How is it already time to go home? These precious moments with my family have gone by too quickly. It's been ten days full of belly laughs and bonding, snuggles and all the "sparkly" eyes, shining with excitement and love. And now it's time to pack up the fun and take it back to Virginia. With the same fervor that I hate how fast this week has flown by, I hope the trip home moves at supersonic speed. Like blink-your-eyes, I-dream-of-genie fast.
When we disembarked from our Adriatic Cruise, we chose to just carry our luggage off because we only had the two bags and we liked the idea of not having to try to find them in the terminal. But, with all three suitcases, a stroller, and two borderline maniacs, we decided to just grab some luggage tags for the last possible time slot and enjoy our last few hours on the ship while NCL took care of our luggage. So, we leisurely ate breakfast, and when they finally called "lime," we were ready to roll.
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| Harper and Fiora |
We made our way through the terminal and customs without incident. It was super chilly (like upper 40s), which didn't make it very comfortable to stand outside. But, we still decided to wait for a few minutes for an UberXL versus hopping in one of the cabs there. (Seriously, if you haven't signed up for Uber yet, you should. That $60 cab ride to St. Petersburg was only $32. It's usually about half as much as a cab would be.) It definitely felt sad seeing our last bit of the ocean for a while, especially since we knew we were coming home to snow.
While we were waiting in the St. Pete airport, I was trying to round up someone to clear on hill so that we would be able to get up our driveway and not have to climb the hill of snow with two little girls and lots of luggage. I found a guy who said he do it, and we called and talked to Dave, and he said he'd pick us up at the airport in his truck to take us home. All set!
Except when we got to our house, no one had touched the driveway. So, we pulled up our neighbor's cleared driveway and then walked across the snow. I grabbed the girls' boots from the closet and came back to the car so that they wouldn't be walking in their Keen sandals.
They thought it was absolutely perfect that we got to come home to snow. Within ten minutes of being home, they were dressed in snow clothes and out the door to catch the last bit of daylight. It was nice having them out from under me while I emptied suitcases and scrounged up some dinner. They're really going to miss their gourmet meals now that they're back at Casa de Fertitta.
And just like that, our whirlwind, belated-Christmas-gift trip is over. It's finished, and now all that's left is this goodness waiting to sink in. And that's maybe what I love most about travel. The memories always get better with time. The sweet moments will become even more precious. We'll smile with warmth at just the thought of them. Even the blips in travel, the times that are borderline disastrous, shift from horrible to hilarious through the lens of time. And that's what we are gifting these girls, this time around for Christmas and I hope throughout their childhood. That our time together, our adventuresome spirits, our commitment to do life and fun and carefree, our resilience when stuff doesn't go quite right-- that's the gift. Even more for us than these two precious girls. I almost can't wait for all the fun stories that we'll look back on and tell about our first big family of four trip.
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