Travel tales

We are home in Oregon and so happy to be here.  After almost 40 hours of travel between the car, plane, and airport time, we made it to my parent's house to stay for a few days before going to a wedding in Pendleton and then a trip with Colin's family to the Wallowas.  After that, we'll be heading to Bend on the 27th for most of July before coming back to Corvallis for August.

Our trip was soooooooooooooo long but smooth and easy.  Aberly was the best traveler and was a champ through the long haul.  She always insisted on pulling her carry-on suitcase through the airport and did a great job following instructions and listening to us as we told her about each step of the journey.  She slept well and spent her airplane time watching a lot of kid's videos on the airplane's personal seat monitors (this was one of the few times in her childhood where we will let her veg out on TV all day!) between some aisle walks, bathroom breaks, meals, and books.  We couldn't have asked for a better trip.

Once landed in Portland, we were greeted by my brother-in-law Kevin and then my mom met us outside to drive home.  We loved walking into cool weather and smelling the fresh air (and we are currently loving the cool, wet weather so far!).  

Here are the highlights and few lowlights of the trip:

-  Highlight:  Kelsey meeting and talking to a wonderful gal from Saudi Arabia.  Great conversation about life, religion, and the world.  She is a recently graduated doctor and although she has lived in Saudi the majority of her life, she started life in Portland and lived there until age 5.  She is going to be in New York for a training in November and December and doesn't know anyone there, so I hope to connect her with my brother.  

-  Highlight:  Picking to travel on Lufthansa airlines for international flights.  First, you get your own personal monitor on the back of the seat in front of you where you can watch movies, TV, and view cameras mounted outside the plane for different views of your flight (recommendation to not view the landing from the camera on the nose of the plane cause it feels just a bit scary as they try to steady the monsterous plane on the runway).  Secondly, they bring you hotel towelettes every few hours.  And lastly, they serve FREE beer and wine with throughout the flight (and give refills) and even offer Baileys or Scotch as an aperitif at one point.  Oh yes please.

-  Lowlight:  Being forced to put my sleeping child in an "upright seated position" with her belt buckled at takeoff and landing.  If you are a parent, you know how maddening it is to risk waking your sleeping baby/child.  The stewardesses on that first flight did not get a friendly reception from me or Colin at those moments.  Something to the effect of "I'll send my fussing child to you later if she stays awake and YOU can deal with her" may have come out of my mouth.

-  Highlight:  Seamlessly maneuvering through the airports, making all our connections, and having no delays. 

-  Highlight:  Getting to move to the front of lines since we had a small child.  Thank you!

-  Lowlight:  Not sleeping on our flights.  You would think that it would be easy to sleep on an overnight flight or on the following flight now that you are exhausted from not sleeping on the first flight.  Unfortunately not for this cowgirl.  We found that the constant movements, noises, meals, cramped space, and care for Aberly kept us just on the brink of being awake.  Okay, Colin did catch catnaps and fared better than I did, but by San Francisco, I felt physically ill from the lack of sleep.  36 hours awake?  In San Fran I finally napped for about an hour in a quiet room and then we all crashed later that evening for two hours at our gate.  

-      -  Lowlight:  Having a 10-hour wait in San Fran for our final flight to Portland.  I'm not sure why that happened when we book online since there were at least two flights on the same airline earlier in the afternoon that we could've taken.  It was a long, somewhat torturous wait but on the good side, it did allow for the napping time.  And we enjoyed two nice meals at airport restaurants.  It still was hard to wait though!

-      -  Highlight:  Being greeted by Kevin (Colin’s brother) at the baggage claim after getting to Portland.  So nice to see a loving face and extra hands to get all our luggage outside.  My mom was there waiting for us in the car and we worked out magic to get everything in her car.

-      -  Highlight:  Feeling settled and happy!  Being surrounded by green and more green.   Being able to sit outside and not roast in the sun.   No humidity and dusty air.  Knowing where everything is, where to buy what we need, and know it will be there. 

-      -  Lowlight:  Jetlagged parents and Aberly.  She was up at 3:30 today….

-     -  Highlight:  Not having to use Middle Eastern shopping carts. 

It really is great to be home and we love seeing all of our families and watching Aberly interact with her grandparents and uncles.  She is doing so well and having so much fun exploring her surroundings here.   Our best description of our feelings of being home is like how two close friends just pick up where they left off when they don’t see each other.  It feels like we just started where we left off and that is perfect.