what (if anything) you want to change for 2012. Looking at my travel resolutions for 2011, I did pretty well.

Take a trip with my paternal grandmother. We did manage to take Grandma to the beach! We had fun, although the timing didn’t end up being awesome what with the red tide and all.

Visit my maternal grandmother in South Texas twice. We made it to South Texas only once, but are actually headed back down there this weekend. So still going every six months or so. Yay driving!

Go to Chicago three times to see my sisters. Got to Chicago twice this year, which isn’t bad. Plus my sisters came to Texas a bunch, so I still saw them often. (Although in 2012 I will be up there even more, since both of my sisters are having babies!)

Visit somewhere new. For vacation, the Home Warrior and I went to Puerto Rico this year. It was amazing and wonderful. Everyone should go there!

Looking forward, I have some of the same types of resolutions. I definitely want to continue to spend time with family, get in a fun trip or two, and visit somewhere new. But I also have some pretty specific resolutions (goals?) related to status. So, here goes.

1. Get to Chicago and South Texas. Like 2010 and 2011, I want to make sure I get to see my family a lot.
2. Take at least one fun vacation. There is a ton of stuff going on this year, and the Home Warrior and I definitely need to make time for relaxing.
3. Make Executive Platinum. Honestly, it really irritates me that I went to Manila twice last year, traveled almost every week, and did not hit Ex Plat. This year I will keep the goal in mind when planning travel to try to finally cross that threshold.
4. Get the Southwest Companion Pass. It seems like the coolest thing, so if there is any way to get it I will.

My main resolution aside from these travel ones is to not commit to anything new this year. I’ve got a lot on my plate, and I want to make sure I can do all of those things well.

So Readers, what are your resolutions? Do you have specific travel ones or just general ones?

I hope everyone out there is having a GREAT holiday weekend! Wishing safe travel for all the travelers out there. Enjoy your time off (if you’ve got it!).

If you have any crazy holiday travel stories, let me know!! I’m always on the lookout for the funniest or most terrible travel situations. Look for a post about avoiding conversations with a seatmate in the next week.

Also, in the next week I’ll be talking about my New Years Travel Resolutions. Start thinking about yours so you can share!

Over the last week and a half, I was driving around Texas for some reason or another 7 out of 9 days. That was a lot of driving time, for sure. Driving isn’t my main way of traveling for work, mostly I fly, so this was a bit out of the ordinary. I fly again this week, to Ohio again for several days (which I’m a little nervous about due to the crazy experience I had there last time). Hopefully it will be just fine.

But this story is about a trip a couple of weeks ago. First, some background. My mother and I live in the same town, and despite my constant travel have usually been able to get together a couple times a month.  However, she was promoted a few years ago, and now travels almost as often as I do. At least half of her trips are car trips, if not more, but she does fly periodically. For the past several months one of us has been gone virtually all of the time, so haven’t been able to see each other very much at all. Then, two weeks ago, I was heading to Nashville Wednesday at 6:30, and she was headed to Philadelphia at 5:45. I left early for the airport, and got to spend twenty minutes with my mom for the first time in a month.

Of course, it was great to catch up! Though I’m not sure what it means that the only time we see each other is at the airport…… I guess we’re both just road warriors…..

Readers, have you ever timed a flight so you can see a friend or family member at the airport?