Going and Coming

We flew out of SeaTac at 11:10 on the morning of June 25th.  Dayton is the closest airport to my parents, but they were able to find everybody direct flights into Cincinnati (over an hour away), so my dad did a lot of driving back and forth. After our unpleasant adventure going through Chicago two years ago, we were glad to not have a layover this time.



Preparations for the flight included lots of food and some new toys.  Kate got some new Zoobles, which she was very excited about.  Those kept her occupied for a good long while. (She knew from experience that plane flights mean new toys, and kept asking, "When do I get my surprise?")



Dad and Andy check out some letters while waiting to board the plane.



Andy and I were seated in one row and Doug and Kate were right behind us.  We decided that would be better than having three of us together and one person across the aisle.  It worked out pretty well.  The kids each had a window seat.




Looking toward Tacoma--you can see the Narrows Bridges(es) in the background.



Mt. Rainier peeking up over the clouds.



Peter's family and Barb's family came out from Utah.  Everyone's visits were kind of staggered, but we had an overlap of about three days with everyone there.  Chaos!  There are sixteen people in the family now.  Six grand kids, with Kate being the oldest.  It was great to see everyone again, and spend some time with the new little ones. 

We were in Ohio for eleven days. and came home on July 6th. We had a 9:20 flight out of Cincinnati, so in order to get down there in time I got up at 4:15. That was a very long day. (As it turned out, the airport wasn't busy at all, and we got to our gate with more than an hour to spare. Oh well. You can't plan these things.)

Andy fell asleep early on but only slept for about an hour, and spent the rest of the time trying to climb over the back of the seat, or over me.  I had my Kindle and MP3 player to keep myself occupied, but didn't really get to do much with them, with Andy acting up.  (I did let him type the alphabet on my Kindle over and over, but that only lasted so long.)  A five hour flight with an active two-year-old is a loooong five hours.

It is good to be home!  We got a pizza from Cerello's  and then took the kids to the Fircrest wading pool for a while.  Everyone was talking about how hot it was, but after Ohio it really didn't feel hot.  We've been enjoying the cooler weather.  The air feels lighter, somehow. 

We didn't have much trouble adjusting to the time change on the way out, but jet lag seems to have hit hard coming home. Andy and I did a lot of sleeping this afternoon.