Home! (IS there an uneventful flight in store for us???)

Home!- We woke up feeling pretty confident about making it home, and so so ready to be in our own beds and wearing some different clothes… it was with surprise that we checked the news and found out of the snowstorms surrounding Seattle, but we were fairly certain that our plane would not be affected. We checked ourselves in and boarded the airplane early, as we were told that we were going to try to leave early and get ahead of the strong headwind. We sat for 20 minutes or so in the plane before one of the stewardesses came on to announce that the co-pilot had been stuck in the snow north of Seattle and was running late (foiled again!).. After another half an hour we finally scooted out of our stall and got on the way. By this time, though, we were an hour late and we started to get nervous about our 90 minute Anchorage connection.

Oh, and another thing to make this day interesting- because we were traveling on mileage tickets, we had booked ourselves on the milk run, which stopped in Juneau, Yakutat, Cordova, then Anchorage, so a flight that is usually 2 and a half hours now ballooned until 6 or so. And then the weather in each of the spots was iffy so we spent a lot of time de-icing and such. One thing we DID appreciate though, was the amazing scenery and the entertaining flight. It was refreshing to see people in Xtra Tuff boots and carharts, big crazy hats and with open, booming voices. It was amazing and familiar to land in airports that were seemingly in the middle of large snowy vacant expanses. Anyway, the most interesting and stressful part of the whole day was our Anchorage connection. Our flight was supposed to leave Anchorage at 3:15 and we arrived at 3:10. I looked out the window at the gate (next door) where we were supposed to go to, and the gate was empty! We figured we had a run in store for us, so we pleaded with people to let us by and when we made it off the plane started to run- down the steps, across the snowy runway, up some more steps. Panting, we ran through the door into the terminal, looked around us…… and saw loads of familiar Kodiak faces. We were greeted with, “About time you got here with our Kodiak plane!”

As we sheepishly tried to look discreet (and let our fellow Anchorage passengers file by behind us) we settled ourselves in for a little wait… In another half an hour we got back on the same plane (and same seats!) and made our way to Kodiak. When we were nearly there we realized that we hadn’t seen any sight of land at all and we thought- oh, no- we’re going to have to turn around and go back to Anchorage and sleep in our dirty clothes in a hotel… but we somehow found a little pocket sky without fog and dashed down through the hole, towards the sea, and back down onto our home, snowy, runway. The kids were giddy with excitement (as were we… we were excited to see the progress on our house remodel!) and we felt as happy to be home and we were to leave.

New Year's Eve with the Simplers- just as it should be. :-)

Almost Home!

26^th- We woke up to what we expected would be a relaxed morning, but instead was rather hectic, as families rushed around packing and cleaning as they prepared to flee the oncoming snow storm. We only had an hour-long drive to our next stop so we relaxed and enjoyed the company of our hosts for the morning, enjoying another walk and some lunch before we reluctantly loaded up the car and headed to Kent, CT to visit Sven’s other surrogate dad from college, Roger (and his girlfriend Wendy). We had a nice visit with them, touring Roger’s new barn that he uses to restore antiques and petting Wendy’s two little lapdogs. As we prepared for bed the storm really started raging, the wind blowing up to 50 miles per hour and the snow swirling and pounding against the window panes. Unsure of our future and our plans to head to Boston the next day, we fell asleep with that same sense of adventure and uncertainty that we had felt in London as we found ourselves victims of the weather.

Roger's shop and home

27^th- we woke up to piles and piles of snow and news reports of closed airports (New York and Boston, where we were leaving out of the next evening). Knowing that Boston is slightly more prepared for snow than London, we felt optimistic that we’d make it out, but heard scary stories about the roads so we lay low for the morning. It wasn’t until close to lunch time that we started driving north, and we decided to swing by cousin David and Sari’s house to visit them and their two boys (Leo and Harry- their daughter Gigi was staying with Cousin Becky and Lexington). We had a wonderful visit with them, the kids playing happily with their cousins and the rats while we discussed future travel plans (Alaska, Israel, Cape Cod). As dusk neared we got on the road once more for the two hour drive to Lexington where we planned to stay one more night with Becky and Bronko before catching our plane home the following evening. It was on that drive that Eilidh said excitedly from the back seat “MOM! I know what I want for Christmas! Just a LITTLE vacation with the family to Uganik!” Poor thing.

We had a lovely visit with them- wonderful rich chicken soup and more Christmas cookies- and let the girl cousins enjoy their stuffed animal playtime. Planes apparently started to fly that evening, so we went to sleep with hope that our plane would fly the next evening.

27^th- Our last day on the east coast was a wonderful one- sledding at the Lexington golf course, visiting with family, and packing and re-packing. It was early evening by the time we got all 6 of our bags packed and ready to check in, and even then our carry-on bags were gigantic and stuffed to their limit. We had an uneventful 6 ½ hour flight to Seattle, arriving late at night with time to check into a hotel and get a few hours sleep. We all felt fairly certain that the trip’s excitement was over and fell asleep thinking we’d finally got ahead of the weather.

Christmas Eve and Christmas on the East Coast

Christmas eve- After a mellow morning we decided to run into Lexington for a visit to the family`s favorite Jewish shoe store, Michaelsons. What a fantastic experience! The store was a completely family-run business and everyone fussed around us, taking on and off the girls shoes and shaking their hands when they found out that they were Jewish Eskimos. With a happy-to-home feeling we headed back to Becky`s for a wonderful, but far-too-short, visit with Grandmas Doris.

With reluctance we left the house after lunch and started our three hour drive to West Granby, Connecticut for our next stop on our Christmas Extravaganza. We arrived just before dark to be greeted by Nanny and her sister-in-law Polly. The rest of the family was out for a walk so we headed out into the woods (blanketed with a thick layer of yellowed leaves) to catch them. We eventually found them- Putter (Sven`s surrogate dad from grad school), and his daughters Alison (and husband Brad with little boys Tucker and Silas) and Nanny jr (with husband Billy and teenage kids Elias, Rawson and Eva). Also there was
family friend Diane. We decorated the Christmas tree in the barn and spent the evening meeting all the new wonderful kids, most of which we’d not seen in 6 years (or ever).… We had a wild night with all 17 of us- playing and laughing as well as wrapping and finding presents, not always efficiently or
successfully. Our bag situation was a mess and everything just a little smooshed.

Eilidh writing her letter to Santa

Christmas Day- We were woken by excited teenaged kids to Christmas morning and rushed up ourselves to discover the kids` Santa stockings. We had a leisurely breakfast, lots of coffee, and dealt with anxious kids ready to open presents. After lunch we headed over to the barn to open presents. 17 people in a barn opening presents should have been massively chaotic, but because of the wonderful mixture of people and the positive attitudes it was actually quite restful.

After a fair amount of playing, we headed out for a walk before the darkness crept in while Polly prepared dinner. Putter and Nanny’s house is located in an absolutely wonderful spot is rural Connecticut, right on the edge of a nature preserve with some fabulous trails (which I didn’t even notice- I just followed our hosts through a maze of trees). We walked through the park, ending up at an educational animal park where we admired the sheep, goats, ducks and chickens.

We walked home to an amazing meal prepared by Putter’s sister Polly, consisting of beautifully cooked roast, Portobello mushroom lasagna and peppermint icecream with warm chocolate sauce. Bliss! An extra helping of bliss came at bedtime when we were able to soak in the hot tub under the stars before going to sleep.