we’re heading home

We got up early on Sunday (6 am GMT) and headed to the airport. Initially, we had gotten all our clothes into one giant duffel bag. All the souvenirs and swag into another suitcase. And jackets and wellies into my new golf bag. You can see it all on the cart that Anna is pushing. This picture was taken when I came back from dropping the Awesome New Van off at the rental car return.

Peaking out of Barrow’s hoodie is the beak of her stuffed pink flamingo, who she became extremely attached to on the way home. She invested a lot of energy into it as her ‘security blanket’ to deal with the disruption, and it did a great job keeping her OK and happy. For her part, Strummer was traveling with the stuffed Frosty, who got his own seat.

But when we checked in, two of the bags were over-weight (the clothes and the swag bag). Luckily we were traveling with an extra duffel bag or it would have cost is $150 for each bag over-weight. So we did some quick un- and re-packing in the airport to get everything taken care of. Then began the long first leg.

At this point I should say that the total travel time for our return journey was 22 hours. Barrow and Strummer each had short naps (an hour and 30 minutes respectively) early on in the first flight. Strummer would catch some more sleep later at JFK, but for Barrow this meant that she went around 20 straight hours without any sleep. And they were both such amazing troopers. When they got to JFK, we plunked down to get some dinner (6.30 GMT; 1.30 EST). But because they had been on opposite ends of the aisle on the plane flight, the girls had missed being with each other. So for the first few minutes, they just hugged and kissed.

Of course, a few hours later, exhaustion began taking its toll on all of us. Strummer fell asleep while I pushed her around the terminal in her stroller. Barrow got a little frayed, but was pretty amazing in general.

For those who care, Rob Dyrdek was sitting behind me as I took this picture. Skate kids were coming up to him constantly and asking to take their picture with him. He was very kind and generous to them all, even the two who almost caused him to miss his plane.

But we finally got our connection home, only to sit at the gate for an hour and then on the tarmac for another hour, before finally taking off around 9 pm EST (that’d be 2 am GMT). When we arrived at Syracuse, the girls became giddy and hyper. Here is Barrow doing a somersault. Strummer followed moments later with her first complete somersault!

And then it was time for our ride home… in a limo! Here are my girls in the back of the limo. 

[Flashback: here is the picture from the first post of the girls in the back of the limo on the way to the airport in February:

We got home and then collapsed into bed a little after 11 pm EST (4 am GMT; over 22 hours after beginning). But not before noticing how absolutely AWESOME our friends are. I took these photos this morning, but when we got home last night we were met by a giant greeting card on our door courtesy of Bibi and Desmond.

A plate of muffins (from Rob and Ingrid?)

And some delicious food, including home-made bread, from Richard, Lisa, and Alex.

It was a warm reminder of why we love this little town of ours! We were up early this morning from the jet lag, and the girls got re-oriented with their toys, clothes, and back yard!

We still have more posts to put up, so come on back. But suffice it to say that we are simultaneously happy to be back in Geneva and with our old friends, and missing St Monans and our new friends.

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