| Christmas at Home 17 Dec., 2002 |
| Wow, Jake and I have been on a mighty adventure. We left Bulgaria on Friday the 13th. Maybe that should have been a little foreshadowing...We flew from Sofia to Prague, to JFK, to Cincinnati. We should have been on our way from Cincinnati to Denver, but the gods were against us. We had no such luck. For some reason, the lady in Sofia would not check our bags all the way to Denver, so in Cincinnati we had to de-board (is that a word??) the plane, get our luggage, re-check the luggage in, get our boarding passes, get back to the terminal, and board the plane. All of this had to be done in the 56 minutes we had between flights. Obviously we did not make it. The bags didn't come down until 10 minutes before our flight left, and for some reason they had to be hand-searched (even though they had been searched multiple times, had been vacuum-sealed in Bulgaria, and we hadn't touched them since they had been checked the first time!!) So Jake and I spent the night in Cincinnati. It wasn't too bad, we actually got a good nights sleep, and took the first flight into Denver Saturday morning. When we got home, we were rested, clean and awake, instead of the expected sleepy, smelly and grumpy. It was great for my family to meet Jake (finally!), and although I think my family overwhelmed Jake and his parents, it all went well. On Sunday we all attended my sister's graduation ceremony, brunch and reception. Jake and I also got a chance to walk around downtown Denver a little bit, which was nice since I haven't ever really been there. The bad part came on Monday morning when we left Denver and started driving back home. YUCK!! I had just spent 28 or so hours getting to Denver, and now I'm supposed to sit in a car for 14 hours?? At least I got to drive some, and my mom's lead foot helped us get home a little earlier than expected. All I can say is that it's incredibly great to be home. I missed everyone so much, and am so excited to spend lots of time at home. Even though I'm going to miss my white Christmas this year, I'll enjoy my family, and bask in the Arizona sunshine. |