Still celebrating in January!

Usually when January rolls around, people are not that excited. January means the end of the holidays, the hard reality check when you go back to work and back to the non-vacation routine, and the realization that the euphoria of purchasing Christmas gifts has gone and you are left with your hefty credit card bill to deal with. It's cold outside and now that the Christmas season is over, you are kinda done with the whole winter thing.

Amidst all this comes my birthday. I don't really get that excited about it because I am kind of in the funk that I described above and I KNOW others are in that same funk. So I don't really expect much or make a big deal. I'm always surprised and grateful for the friends/family I have around at the time that make my birthday DAY special. However, my birthday DOES inevitably fall right around the Martin Luther King 3-day weekend, so each year I kind of try to plan a little mini trip somewhere to get away and have a good time. But each year it somehow falls through. When it comes down to it, people are just plain broke and done with traveling. Understood. I would be the same way -- if it weren't MY birthday.

This year my birthday conveniently falls on the weekend of MLK Day AND Inauguration Day! A 4-day weekend definitely merits a trip somewhere. And a trip away from DC during the inauguration weekend couldn't be any better in my mind. It just so happens that on your birthday in 2009, you can get in to any theme park at Disneyland or Disneyworld for free. FREE. Awesome. So I decided that I would try to plan a trip to Orlando. I figured this would be an easy sell to my friends, esp since I know somebody that we can stay with for free. From the bitter cold and chaotic inauguration weekend in DC, to a warm, sunny, fun-filled weekend in Orlando. Sounded good to a lot of people in December. It still sounded good to me at the beginning of January. But the understandable post-holiday funk had set in for everyone. I was a bit sad and was starting to convince myself that it wouldn't be so bad to just relax for the 4-day weekend at my own place -- get some projects done, get some good gym time in, pull out my couchbed and watch movies all weekend, catch some football games..... but I was still a little down about it.

Luckily I didn't give up. I tried to think of who I could count on to say yes to the trip. I first contacted my friend Michelle, as she is always up for a trip somewhere! I love that about her. But she had just started new classes and was currently looking for a job. Traveling from Seattle to Florida for a quick weekend just was not feasible. Who else? Then it struck me. My friend Mike! Even though he's also in the Seattle area and would have just as much travel time, his birthday is only 3 days away from mine and if anybody understands how crappy January birthdays are, it's him. I ran the idea by him and he was all for it! Hooray!

I leave tomorrow night. Friday will be spent working remotely from Orlando. Saturday will be Disneyworld, then Sunday through Tuesday we are winging it. Perhaps another day at Disneyworld on Tuesday since that is Mike's birthday and he can get in free. Or we might go to Seaworld or Universal Studios or Busch Gardens, maybe catch a cirque du soleil show... The weekend is ours to do with as we wish. I am so excited! Finally a birthday trip that has worked out! And while I think it would be cool to be in DC during the inauguration and be part of history, a bigger part of me is so glad to get away and not be forced to be on house-arrest due to all the road closures. The weather in FL won't be as warm as I hoped because of this cold front pushing through, but who wouldn't be grateful for mid-60's weather compared to a windy, bitter cold 20?

YAY