Home again

So, we stayed with Brandi and the girls for 8 days, that's longer than our usual stays, but since it's such a long trip to get there and it's not often that we do, we made it a bit longer of a stay. The entire time we were there it was rainy and cold with occasional sunshine - except the last day. That would be the one and only day it decided to snow. Our day started at 3:30am with the airline texting me a delay in flight. I called Orbitz and the guy said he'd call back, which he did as soon as I fell back asleep - the first flight was delayed but we would be able to make the connection. That is until the next text, and the next.... we decided to go to the airport early and would deal with it there. It had been snowing a bit before we left as Brandi pulled out of the drive it got worse, the road was starting to look messy - of course!! She needed gas so while David pumped the gas we looked for a shuttle service - success. And better yet the pick up was 20 minutes away and the next one was due in an hour. We hung out at McDonalds - we had to change the babies and took them in the bathroom. They had a changing table that made us laugh, ive never seen one so high up in the air. It was about chest high on Brandi, if it had been any higher she would have had to toss the baby up. One of the twins had an epic poop and thats when we discovered the wipes were still home so we had to improvise. As you can see, the whole day was slow going, but the shuttle showed up on time and off we went. 

We checked our bags and then got on The Stranded People Line which was long and crabby. We were near a woman from NJ and she was killing us - she was loudly complaining with a running commentary ("Did ja see that - he's flirting with them, FLIRTING - like we need this!"), she was ordering her husband around and had a bag big enough to fit a couple of bodies in - it did make the time go faster. SO, when we got up to The Flirter he managed to get his attention back on his job (and honestly, I would not want their job re-routing a legion of disgruntled passengers). We were given the choice of flying into Chicago and then not flying back out til 2pm THE NEXT DAY - no thank you! - or we could fly into San Francisco, hang around for a couple of hours and then direct fly to Pittsburgh landing at 6 am in the morning. We took the second option, we were up for the night either way. San Francisco was not bad - we had wifi and outlets to recharge, the food was GREAT, I had Spanish which I love, coffee and lots of seating. We took off a little later than planned but as long as I was heading home I did not care. 

I was supposed to have the middle seat but the teenage boy offered to sit in the middle so I could have the aisle, which was nice. Until he started fighting with the window passenger who happened to be his brother - I was VERY glad when they fell asleep. I knit for awhile, read, slept fitfully and since it was an 8 hour flight had to use the bathroom. I hate using the bathroom on the plane, it's so tiny and I'm always afraid will hit turbulence and I'll be sent flying out into the aisle - but nothing happened. I had called the parking place the night before to let them know we were delayed. We arrived on time, weary but home at last! Even our baggage made it which was amazing given how many people were rerouted. We collected our bags and called Globe who came and got us. Our car was warmed up (HURRAH!!) and off we went. What a long long drive home - we had been up for 36 hours, flown across the country and 3 time zones. I drove most of the way home while David rested and then when I started weaving he took over.. I unpacked and greeted the cats, got stuff going while he went and got the dogs - I fell into bed and slept for a few hours, boy were we a mess! But it was a wonderful trip and it was so nice seeing how well Brandi and the girls are doing. We'll go back out in the spring I think, I can't wait!