Home!

Chillin in the Hong Kong airport

We got home last night! We feel so blessed to be able to learn about the Philippines and Macau, and now so blessed to be home for a while! Amazing that you can get to the other side of the world in about 24 hours. We brought our suitcases in last night and it smelled like our house, you know? Then we went to the backyard and practically hugged our raspberry bush (which you really probably don't want to do) and ate ripe raspberries and strawberries and surveyed the yard damage. It looks like just about everything survived even though some spots are too dry and some too wet. After that I laid out in the grass and looked up at the sky and it was marvelous. It's a shame there are no yards in Macau. It's crazy that with the space in our Murray lot a mid-grade apartment building in Macau would house 200 families, and be rented at 1.5-2x the price of this home per apartment (each apartment would be sold for 4x the price or more).

Our flight home went marvelously. Seriously. We left the apartment at 8am and got on the ferry to Hong Kong, then we sailed through the airport with timing working out great. It's a really nice airport. Our flight to Los Angeles was long but Claire was really easy to entertain with a couple of new toys she hadn't seen before, and she slept pretty well considering. I sat next to a woman from India who's going to LA to spend 6 months with her daughter, who's having a baby. I sat in front of a guy from South Africa who's going to report on the B.E.T. awards in LA (he'd never been to the states and was pretty excited - says he's dying to see a Laker). We also shared the plane with 10-15 refugees from Nepal who were immigrating here. That was really humbling to me. They were in suits and pretty scarves but were reserved - probably overwhelmed with the whole thing. Our flight from LA to SLC was a breeze at about an hour and 20 minutes.

In front of the ferry - up ahead you can see what I think is the future bridge between Hong Kong and Macau.

My seat neighbor from HK to LA

On the plane from HK to LA

I think we've gotten pretty good at the traveling with kids thing through this. We stressed out a lot less on the way back than we did on the way there.

It's now about 3 in the morning - 5 pm in Macau. Claire thinks it's time to be awake - we'll see when she finally tires out again!

I'm thankful for the experience we've had and that we're all back safe! The grandmas will be surprised at Claire! She left barely sitting well by herself and has come back crawling and with two sharp teeth in her mouth. It's nice to be back where she's just a normal baby again instead of a celebrity. I wouldn't really like being famous. :)

I love you Utah, with your beautiful huge mountains and your trees and grass and rivers and wide streets and Walmarts (I didn't mention all the snow though). :)