Going from grouchy to doing the happy dance

Herein lies the story of how this southern girl went from being SERIOUSLY GROUCHY -- as in no-one-wants-to-be-in-the-same-room-grouchy -- to doing the happy dance...

A couple weeks ago Tina and Kyle told us they really, REALLY didn't want to wait nine months to get married and were moving the wedding date up to December. I admit I saw that one coming, and understood completely.

BUT... that meant we would not be able to be there. I had never imagined in my wildest dreams a scenario where I'd miss my daughter's wedding but it was being played out right in front of me. Several mitigating factors, with the biggest one being the finances. We are scheduled to go on furlough next year and had been given permission to move it up a bit so we could be there for the original wedding date in May. But there was no way we could move furlough all the way back to December, nor could we could pay for two sets of tickets in a six month period.

To say I was sad about it would be a gross understatement. A few other things were going on as well, and combined they created "the perfect storm" for a major grouch session. Poor Ivan bore the brunt of my ugly.

Fast forward to this week. We've been in Sta. Rosa doing some home maintenance and repair work which I've talked about in previous posts. The 3G thingy that works off the cell phone never has worked really well out here in the boonies so we know we're lucky to have internet at all, and it's super slow when we do have it. Tuesday we were able to get on long enough to check e-mails, and one from Ivan's younger brother caused me to burst into tears. No, he's a great guy and he wasn't being mean AT ALL. Quite the opposite: he was offering us his frequent flier miles so we can go to the wedding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course then the computer locked up and the internet shut down.

We've made two trips into town to a cafe with free wifi to try and get seats booked. It's been a nail-biting, forehead-creasing, floor-pacing couple of days! In the end, it was right here at the house that Ivan finally connected with a "super" supervisor who was able to make it happen.

And then the internet shut down again.

But not until it was a DONE DEAL!

We ran into some problems because within the entire two month span of November and December, there was literally only one flight with seats (using the award miles) that we could use going, and one flight returning, and the return flight only had ONE seat available. Ivan called multiple times hoping to find someone with compassion who could magically open another seat, but it just wasn't happening until he asked if there wasn't someone higher up, a supervisor maybe, who could do more.

My husband is perseverance personified! Last night he took the computer outside and sat on the ground in the cold, damp night air in an attempt to get a decent connection. And this morning he made that one final effort, calling yet again, and this time asking for a supervisor -- which finally paid off!

To take advantage of the award miles we have to go a little earlier and stay a little later than planned (isn't that so sad? teehee) but we will be at our daughter's wedding with bells on.

And now you know why I'm doing the happy dance :)