I’m sorry that we didn’t post yesterday, but it was necessary to preserve an illusion. We flew home yesterday (Christmas Eve) to surprise Julia’s parents for Christmas. I didn’t want to outright lie in my posts, so I simply omitted information and neglected to post last night. We decided to come back to Connecticut about two weeks ago. In any case, here is a recap of what’s been going on.
Christmas Eve.
Location: West Suffield, CT
We were able to arrange a stay for Data at Sheridan Road Veterinary Clinic in Tulsa, so we dropped him off at 7:30 a.m. We were booked on a 9:40 a.m. flight from Tulsa to Chicago to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, CT, which is less than 10 minutes from my house. When we arrived at the airport, we learned that our flight out of Tulsa had been delayed due to bad weather. The estimated arrival time in Chicago would have certainly caused us to miss our connecting flight, so we were able to change flights. We were routed through Dallas/Fort Worth and our flights went smoothly. We landed in CT at 5 p.m., an hour after we had originally planned. My brother picked us up from the airport and brought us to my house. We had about 30 minutes to see him and my mother and the various pets around my house before other relatives began arriving.
My dad’s sisters came by with their families – my Aunt Mary and her son John, Aunt Fran, her husband, John, my cousins, Vergil and Veronica and their significant others, Allison and Chris. It was nice to see everyone and spend time relaxing in a familiar environment. After things wound down, Jared (my brother), his girlfriend, Sarah, Julia and I played a game of Scrabble before heading to bed.
I wasn’t at all strange to be home, which was somewhat surprising. Little has changed, so it was easy to feel at ease. Although I wasn’t sold on the idea of coming home for the holidays (I felt as though it would be cheating, in a way), it was nice to visit.
Here is a photo from Christmas Eve. Click “there’s more to this” below the post to see all the photos from both days.
My mom, wearing one of her Christmas presents. It lights up and everything.
Christmas Day.
Location: West Norwalk, CT
Jared, Sarah, mom, Julia and I had breakfast together before Julia and I left for Julia’s house this morning. We had scrambled eggs and monkey bread, our traditional fare. We left for West Norwalk, a 90 minute drive, at 11 a.m. As we approached Julia’s house, Julia called her parents and began telling them that we were driving through Tulsa after having a crummy meal at a small diner. She could tell that her mother was bummed that we weren’t going to be around and didn’t appear to be doing anything special, which was a good sign for us. We hoped to make it to the front door undetected, but were seen as we crossed the front lawn. Nevertheless, Julia’s family were genuinely shocked and extremely happy to see her, which was truly great.
We spent the entire day at Julia’s house, except for a short period during which we visited two families that live on her street. We had dinner, after which we played two games of Scrabble while my berry cobbler baked.
We are staying at Julia’s house tonight before driving back to my area before our flight to Tulsa at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow. Julia isn’t feeling too well at the moment, so we will head to bed as soon as we can and try to get a full night of sleep.
It’s been great to be home, especially for Julia. I’ve been lucky enough to see my family three times during the span of our trip (despite the first time being due to unfortunate circumstances), which has only made worse the fact that Julia hadn’t seen her parents at all. I know that both she and her family would have been disappointed if things had not worked out in this way, so it’s very nice that we were able to get home to see them.
Here are photos from Christmas. Click “there’s more to this” to see them all, or just visit my SmugMug.
An ornament on Julia’s Christmas tree. Continue reading ‘Home for Christmas’