Headed home

Our flight out of Trondheim didn't leave too early, so in theory we should have had a pretty stress-free morning getting to the airport.  Turned out a bit more exciting than we planned, but it all ended up fine.

Katie waits in the entryway with our bags.

When we came to Norway, we checked 5 bags.  On the return, we had 6 bags to check, we sent one bag home with our friend Kristen, and the Math Department shipped 3 small boxes for us.  It's tough not to accumulate stuff.  But we sure appreciate all the things we brought home from Norway.  We were tickled to discover that our DVD player can play the DVDs we bought in Europe.  Pat and Mat (De To Gode Naboene - The Two Good Neighbors) are in regular rotation at our Texas home. 

Our friends offered to give us a ride to the airport, which was awesome and meant we didn't have to pull our bags down the street to the airport busstop.  But our friends got stuck on the hill they live on, and ended up picking us up with just enough time for us to make it to the airport.  And then...the road to the airport was closed due to an accident in one of the main tunnels.  We were sweating bullets in our friends' van as we were parked on the highway, but we made it to the airport in time.  Phew!

And they're off, marshmallows in hand 

On our flight to Copenhagen, we were all split up.  Sam and Katie sat near the front of the plane, Grace and I were in the middle, and Dave and Isaac toward to the back.  It was a pretty brief flight, so it was fine. 

Hanging out on the climber at the Copenhagen airport.  

Our little bear

He looks like he is looking forward to the upcoming flight.

The flight home was smooth.  We have great travelers.  We arrived in Chicago around 6:00pm and then had to get our bags and go through customs.  That part stunk.  The setup is really inconvenient for families.  The strollers need to be picked up with the rest of your checked baggage after you go through passport control.  And passport control is about a half mile from the gate.  Normally, this wouldn't be that tough, but for our kids, it was the middle of the night, about 1am Trondheim time, and they were totally beat.  Poor Katie could hardly walk.  But once we got through passport control and customs, we all slept through our last flight of the day between Chicago and DFW.  We had a Super Shuttle waiting to bring us home, and we arrived at our house at midnight.  To the kids, it was like Christmas all over again, because they hadn't seen their rooms and toys in half a year.  We finally got them to bed around 1am, and boy, did it feel good to sleep in our own beds.