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.