Unique Gifts and Flight to Phoenix

"Fate is for those too weak to determine their own destiny."

 

On my last blog I posted some of the unique food items Sabrina had made for Christmas Day.    Check out her masterpieces here.

  --  Want some Reindeer Noses?

 

Terry and I had an amazing Christmas.  Most importantly we shared it with family.  We also received lots of wonderful gifts.  I can't list them all but want to mention just a couple unusual ones.

This was an engraved necklace from my DIL, Sabrina. Thank you for raising the man of my dreams.	Folks who know me also know that genealogy has been my hobby for over 35 years. This is a vial to collect samples for DNA testing from Tammi!! In about three weeks I should have information on my own unique 23 pairs of chromosomes!!

Gifts for Justin gave all of us a challenge. After all, he only has a small locker on-board the ship. He doesn’t have room for big gifts.  Since he had chosen to take his leave time to spend the holidays with us a lot of effort was put into those gifts. It started with the Soldier Emergency Kit on Christmas Eve and continued on to Christmas Day with others.

--- Jordie came up with a Tootsie Roll container filled with what appeared as 40 pieces of candy.    Twenty of the candy pieces had been replaced with dollar bills and rewrapped in the original wrappers.

Tammi was responsible for coming up with the  “Date Night” gifts for Jordie and boyfriend, Brendan.  She was also responsible for the Soldier Emergency Kit given to Justin.  What fun both of those ideas were as gift after gift just added to the fun we had on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Here’s Justin trying to open the small package Sabrina made.  Hopefully, there would be room in his locker for something of this size.   -----   

Each and every one of us had a marvelous time sharing family time, fun and laughter.  It was another amazing get together.

---- Black balloons tumbled out of one box. The card on the box was attached with a safety pin.  He had to pop all the balloons to find the ones with gift cards in them.

We also had several amazing hand-made items. Tammi and Sandi made us some beautiful ceramic items.   Sabrina's first knitted project was a  beautiful scarf for Tammi.

The day after Christmas was spent getting ready to head back to Arizona.  We boxed the gifts that were going with us.   Last year I checked packages back on Southwest too.  However, once checked I never saw my suitcase or its contents again.  I figure the loss was about $500 but none of it was covered by Southwest.  That’s one of the downsides of employee stand-by travel.  Some airlines will still guarantee checked items and others won’t.  We rarely check anything but once in a while there is no choice.  At least Terry was on a confirmed ticket so checking wasn’t such a gamble this time.  Besides … this time I took pictures of all the items in both boxes as we put them in row by row.

Michael and Sandi drove us to the airport.    With storms all over the nation, many flights were delayed or cancelled.  That can cause a lot of havoc when traveling on a stand-by basis.  We were prepared for the long wait.  Luck was on my side as I was given a seat on the first flight I tried.  Yippee!  However, the flight was going to Sacramento so there was still one more chance I just might not get to Phoenix.

Being the last one on the plane meant a middle seat but at least I had a seat so I was still happy.   Playing  “elbows” isn’t a lot of fun but sometimes a necessary activity when you’re in the middle and the occupants in the seats next to you attempt to claim the armrests by spreading their wings.  At least playing “elbows” isn’t as bad as having overflowing bodies in my seat.  Yep … I was happy.   

The good news was … I made the flight on to Phoenix.  Terry’s flight was on a non-stop from Portland.  It left a couple hours after I took off but we arrived within 15 minutes of each other. About 3:30 AM we finally fell into our own bed in the motorhome. 

Duchess was happy.  She was so happy in fact that she slept the rest of the night on the floor in the bedroom instead of in the living area where she normally sleeps. She had been well taken care of by Toni and Doug.

That’s it!  Now it’s time to think about moving on again.  Where to and when are the questions facing us now.

‘Tis life on the road.