Reunions

Reentry was pretty easy - a few nights up at midnight try ing to get wide awake kids to at least stay in bed, but mostly it was smooth. Grandma and PopPop Dickert eased the transition by managing the daily living chores for a few days while we moved, zombie-like, about the house.

As part of reentry, Mike took Daniel and his gang (but not the camera) to Laser Tag and Molly chose to paint your own pottery. Yes, I was outnumbered 6 2nd graders to one in a store full of breakable, spillable materials. No drama to report. The toughest part was getting them out of the van at their houses when we were done.

From Spring to Fall

The leaves still fall, even when you go to Australia.

Trip Home

I had a serious case of blog burnout - but the pictures from out trip home were nagging me mercilessly (yes, they took on a life of their own), so I gave in.

We had our suitcases as the airport Holiday Inn and spent our last day and night in Sydney watching the Melbourne Cup in the Hotel Bar and purging weight from the suitcases. Daniel was a personal shredder and the others joined in during breaks from Sponge Bob on TV.

We ventured out for the best meal we'd had in Australia a short walk away from the hotel and spotted some Halloween festivities on the back to the hotel.


All packed - we lost a jar of Vegamite in security - I accidentally packed it in my carryon and it was over the security size limit for yummy spread. You win some, you lose some.

The plane ride from Sydney to LA was 13 hours. To our knowledge, Daniel did not even take a break from his personal screen to go to the bathroom. We may be wrong...but we may be right. For my part, I watched an entire season of Modern Family.


Our flight from LA to Detroit was cancelled for maintenance issues, but Mike acted swiftly and got us on a flight two hours, and one long nap in the terminal, later.
We had an easy van ride home and were greeted by Grandma and PopPop who got a quick hello before we heard the contents of Rubbermaid tubs dumped all over the boys' bedroom. Some people kiss the ground, some kiss their Legos. We're home.