It's 3:39 am Saturday, October 17th. We got home around 8pm Friday night. The flights were fine on the way home, with turbulence the last few hours before we landed in NYC. We had to circle the airport for about 45 minutes, so we thought we would miss our connection which was already tight being just over 2 hours. But we made it with minutes to spare after rushing through security and running to our gate. (Customs was fast, it was getting our luggage off the carousel that took FOREVER!). Gracie slept for a few hours on the flight from Rome to NYC, but immediately fell asleep when we got on the plane in NYC to home. It would've been a peaceful flight but we had a plane full of German/NYC tourists all excited to visit Las Vegas, and they were a bit rowdy. The flight was incredibly smooth, but the pilot put on the "seatbelts" sign on a few times, just to settle them down. Mom and Dad picked us up and had left us eggs, milk, bananas, bagels and cream cheese in the frig, a perfect snack to have upon arriving at home. (Toddler international travel tip #47 - Have your own capsule recovery team to feed you and watch your kid upon splash down.) When we came home we had the fire alarm chirping that we needed to change the battery in a very high part of the ceiling requiring the monster huge ladder and David was faced with doing that otherwise we would hear "chirp" all night. Gracie went to sleep around 10 pm, and the last thing I remember is her complaining that I was falling asleep as I was singing her "Jingle Bells" -- "MOM, finish the words! ." Anyway, she woke up again at 2:30 am. The chirping is gone so David must've gotten to it, or it just gave up. Grace is now playing with Thomas train set, and now making up a story, as I transcribe: "There once was a girl named Gracie. There was a dragon. There was a baby bird. All the birds were going to the beach. There was Gracie watching the duck. Then there was a mean dragon who was afraid of the duck. Then there were tiny birds..." I had a few hours sleep so I feel a bit human. I warned Mom and Dad that I will be dropping her off to their house at 6am ish, so we can get a few hours sleep. David is catching some zz's now. We had a very good trip. We are planning to return for another trip soon.
