Wandering Aimlessly

Christmas and my trip home were, as expected, over much too quickly. Also as expected, I didn't get to see nearly everyone I would have liked to have seen, and I didn't get to do nearly everything I would have liked to have done. This leaves me a little bit sad. But the trip, as it was, was wonderful.

I took the red-eye in Thursday night. When I got to the airport, they didn't assign me a seat. This had me worried. They didn't, however, make me wait in the huge-ass security line (at ALL), despite being two hours early for my flight. When I got to my gate, the flight had been overbooked and they were asking people to take a bump. With no seat, I was afraid I wasn't going to make the flight at all! Somehow, in all of that, the seat the ended up assigning me was in first class!! Not that I really got to enjoy it, as I was asleep before they came around to offer drinks, but at least it was a comfortable sleep.

On Christmas Eve, I got up and wrapped presents like a maniac. Cooked like a maniac, too. The grandparents (both sets), uncle & girlfriend, and aunt, uncle & two cousins came for dinner. Very nice meal, despite ruining the table cloth with candle wax. Oops. After dinner we sang carols, played Pass the Bag to The Night Before Christmas, and basically had a grand old time. Then we went to church, which was pretty (being the candlelight service and all).

My mom's parents stayed the night, as is their tradition, and Christmas morning was like it always is. Sticky buns and hot chocolate and everyone in their pajamas opening presents while Dad alternately videotapes the whole ordeal and plays with whatever new electronic toy someone received. I had done a drawing for my grandparents, which went over quite well. There were tears.

We went to the aunt's house for dinner around noon, where I learned a game called speed stacking. Quite addictive. And then it was back to my mom's parents' house for supper.

All in all, a very enjoyable Christmas.

Sunday was my day designated for seeing friends. I spent a lot of it in the car, as everyone is scattered in opposite directions. I first drove down to about 30 miles south of Joliet to meet Sarah in a tiny little podunk town with three restaurants (only one of which seemed open). It was really good to see her! It was worth the looooong drive. Hee.

Then, it was up to Gurnee to see Em and Frank (also worth the not-as-long drive). Went up with Meghan and Elenid. Greg's back from Afghanistan and was in town, so he came with his girlfriend, and John was in town from Colorado, and he met us there. We had a very nice meal, and then most of us went to Denny's for some storytelling and reminiscing and all-around laughter. Ha ha. That was good fun. And really nice to see everyone!

Monday was devoted to my mom and sister, as the holiday preparation had left little time to actually visit with them. We went to Starbucks, then see Spanglish (very good), and then to lunch/dinner at Chevy's. After that, it was off to the airport for me. *sniff*

The flight back here was less enjoyable than the one to Chicago. Everything was good and on time until we were ON the plane, when it took them an additional hour+ to get the luggage loaded. We left about 9:15 instead of 8:00. I tried desperately to get some sleep, but it was futile. So uncomfortable in the little seat. The guy next to me was about eight feet tall and did NOT fit with the legroom provided, for which I felt much sympathy, but that also meant my room was cut down as he tried to maneuver his legs so that they didn't jam into the seat in front of him. We arrived in LA around 11:45 (instead of 10:30), and the luggage carousel was FULL of another flight's baggage. Which the kind airport staff did not remove. Which proceeded to cause the carousel to jam about 5637354687354 times.

I'm thankful I did finally get my suitcase. Whew! I met up with Ryan without too much incident, and we waited another 547325746573574 hours for the shuttle to take us to the parking garage where Sean had parked the car.

Rolled in around 2:30, and now I'm a bit late for work for having written this post. Oops.

Hope everyone has a good day! And, for the record, I miss my family. :(