Plane change in Cold Bay? Since when?

Here are a few last photos from our trip. We exchanged Christmas gifts with Sarah, Miles and Elle before we left Dallas. Elle did not really want to pose for photos and said "bye, bye, camera!" to Rich while he was shooting.

Sarah and Miles
Rich opening gifts
We brought Elle's play kitchen out for her and she did not stop "cooking" till she had to go to bed. It was so much fun to see her enjoying herself so completely.

After saying our goodbyes in Dallas, we spent one last night and part of a day in Amarillo with Bonnie, David and Emery. My niece, Bryana, her guy Seth and their adorable daughter Lilly drove over from Clovis to visit. Lilly was so cute and reminded me a lot of Bryana when she was little. It was good to see them and catch up after several years.

Cute cousins!
Bonnie and Emery, who has filled out a little and is not quite the newborn any more, though still pretty tiny!

Okay, so when I left you last, we were still stranded in Anchorage. We got up yesterday morning and went to the airport to check in for our 9:50 AM flight. We were told we'd be stopping in Cold Bay, but what we didn't find out till later was that we were going to Sand Point first, dropping off passengers, then on to Cold Bay, where we had a scheduled two hour layover, then we would be taking a different plane on to Unalaska. Huhhhh?

We ran into Haleigh at the Anchorage airport, on her way home from college, and enjoyed chatting with her while awaiting our ride. We stopped in Sand Point as scheduled, let some folks off, and continued to Cold Bay. When we got there, we realized that our bags were coming off the aircraft and we had to re-check them for the next flight, which would be on a different plane, as I said. We were kinda laughing about changing planes in Cold Bay...now, that's a first. Our two hour layover ended up being more like three, made more bearable by catching up on Haleigh's news about NYC and college life. Somewhat concerning was the arrival of another plane with passengers who were talking about failing to land in Unalaska on three different tries and having to join us in Cold Bay. We started thinking we might be going back to Anchorage again but eventually two plane-loads took off for DUT.

The flight was uneventful till we got close to Unalaska, when it seemed very foggy as we came in low across the water. Thanks to our fab pilot, we landed just fine, relieved to be back home. Oh yeah, my suitcase got bumped in Cold Bay, to arrive the next morning on the freighter. Luckily, we had an extra toothbrush at home since I absentmindedly packed everything in my luggage. We walked across the runway with snow falling around us.

We hadn't eaten much of substance all day (not realizing till too late that it was going to be much more than the usual three hour plane trip) so we had dinner at Amelia's and stopped at the store to pick up a few things. I was thrilled to dig through all of our mail, especially to read the Christmas cards from many of our family and friends. Thanks, y'all! I love hearing from everyone. We will not get around to sending cards out till New Year's again, probably, so bear with us.

Today we were both back to work. Lots to do and lots going on. Rich will be working Christmas and I may do a little bit of catch-up at my job as well, since we are here all by ourselves and have no family gatherings to attend. I don't think there's any point in decorating the house at this late date, though I did hang up all the cards we've received and played Christmas tunes while I was at work.

Here's hoping everyone has a lovely Christmas and a peaceful, happy 2010.