Spanglish Accent: Home again, Home again...

After being gone for 11 days, I didn't know how I would feel about coming home. Not just because coming back from vacation always leaves me a bit unbalanced - wanting to keep one foot in the fantasy life that is vacation and one foot wanting to step on the solid ground of routine again - but this time I had to throw in the fact that I didn't even know if it would feel like I was coming home. We have only been in Santiago for 5 months now, and I just wasn't sure if I would get that feeling of being HOME when I walked through my front door. You know the feeling...the one that just surrounds you with the knowledge that these are your spaces, your things, your piece of the world that is just exactly as you left it and exactly as you want it. That this was the place that you wanted to be more than any other. Was it? Was Santiago that place for me now, or would I walk in and still be waiting to feel that familiar rush of being home? We haven't been here very long and I didn't want to be disappointed if it wasn't so I kept telling myself that it was OK if I didn't feel that way. That it would take time for me to really accept this new city and my new house, and really make it a home. I gave myself a pep talk all the way home in the car...but I really didn't need to. As we started the climb to our house in the foothills, I felt the familiarity of the streets envelope me. As we got closer to the house, I grew more and more excited to be there. And when I walked through the front door, I was relaxed and the house just seemed to scream Welcome Home. It was a pleasant surprise!

As for that vacation - it was wonderful. I do wish it could start without the sleeplessness of an overnight flight that isn't really overnight since it lands in Miami at 3:45 am (that is over-half-night). The girls slept for all of 2 hours and then were wide awake until we got to our hotel room at 6 am. Then they went down for a 3 hour nap and were good as new. Can't say the same for myself. I am getting too old to live on less than 6 hours of sleep and 3 really doesn't even make a dent. That is just a long nap. I am very glad we decided to leave a day early so that we didn't have to walk off our flight and onto the boat. I liked having 24 hours to decompress and catch up on some sleep so that when we hit the big boat, we would be ready to enjoy it, not pass out from exhaustion. And I really liked that we got to spend some time with B's cousin and his girlfriend - and so did the girls apparently. We had a 3 hour lunch and they sat like little ladies and never once complained...either they were over tired or enamored of our guests.

I won't bore you with details of each day on the cruise as each day was pretty much a repeat of the paradise of the day before. Wake up and be served breakfast, put on swim suit, go to the beach, eat lunch, some more beach, nap, drop kids at kids club, B and I have dinner and adult time for a couple of hours, pick up kids, bed and start all over again. The kids could not have behaved better, loved the beach more or been more fun to hang out with...and B and I see many more family vacations in our future. I will end with a few pictures...