July 31, 2008

Home Sweet Home

The trip back went pretty well even though the Continental person checking our bags in was a bit of a dim bulb. Thankfully the people on the gate were much more with it, and all our bags did arrive in Houston with us. Our seats ended up being all right (Jonathan, me, and Kayleigh in the middle section, with Dale in the row in front of us), which was a relief. Kayleigh was quite cute—after the first food had been served and then removed, she announced, “I need a cuddle from my dad,”, got out of her seat and went up to his, then she snuggled down on his chest and went to sleep. They slept for at least two hours; it did her a world of good.

Jonathan, of course, did not sleep, although I did get him to rest for about 45 minutes. He enjoyed the games on the inflight entertainment system—lucky for him he’d gotten the seat he did, because the controllers on both mine and Kayleigh’s seat didn’t work well enough to play the games. All I wanted to do was play Hangman, and I was thwarted . . . next year I may look into cruises to England if Continental is the only realistic airline option . . .

It was wonderful to see Kathleen picking us up, and we really appreciated it knowing how hectic her work is at the moment. She shared a nice glass of wine with me before returning to work and school and then work again—we didn’t even get to say goodbye before returning to Austin because she stayed at work all night long. Craziness!

John was the big sweetie that he usually is and even though it should have been his night off from cooking dinner since Kathleen was at her class, he still cooked for Dale and me. We were so grateful! He did some delicious salmon, rice, and steamed zucchini. It was so nice not to have to think about what we were going to do for food (and not have to clean up afterwards).

The next morning we all got up early, and Dale and I got showered in short order to head back to Austin. We got back to our house at 11:30 a.m. and were delighted to be home. Kayleigh in particular seemed very pleased and said how happy she was to be back home about 10 times in the first half-hour. Jennifer & Magda had come by earlier in the morning to leave us some fresh food, which was fantastic as we were starving. They came by later in the afternoon, and Kayleigh and Magda were thrilled to have each other to play with again—I think they got here around 2:30 p.m. and left around 7 p.m., and even then they still had more playing to do.

Today was quite busy for me (good thing Dale drove home this morning, because that’s the last time I relaxed). I went up to the post office and got our mail, had to go back a second time b/c they hadn’t given me a package that was waiting for me, sorted through all the mail from the month, unpacked five bags for the children and myself, washed sheets and towels, cleaned up the kitchen from our day’s eatings (many thanks to Jen for the Rudy’s she brought over for dinner!), cleaned up the most unholy mess Magda & Kayleigh created in her bedroom and to a lesser extent in the lounge, set my harp up and tuned it, and put the clean dishes away. Whew!

Tomorrow should be more relaxing. I have a 10 a.m. hair appointment at Lifetime Fitness, so the kids will get to play while I’m there, then we head over to Jennifer’s for a few hours. We’ll come back here mid-afternoon as I expect that’s when we’ll all start getting tired again. It will be nice to be at someone else’s house where there are no chores for me to do.

Posted by elizabeth at July 31, 2008 11:50 PM
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