Determined

I made it home for the holidays.  It is safe to say that my roommate and I were determined to make it home for the holidays.  We wrapped up our last day of school.  We had our winter program and the kids did a nice job.  My kids were a bit shy about performing, but they still tried and that is all I care about.  Afterwards we decorated Christmas cookies and watched Rudolph.

At 3:00 we headed back to our apartment to get ready for our flight out.  Much to our surprise a fog had rolled in.  Jill and I made some calls to find out if flights were still going out.  We were assured that the flights were going out, but we would have to call 10 minutes prior to find out for certain.  Our neighbor had her plane fly over head and then turn around.   We were not convinced that we were getting out.  Then, thanks to the kindness of our co-workers, we were offered a trip on snowmobile to get to Bethel to make our flight to Anchorage.  We did not have much time to figure out whether or not we should do this.  The alternative was to wait and hope that the flight would make it.  That did not sound good, so we decided to go (thankfully we did not flights went out to the village).   It was a cold, long ride, but we made it (icicles in my hair and all).  We had 10 minutes till our flight to Anchorage.  Thankfully, the flight was delayed by about 30 minutes and gave us enough time to make it to check our bags and get settled.

We got in to Anchorage, parted ways, and another teacher and I made our way to get on our flight to Chicago.  It was a red eye and I was happy I did not have to wait around for long in the airport.  We landed in Chicago and I met up with parents (after grabbing a Starbucks).

I was sleepy and ready for a nap, but determined to get done what I need to get done.  I wanted to get some groceries and mail them back to my village.  After finishing my coffee I felt, mostly, ready to shop.  We made a group effort grabbing some essentials to mail off.  When my parents and I were finished we decided to get some late breakfast and some more coffee.  I ordered a coffee and went over to fill up the drink.  I was sleepy and excited to get some more caffeine.   I started to say "cofffffeeeeeeeee" and as I was saying it the worker handed me my breakfast sandwich.  I felt I should have explained to him where I just came from and my badly needed coffee break.   :)