Anna M. Aquino

A few days ago my mom, dad, and grandfather arrived on a long car trip from the North. They didn’t stay long and sadly left our house this morning. On Wednesday I was trying to set up the air mattress for my mom and dad. Years ago when we first moved to Florida, my parents and my in-laws both bought us air mattresses’ so they could sleep on them when they visited. We finally came to the conclusion if you put one on top of the other it makes for a decent mattress. So on Wednesday, I rushed to set up a bed for them. The first air mattress went up smoothly, and in the midst of doing what felt like fifty things at once I started to plug in the pump of the second. However, there was a problem. The motor turned on but nothing was happening. I watched the mattress start to inflate, and then like a sigh drift down. I started getting bummed. This had been such a good air mattress for us, and it appeared it was dying. I was tired. Thoughts kept piling in my head. I started to get...

As many of you know a few weeks ago my family and I drove across the country for the holidays. As any long road trip it soon became full of its own adventure. Truthfully the way there wasn’t too bad. We took three days to get there because we stopped and visited a few people on the way. It was the way back, when we drove it straight through that I was again saying to Dan we need a jet plane. My oldest daughter was setting in the backseat of the SUV with her DS taking pictures along the way. She was getting very annoyed with us because she wanted to get a picture of all the states “Welcome To” signs, so I started trying to tell her where they were whenever we were going to pass them. On our way into Michigan I said to the girls, “Look there is the sign. We’re in Michigan! Look! Look! Look!” I was sure they heard me. We were nearing the Canada border and all was well. About ten minutes later I heard a “MOM!” from the back seat of the car. “We’re in Michigan! Why didn’t y...