returning on the red eye

We arrived back in England this morning after a couple of great weeks in Massachusetts. Everyone managed to sleep most of the way across the Atlantic, a significant portion of the way from Heathrow to Derby, and again in our own beds until two in the afternoon. So, our eyes aren’t as red as they might have been. That said, though, now that we’ve been awake for a solid five hours, the rest of the family is back in bed.

I suspect that we’re all a bit exhausted from the trip. I’m reminded of our trip to Acadia, Maine last September. When we first arrived, Danielle said “There are so many great things to do here. There’s no way we’ll be able to do them all.” We assumed that she meant we’d have make some choices about which things we wanted to do most, but she continued: “We’ll just have to do two things every day!” I certainly had that feeling on this trip. Every time I decided to do something, there were two or three other things that I was missing.

I didn’t manage to take any pictures. Fortunately, though, I left the camera out a few times and someone snapped a few shots. Sometimes I wish I brought the camera with me everywhere and was better about taking photos, but often it’s hard to be in the moment from behind a lens. On this trip, though, I was just so busy that I completely forgot about the camera.

We had a nice visit with Molly’s parents. Molly finished the sweater she’s been working on for Gail. It’s made from some really nice bamboo yarn. Somehow this next picture got stuck in here after the paragraph that mentions yarn. Hmm…

We spent some nice times visiting with friends. These wonderful folks are moving to Hawaii in a couple months. I’m confident that it’ll be a great experience for their family, but it’s also a little bittersweet since it’s unclear when we’ll see each other again. It’s hard to see so much change happening so quickly in our community. I think that I imagined that the world wouldn’t change much in the time we were away.

The kids enjoyed seeing their friends, too. In some ways, it seemed almost as if we had never been gone. It was great to see most of the same families at chorus. Here’s a crew of them on the stairs at the party they organized.

I think this is about as cute as they come:

It felt very nice to be home. In many ways, it was very easy, familiar, and comfortable. There are so many wonderful people, both family and friends, that I would have liked to have spent more time visiting. One of the nicest things was just having people drop over for dinner. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed those casual visits. I also enjoyed getting out of the house to socialize; Among other things, I got to have margaritas at Mama Iguana’s with Kyle, dance at Bill and Danielle’s party, play capoeira, and hang out at the Dirty Truth. I wish there were more hours in the day, for there were so many things that I would have liked to have done. I guess we’ll need another vacation to recover from that trip…