Back in the Saddle Again

We made it back to KL last Thursday at about 11:45 and managed to make it home to our house by 1 am. Our children were in good spirits since they thought it was the middle of the afternoon. We got lots of looks in the airport as Carley pushed James in his stroller because we had two luggage carts full of bags to get through customs. The flights back to this side of the world were uneventful. But I would be lying if I told you our 27 hour trip is easy. I hate the trip while I am in the middle of it. I get frustrated and get very little sleep. I am grumpy, cry at least once and swear I will never do it again. The kids were restless, but for the most part good. Below is a picture of

Carley being silly she kept pulling the pillow over her head and making James laugh. The other picture is what you see out the window from 33, 000 feet when passing over the top of the world. There is a really cool program that charts the progress of your flight on the TV. Carley asked if we could go look at the ice and I told her we could try. I was surprised when we could actually see it. I can only imagine how big these chunks of ice really are. Carley claims she saw some penguins and a polar bear. But I could not find them. We were blessed with three people that were willing to switch seats with us so that Brian could sit with me and the kids. But once the trip is over I calm down and say that it is really not that bad. But let me just say that jet lag STINKS. Brian bounces back so well. I struggle and it is made harder by the fact that the children do not sleep all night. James got up several times a night for four nights and Sunday morning he decided it was time to get up about 4:45 am. Brian is a saint and helps out with the kids. He did major duty on Saturday night Sunday morning with James. But I am feeling less like a zombie and more like a human. I managed to get to Yoga on Monday and today we were off for a play date.

I wanted to share a little more about our trip to the US, mostly because I want to document what we did. Part of the reason I am blogging is so that one day I can get it printed out and made into a book to show what we did in our time here.

So next stop on our tour after leaving Granny and Burt Burt was the Mixter Family Reunion. My Grandad and Granny Claire have Five children and we all have managed to get together every summer for more years than I can count. We sit down via email in January and start looking for a weekend in the summer than can work for everybody. And most of the time everybody comes. We rented a beautiful house right across the street from the water. We had plenty of room, great breezes and when the kids got crazy they were always up for throwing rocks in the ocean.

When we are all together our family is 25 strong. I have six cousins. My older cousin Kirstin married a great guy named Mike two years ago. Kirstin, Heather and I had some great times growing up and we love our "little" cousins. They are not so little anymore 22, 18, 18, 17 and 14 years old. They are little to us because they are younger. But the boys tower over Kir and I now. I had a blast watching my kids play with their cousins. And Carley and James were full of smiles the whole week through, never before had they had som many "Big" kids that wanted to hang out with them. I loved being all together because there was always a set of hands to help with the kids. But most of all we really love each other. No matter what even after a week of living in close quarters and getting on each others nerves, when the chips are down this family sticks together and we just keep on loving one another. The Mixter family is such a blessing.

We spent most mornings running around on the beach, hunting for sea glass, shells and sea creatures in tide pools. James was so worn out he would usually crash and take a nap right there on the beach. The evenings were full of big family dinners including our annual pilgrimage for lobster and the week culminated with a party to celebrate my grandmother's 80th Birthday and my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. Both of which occur at other times in the year.

I have included some photos but I have more to share, so I will upload some more tomorrow, for now it is bed time.

Missing all of you in the US

Love