There and back again

Now that the holidays are over, I can recount my lovely trip to Vermont to see Rachel (and the rest) for Christmas. I flew out of Cleveland on a direct flight to Burlington (I was surprised to find a direct flight, I was afraid that I would have to have a 13-hour layoff!). I got to the airport a little earlier that just in case it was really crowed but fortunately check in was super fast (Cleveland is a Contential Hub, so there were tons of check-in terminals, including one between the actually terminal and the parking garage, which I used). And even better, going through security took about 5 minutes (seriously, there were 2 people in front of me). The flight left a little late (people on a connecting flight were a little late so we left about 15 minutes late) but we made up plenty of time in the air and I got to the Burlington airport before Trey was there. But it wasn't quite so cold on Christmas eve, so the wait wasn't bad at all. We had a lovely Christmas breakfast of egg casserole and orange rolls and slowly opened presents (with only a few children-related incidents of temper). And then everyone pitched in to make a delicious Christmas dinner (mom made an excellent crusted tenderloin). Dad, Trey, and Orrin worked on updating the laundry room (including installing a sink) while Mom, Rachel, Bridget and I traded off supervising the kids and painting Ellis's room (hopefully Rachel with post some pictures). The girls went out to King Arthur's store (and left all the kids with the boys). And despite sitting in traffic for an hour due to an accident (and some snowy weather) we had a wonderful trip (and a good conversations!). One the morning of my flight back to Cleveland, most of us went to the Ben and Jerry's factory for free ice cream (and then an additional scoop later) before Rachel and mom dropped me off the Burlington airport. And it seems that I brought the cooler weather from Vermont because it has been really cold here for the last couple days. So there is lots of tea to be drunk!

"I've dealt with this before in Montana. Nobody lick any poles!" - Peggy HIll