Back East, Here We Come

We made a major purchase last night - 5 airplane tickets. As of 2 days ago, we were not planning on going anywhere. We take turns with Dave's parents - one year they come here, the next we go there. This was supposed to be their year to come here, but with his dad on dialysis, travel was looking more and more difficult. So a couple days ago, Dave got the idea of us going back East to visit them while they are on vacation at their beach house on the Chesapeake Bay - the same place Dave went every summer growing up. He is really excited to go there again and show it to us. I've spent the last 2 days searching for tickets, but at first it seemed way too expensive and the flights were too early or too late or had too many connections or long layovers or just bizarre patterns (San Jose to L.A. to San Francisco - what the heck were they thinking??). I had to change the parameters - days and airports, to get something I liked. So finally last night I found a great one - leaving San Jose (2 hours away) at 9:30 (not too early, not too late), connecting in Dallas (halfway across the country - perfect for breaking it up), short layover (but not too short), and arriving in Dulles at 7:40 (not too late). When we return, we'll be leaving Dulles at 10:55 (not too early), again connecting in Dallas and arriving in san jose at 4:45. Aren't those awesome flights? For 5 tickets it cost $1588, which is pretty dang good. We are going from a Tuesday to a Wednesday, since those were the cheapest days to travel. We'll spend the second half of their week at the beach with them, go to WV to see the rest of his family, then possibly go to Hershey Park before heading home. The only bad thing is that we'll have to take the kids out of school, but oh well. How much do they do the 2nd week of school, anyway?