Home for the Holidays

"A wise traveler never despises his own country.” ~Goldoni

After nearly 6 months in Panama, Central America the 4 of us - The two pups, JB and me, heading "home" to Auburn to see the family. Leaving our warm 85 degree home in Panama for a chilly winter south of Seattle, we look forward to seeing friends and family for our 3 week visit.

Traveling with the pups was easy as always. With today's love for pets, traveling with the pups is rather easy. Bring them back to the US was ten times easier than bringing them to Panama in the first place. Price was better too. Still paying $120 for plane tickets (had we known we were taking them back in Dec, we could have gotten them round-trip tickets for $50 more each), they were mostly content with their totes and some medicine to relax.

Our flight experienced common winter travel delays and price for food at the airport has increased more than I liked. Two airports later, not being able to bring your own water, and a 2 hour delay of our connecting flight, we arrive in Seattle $100 lighter and at nearly 1:30 AM. By the time we got to my parents it was nearly 3 AM and we had been traveling for nearly 18 hours. One thing we learned is that despite having a reservation, car rental companies don't check for delayed flights AND they almost all close at midnight - EVEN during the holiday season. Not something I had ever thought about or had to deal with before. Thank goodness for shuttle express running 24 hr a day, we made it home before sunrise.

Once home it was great to crawl into my childhood bed and spend time with family. This year, our families tree had special meaning. With Clemson (our family's ale mater) winning the ACC Championship they were going to play in the Orange Bowl for the National Championship. So in their honor our 3 ft Hanukkahmas tree was ALL Purple and Orange with a special PAW Topper.

During our visit back in Washington, we also took time to drive East to Wenatchee to visit by brother and family for new years. The snow only feel New Year Eve but the passes had plenty to see. It was also fun baking cookies with my brother and our sons. We even made homemade peanut butter doggy biscuits for the "children".