Garrison Get Away 2014

For those on Facebook, myself along with my siblings probably did a good job blowing up your news feeds with pictures of our trip!  For those who are not Facebookers you missed out but I will post some pictures here as well!  This past weekend the Garrison's met in Asheville, NC for a much needed "Garrison Get away, 2014"  We left Thursday and returned yesterday.  I flew out of O'Hare and met Jessica who had a connection from Reno in Chicago.  Driving to the airport on Thursday our take off did not look promising.  It took me an hour and a half to get to O'Hare and it was not due to traffic, it was due to horrible fog.  Once I arrived and parked, the fog started to lift, but that is when the rain and wind started.  After finding my gate (that is a blog entry in itself) I sat next to a gentleman who told me he was trying to get to Oklahoma for the past 4 hours but his flight was cancelled due to weather.  He also told me that the plane he was supposed to be on was diverted to Indy due to the weather.  I started to panic that Jess would be sent to Indy as well, but soon this nice gentleman tapped me on the shoulder to tell me that someone was starring at me and waving.  I look up and it was JESS!  We moved from gate to gate as they kept updating a new gate for our flight.  We were a 1/2 hour delayed but we took off with the caution from the flight attendant that this was going to be a bumpy ride. Good thing she warned us!  Jess made a great point, seeing so many flights cancelled or delayed was the best sign from above that our family needed this time.

Friday we visited the Biltmore which is amazing and I have picked out a stunning bedroom for myself, we followed this by a wine tour at the Biltmore and then finally a stop at a hotel for fancy drinks and a beautiful view of the mountains!  We then took a short rest before going to dinner and listening to live music.  Saturday we went to Whitney's favorite brunch location, which looked to me like "E-coli on a stick" (a hole in the wall restaurant) but I ate my words after we ate there!  The food was excellent!  Hats off to the chef on that one Whitney Garrison!  We then did our version of hiking - driving up the mountains and stopping at a look out point to get pictures.  This is where I surprised the family with a Jimmy Buffet Parrot Head hat that I found in Whitney's room.  Right before pictures I put it on!  We all had a great laugh at this!  The real hikers that took our pictures didn't seem to get it and some of you might not either - we were born and raised on Jimmy Buffet music thanks to our dad!  And to add to that, for those that did not know, Saturday was National Margarita day so it seemed fitting.  After our hike, we did a wardrobe change and headed to downtown Asheville.  We went to several shops and then did a comedy bus tour of Asheville.  The comedian was excellent and our faces hurt from laughing so hard!  Anyone wanting a nice place to visit should go to Asheville!  It is a wonderful city!  I hope to return for Whitney's graduation for another free stay at her apartment before she moves!

Parrot Head 

Biltmore House

Not a lot scares me these days!

Beautiful colors and view!

On the cancer front, I am in a lot of pain and would appreciate the prayers for this!  I was able to enjoy the weekend, but did not sleep well due to taking pain medication which makes me itch.  I itch and then that hurts so I medicate and then itch again!  It is a vicious cycle!  This makes me so angry and also sad because we all know it is the evil cancer making me have this pain!  So I am anxiously awaiting Thursday so I can be poisoned with chemo!  I just hope with the chemo my levels cooperate this time and that I can stay away from germs.  I also hope it will take away some of the pain or we can find a different way to manage it.  At times I feel like it is worse than contractions during birth.  No joke - it is pretty intense!  At least with child birth you get a cute little baby out of it….

With March approaching we have a crazy busy schedule.  All fun of course!  First, Ryan will celebrate his 2nd birthday on the 6th.  Jess comes in March 5-9, Whitney 9-16 and mom and dad 16-23….Although it will be nice to have company and a distraction.  I also will have chemo and a CT scan to check the progress of the trial.  So I will be extra anxious.  Hopefully we are back on track this week and the scans reveal we are on the right track.  Prayers are much appreciated!

Love to all!

Amber