Technology

Wow technology is amazing! My husband tried to surprise me with an ipad 2 for my birthday this year. I say he tried to surprise me because he wasn't able to get one to actually give to me on my birthday because every store he tried was already sold out (my birthday was just a couple of days after the initial release of them). So in place of the actual ipad he gave me a printout with a picture of one and said that we would get one as soon as one was available. To make a long story short, we tried several places over the next week or two and no one had any in stock. We even tried Best Buy that supposedly had a waiting list you could put your name on, but the Best Buy near our house had too many names on their list and decided that they wouldn't add any more to it until the current list was shorter... So we ended up just ordering one straight from Apple's online store and I was given a shipping estimate date that was about 6 weeks out.

Then we started planning our spring break trip and kept thinking how nice it would be if we were actually able to get the ipad before our trip so we could take it with us. The estimated delivery date I had was for the week after our trip. A little over a week before our trip I got an email from Apple informing me that my ipad had shipped! Amazingly we got it on Monday afternoon and we were leaving on Wednesday afternoon.

It definitely wasn't a necessity for our trip, but it was nice to have and fun to try figuring things out on it. We really used the Maps app a lot. It was fun to type in a search for a store or restaurant and have it show how to get there from our current location. It also came in handy when my parents' GPS system took us to the wrong place when we were trying to find their friends' house for our Friday evening dinner.

One of the features of the ipad that we have really taken advantage of has been the cameras for using Facetime and Skype. It has been neat for our kids to be able to see and talk to DH's parents and we have even been able to talk to my sister-in-law who is currently living overseas with their family. It is definitely amazing some of the things that can be done with technology in today's world!! (And no kids, the ipad is not just for playing games on!!)