What a morning. We started our day today, which is a day without any sleep, at the airport in Managua. We arrived before midnight and as today, the 26th, began we were working our way through the luggage drop off and security lines at the airport. We are flying Spirit which we have never flown before and we were caught by surprise that their luggage policy is forty pounds per bag, not fifty like all of the other airlines that we use and even with rebalancing what we could we were hit with ninety dollars of overage fees. Could not be helped.
Security was super fast and in no time we were sitting at the gate with plenty of time to kill. The girls kind of napped a little while sitting. Dominica was feeling pretty ill. I spent much of the time pacing around the airport. Everything was closed, there was no means of buying anything while we were there. This is a very small airport and not enough business to keep anything open at night.
Our flight boarded on time, at one forty in the morning. Everything went smoothly. The Spirit flight, while bare bones, was roomy and nice and we did not have any issues at all. As always it was Liesl, Luciana and I on one side of the aisle and Dominica on the other. Dominica and I did not sleep on the flight. Liesl had a neck pillow and was able to get an hour or two at least. Luciana put a blanket over her head and went to sleep like a little bird. They never used their iPads at all.
Our arrival in Houston at Bush Intercontinental was around five, right on time. While exhausting, the red eye from Mangua to Houston is super convenient and not very full.
It is always a little bit of a shock to be back in the US. Houston’s airport is so large and spacious, it really throws you off. You have to do so much walking to get anywhere. We got our bags and go through customs. That went smoothly. No immigration issues.
Francesca and Madeline picked us up around a quarter after six in the Sequoia. So we were able to all load in and get all of our luggage easily.
We went to the Grices and visited for a little while. Dominica got to working on making food for Thanksgiving. The kids were super excited to see their cousins, they have been missing them. After not too long I went into Garrett and Clara’s room and took a nap for about two hours. That helped a lot.
They woke me up from my nap when it was time to head over to the Toccos’ for Thanksgiving dinner! It is very nice that we were able to make it home in time to at least join everyone for the holiday.
It was a packed house at the Toccos’ for the holiday. Lots of food, as always. We brought our stuff over and moved back in upstairs just like we were over the summer and back at the beginning of the year. We have spent a lot of time at this house this year. Hopefully not for too much longer; after today Dominica is going to try to reach the people with whom we have rented the condo in Galveston to see if we can get in a week or two early to our condo so that we can get out of everyone’s way.
Francesca has to go to the hospital early tomorrow morning and Dominica is going to be going with her so she went back with the Grices family tonight and is spending the night over there to make things easier in the morning. So I am staying at the Toccos’ with the girls tonight. Luciana opted to sleep alone in her room going to bed early and Liesl stayed up just a little while longer but came in with me to snuggle.