I'm Back.

I wish I could say my absence has been due to a vacation on a remote tropical island where Internet connections are impossible. Lush flora, warm gentle waves and colorful fish for snorkeling sounds heavenly right now. Unfortunately, that is far from the reality I call life.

The reality is that my parents flew in on the 19th for a week long visit. In my home. Where not one, not two, but three little people live. As you can imagine I spent the week leading up to their arrival cleaning and washing laundry. And cleaning some more. And washing laundry some more. Monday morning saw me as ready as I was going to be for their arrival.

My parents left Arkansas at 6 AM central time Monday morning. Their simple itinerary should have had them at my house in time to eat lunch and then put the children to bed for slightly delayed naps. Operative words: should have.

Due to fog in Atlanta and low fuel in their plane, they diverted to Chattanooga where they had the pleasure of sitting on a runway for over an hour waiting to go back to Atlanta. It goes without saying that they passed their connecting flight to Rhode Island on the return trip to Atlanta.

A couple hours after finally making it to Atlanta my Dad called on his cell phone (he called a couple of times from Tennessee, too) to say they were finally boarding. Yeah! We would try to squeeze in a short nap for all the kiddos before meeting them at the airport in two-and-a-half hours. Mom and Dad would still be able to rest before we picked up Joel for supper (why we had to pick up Joel is a whole other story, the short version is his truck is unreliable). About 20 minutes later Dad called again.

"The nightmare continues" were his exact words. Due to mechanical difficulties they had to UNLOAD the plane. This regularly scheduled flight should have left around 12:30 EST. Anyone who has flown knows how it goes. "We'll take off in an hour." "Go to XYZ gate." "It's going to be another hour." "Go to ABC gate." Etc...etc...etc..

They finally left Atlanta after 4:30 PM and arrived here about 7:00 PM. In case you are counting, that's 11 hours from start to finish. ELEVEN hours for a trip that should have taken 5. I told Dad they could have come and gone back again in the same amount of time.

And so began our Thanksgiving Week. Three excited grandchildren. Two travel weary grandparents. And one momma who can't help wondering how much a plane ticket to that tropical island costs.