The Stephenson Families' Great Californian Adventure

And then as soon as it had started, the trip was at an end. The first week seemed to go so slow, in a nice way that is, but the rest of the trip disappeared before we knew it. We accomplished a lot - I had a lot of great nights out with old friends and work mates, ate lots of curry, drank lots of proper beers (I will never forget getting a pint for just over one UK pound... thats 2 US dollars... wow! The UK really is beer paradise!) and just generally caught up with everyone. It felt like we slipped back into the old UK routine extremely easily, which is reasssuring if we ever decide to return.

So the trip back was hellish... more so than the outward journey. We had a stay over in Manchester at a hotel for a night (pre planned - to "ease" the trip) but were greeted with the news that our flight may not go as the plane was broken from the previous trip and at least one flight had already been cancelled. To cut a long story short, we did eventually leave - 2 or 3 hours late. Not until after I had a stand up battle with a security person at the security gate that is - Mr Jobsworth didn't let us take baby food through so Kyle was facing a 24 hour trip with nothing to eat. Regardless to say, the complaint letter is on its way! A tip for anyone thinking of travelling - DON'T GO THROUGH MANCHESTER. They don't deserve the custom.

We looked likely to miss our Las Vegas connection and literally ran with all our luggage out of the airport, around the perimeter, back in, pushed to the front of the line, checked back in, ran to the gate, and the San Fran flight was delayed also! All that running for nothing but at least we were safe to catch the plane. When we landed the travel back was so easy - traffic was non existant, which was odd for 6-7PM on a weekday. Anyway literally straight after we returned, the region was hit with the worst storm for years... gale force winds, rain, thunder. Terrible, but at least we got back in time to miss out on that - the highways were closed, bridges were damaged, people were without power for days or even weeks... really, it was a bad situation. We lost tiles from the roof and had damage to the house exterior, fortunately all superficial and all now repaired. We were very lucky.

That night we put everyone straight to bed then the following day we had Christmas Day #2 as Santa had kindly visited our house here too! Remember I mentioned 2 spoilt kids?!!! Again, they had a blast and now we're back into the regular routine, thankfully!!!!!!

Happy 2008 everyone!!!