"Staycation"

A few weeks ago we took a long vacation and flew back home to our house in Michigan.  I guess you could call it a "Staycation."  It had been a year since we were back at the house, so it was great to be back home.  The house looked great.  Other than a dead mouse in the attic (that I spent the day looking for on Father's Day) I would say it looked perfect.  My Uncle and Aunt have been watching our house for us, and they've been doing a great job.
Over the 3 weeks we were home the kids were super busy.  Megan went to a week long church camp at our church, Ben went to a Cub Scout day camp for a week, Megan took swimming lessons, my parents came to visit for several days, Ben and I went on an overnight Cub Scout campout, we took a day trip up north to Tawas State Park, we saw a bunch of movies, ate at all of our favorite restaurants, went to a Loons game, saw 4th of July fireworks, and of course the kids had lots of playdates with their friends.  It was like cramming a summer's worth of activities into 3 weeks.  But it was worth it.
As you can imagine it was hard for all of us to leave and head back to Zurich when our 3 weeks were up.  It was especially hard on the kids.  They didn't want to leave the house.  There were even some tears as our plane took off from MBS.  I could tell they really missed being back home.  I was amazed at how quickly they stepped right back into their circle of friends.  I mean it had been a year since they had seen their friends, but they picked up right where they left off.  It cracked me up.  It was fun seeing all of our friends again.  We had a great trip.  Well...that is until we flew back to Zurich through Chicago.  (You can hear more about that further down.)  Anyway, here are some highlights from our 3 weeks back home.

At the airport in Zurich...ready to go home.

Look who's on the same plane with us?

Finally....we're home!

So that was our three weeks back home in Midland.  Then we had to fly from Saginaw to Chicago to catch our connecting flight back to Zurich.  That was when the fun happened.  We landed at O'Hare just fine and had plenty of time to check through customs.  Our Swiss Air flight was on time and everything looked routine.  Then right when we were ready to board the plane the gate attendant came on the intercom and said there would be an hour delay due to mechanical problems.  Ugh!  Okay.  No big deal.  I mean, it's O'Hare of course, so something has to go wrong right?  So we waited an hour and then the gate attendant came on and said it would be another hour.  So after a 2 hour delay they finally announced that the plane was "unfit to fly."  And since there are only a handful of Swiss Air flights out of O'Hare (which were all booked up) they decided to cancel the flight and book everyone on another flight the following day.  So we had to get our checked bags and stand in a huge line for our hotel and meal vouchers, and then we had to take an hour long cab ride to our hotel in the suburbs (the cab driver even got lost.)  So yes...after our 3 week "staycation" back home we got to spend an extra night in Chicago.  To be honest, I can think of a lot worse places to be stuck in than Chicago, but still...when you're ready to leave you want to leave.  The kids were real troopers though.  They were dead tired after all the airline mess, so the next day we treated them as a reward.  Our flight the next day wasn't until 11pm, so we took them to the mall so they could buy something, we went to a Lego Discovery Center, and we of course treated ourselves to some "Gino's East Pizza," our favorite Chicago Pizza chain.  By the time we got on the plane most of the passengers had decided to take earlier flights in the day to other destinations as a long way of re-routing them to Zurich, but since we had the kids we had decided to just wait for the direct flight.  So by the time we got on the plane it was practically empty.  Swiss Air gave us a bunch of "swag" and each one of us had a row to ourselves.  I was even able to lay down along 4 seats and sleep a bit.  It turned out to be one of the best overseas flights we had been on.  It was just a day late.  Anyway, we arrived the next day in Zurich and rode the train home to our village.  We were of course tired but we made it.  We had mixed feelings on being back in Zurich.  We were back at our temporary home of course, but we were of course still missing our real home back in Midland.  But hopefully it won't be long before we can go back to Midland for good.  Anyway, here's some highlights of what happened in Chicago.

Standing in line...waiting for vouchers.

Megan gives O'Hare a "thumbs down."

Checking into our hotel...at midnight.

At the Lego Discovery Center.  Chicago skyline made out of Legos.

Gino's East pizza.  Our favorite.

Plenty of empty seats.

Finally made it to Zurich the next day.  On the train headed home.