Falling Star, which fell right into the palm of my hands!

The other night I had to get out. I had not been alone for days. I am a mom who needs her alone time. So I went to walk the isles of Target (i have not been there all summer) pick up a few necessities and return my slime toothpaste (nasty!)
Across the street from our two story (which at first was cool, now drives me crazy) Target is a Barnes and Noble bookstore. I wanted to go look for this book by David McCullough on the Brooklyn bridge. Our New York trip sparked some interest I never thought I would have about such a bridge and I hope to start that book by the end of the summer. So while I was in there I also looked for Star Garden the third book in the These is My Words series. The employee looked it up on the computer and found that there was one but that it had been special ordered for someone else and was waiting to be picked up. I teased with him that he should just sell it to me and he could order another one and it would be here by the time the customer wanted it, because if they wanted it as bad as I do it would not still be sitting on the hold shelf. He looked at me like the crazy lady trying to steal someone elses special order that I was.
Then yesterday at the pool my friend handed me a bag from Barnes and Noble and inside was the Star Garden. I had loaned her my copy of These is My Words (which has made its rotations on the pool deck this summer) and she knew I had been looking for Star Garden. She had special ordered the book for me as a thank you for some embroidery I did for her. So that book on the hold shelf really was for me - how funny is that.We were both laughing so hard!
I am excited to read the book and may take it on my trip.
So speaking of trip. We leave in a week for Europe and will be gone for 2 weeks. 2 weeks of hot summer heat with my screaming tired kids, one of which is still in diapers, and paying $10 a gallon for gas, pure heaven right? We have no flight reservation, no hotel reservation, no car rented - are we so crazy or what. It is times like this that I know Jeff and I were meant to be married. We are both laid back enough to travel in such a manner. (we are hopping a free military flight)
We are starting to follow flight patterns to see where and how we can begin our trip to and through Italy. Now that is our plan but we are fully prepared to show up at the Air Force Base and if there was a flight leaving for Spain, we would hop on it. In fact this morning we saw a flight that would be leaving for the Azores and we looked up where that even is on a map and said , "now that might be fun"
We have found that the less we really get set in our mind of what we want to do the more adaptable we will be to just going anywhere when we get there.This year we are packing as light as we possibly can. We just bought real luggage for the first time in our married lives and everyone has one small piece. We still have to bring two car seats a child's back pack (Cinque Terre baby!) and a stroller along with our luggage.
this is the type of plane we flew on last year a C-5. They have about 60 seats on top above the cargo. Our luggage gets put somewhere down below so that is just one other advantage that we don't have to pay for any extra luggage.
I just got these awesome "minkie" fabric pillows at Costco yesterday for each of us to take on the plane ride. Last year we looked like rookies for when the plane took off everyone pulled out their bedding and started laying all over the floor. We will be better prepared this year.
Today will be spent getting ready to leave next week as I have not done one thing (other than buy luggage to get ready)

to do list for today:

• clean out the dollar store with 2 weeks worth of bribery toys
• get sally jane a pair of shoes other than crocs (you have to wear close toe and heel shoes on a c-5)
• travel size items just in case we make it on real flight
  
• think about getting a rental car and maybe making some hotel reservations

Would you go crazy traveling with our family?
Have you read Star Garden?