Pacific (aka "Real" time):

4 AM: Alarm goes off. Wake up, shower, eat, coffee, put the last few things in bags.

5:15 AM Van comes to pick us up. Blessedly uneventful trip to airport.

6 AM Arrived at airport, realized that our United ticket was "operating as US Airways" and that we needed to take a tram to a concourse on the other side of the airport.

6:30 AM Waiting to talk to an agent because our flight was delyaed and we couldn't use self check-in because we might miss our connecting flight. Agent scoffed and said, "it's only twenty minutes, they'll make that up in the air."

8:45 AM We are now 45 minutes delayed, which was the amount of time between our flights.

9:15 AM We take off.

Eastern (aka "Vacation" time):

5:00 PM We arrive. Our next flight leaves at 5:05 PM

5:45 PM We have found out that our final flight of the day, which we wouldn't have caught anyway, was cancelled. We managed to get booked on a later flight. We head off to an airport, sit-down restaurant for dinner.

6:45 PM My sister calls, crying. While it was a good thing that my she was there while my landlady showed the place (the door was being left open, so Holly could gently remind them to keep it closed, over and over again), she locked the bottom lock on the front door when she left, thereby locking out David, our cat sitter. We don't even have a key for that lock; we do have keys for the back door, but they're with me there in the airport. The only options are to ask David to break in, or same-day the back door keys on Monday and hope the cats don't destroy the place by then. We decide on the latter option.

7 something: I miss a call from my cell phone, but I see that it's from my house, so I assume the best.

9 PM: We arrive! I call my voicemail and find out that David just turned the handle hard and the lock just broke, so all is well (we never used that lock anyway). At the end of the airport hall I see two attractive blond women, who seem to be taking pictures of us. They turn out to be Tim's Mom and Grandma (Cindy and Linda). Hugs, kisses, joy, relief, yay!

10:30 PM We arrive at Cindy's house. I marvel in the dark expanse, the humidity, the warm dark night, the geese honking in the background (turns out they're tiny frogs, actually). Her house is lovely and cool inside. I meet Grandpa (Jim), John (Cindy's husband), Wayne Jr (Tim's brother) and Jodi (Tim's sister). Hugs! Expressions of "this is your new sister, new brother"! Everyone is so nice and friendly and warm. We chat for a bit, but I am so drained and the couch I'm sitting on is so comfy.... ah, well, I'll make a better impression tomorrow.

It's so good to be on vacation.