Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

Aaaahhhh! It's SO nice to be back in Seattle! The clean, fresh air is awesome, the wide laned roads (somehow) provide a sense of security, the mountains, the trees... It's just so beautiful and wonderful and I am so glad to be 'home' again! I'm sorry, you'll have to wait for photos when I have some time to upload them etc. As you all know, I can be a bit long winded about things, so thank you if you get through this novel! lol.

Waiting for our ride

We have had an adventurous couple of days. First of all, the ride to the airport in HK was lovely. I'll take riding in a BMW over public transportation any day! :) We did get there several hours early, as Sam's aunt's flight (she was with us in the car) left a little before ours. We filled the time by looking at all the shops, getting lunch and playing at a big kids area near our gate.



The flights went surprisingly well. We first had a short flight (1h 20m) to Taiwan (Zoe slept the whole way), and had a short layover. At that airport, there was also a big play area where the kids could run and play and climb, and we met another family with young kids who would be on our same flight. Good times.



Then was the long haul flight to LA. I think it was close to 12 hours long. The kids watched movies/tv shows, and I brought out some new books/toys/snacks now and then when they started getting restless. Zoe and Maya both slept for a total of about 5 hours, though they weren't always at the same time. Zoe fell asleep first and was laying horizontally across the chair with her head on me and her legs on Maya. That worked for a little while, but when she really wanted to stretch out, she started crying and kicking Maya because she just really didn't have enough room. I ended up holding her and rocking her for a little while until she dozed off again and was able to somewhat lay her back down on the chair again.



By the time Maya was ready to sleep, I think she was way over-tired because she was frustrated and upset and started crying. She also refused to use the pillows or blankets or anything that I tried to give her. I have no idea why. I don't think she was entirely coherent. She was content to lay her head on the hard armrest. Even when I tried later to again give her a pillow, she just threw it on the floor. Anyway, we were finally all settled and I was able to sleep for a couple of hours, too, before they woke up again.

We arrived in LA at about 1:30pm on Friday the 5th, which was sort of surreal, since we left HK at 1:30pm on Friday the 5th. Lol. Good old international date line. :) After getting through customs and immigration rather quickly, we managed to meet up with my BIL Ken without too much trouble, and he checked us in to another flight up to Seattle. (Thanks to my sister Polly's fabulous flight benefits). However, we were flying standby. We thought we'd get onto the flight at 4:30pm, but it filled up. As did the 5:30pm and the 6:30pm flights. We sat and waited and snacked and read and napped for several hours before we were finally able to get on the 7:30pm flight.

We arrived in Seattle at about 10pm without incident and were totally stoked to be there. We found my in-laws, who picked us up from the airport, said goodbye to Ken (who was going to stay with my brother Joe for a day or two), loaded up the bags, got the kids in their car seats....

And the car wouldn't start. And that's when we noticed steam (or smoke?) pouring from under the hood of the car. My FIL opened the hood to examine the problem and noticed coolant leaking onto the ground. He called Sam's brother Andrew, who said he'd come and rescue us and call a tow truck. While we were waiting, Maya kept saying, "what's taking so long? Why aren't we going?" and I kept explaining, but after the long trip she was impatient to get home.

We were finally rescued, and I ended up having to drive one of the cars home (Why? Too complicated for a blog, lol). We finally got home at about 1am, I called Sam to let him know we had arrived safely, and then we all went to bed. After more than 24 hours of traveling, we were exhausted!!

The next day, Saturday, we had some friends of ours that we met in HK (but who now live in Vancouver BC) drive down to see us. We had so much fun playing with the kids and catching up and doing a little "sight seeing" (the local salmon hatchery and a duck pond) with Julianne, McKay and Banyan. And they ended up staying for dinner, too. It was just so fun and so exciting to see them again. I think it's been about 3 years since they left HK.

L to R: McKay, Julianne, Banyan, Maya, Me, Zoe

Looking for the ducks

Here they are!

L to R: my FIL Joseph, SIL Laura, Clancy, BIL Andrew, Zoe, Me, Maya, Julianne, Banyan, Mckay

I thought our sleep last night would be ok. Zoe managed to stay asleep most of the night, but Maya and I both woke up around 2:30am, and by 4am we still hadn't fallen asleep, so we came downstairs and watched old reruns of 'Home Improvement'. lol. At 5:30am, I told her we needed to go back to bed, and we were able to sleep until about 10:30am. Thankfully church didn't start until 1pm. :)

So now we're home from church, dinner is being made, and Andrew/Laura/Clancy/Chloe are all going to come over for dinner again soon. It has been so fun for Maya and Zoe to have little cousins to play with here.

So that's my update so far. I've been taking pictures, but I don't want to deal with uploading them at this moment, so you will have to wait. :) Thanks for reading!