Being home for two days is like falling being back and nowhere all at once. Suddenly, I'm checking mail, making calls, running errands – but I have no food in the house, don't have time to see most people and am living under a fatigued cloud. As always, I force myself to sync up to local time which means I'm useful here, but I'll go through a double-time-change-crash at some point. Hopefully on the plane as sleeping through the flight might be the best thing I can do.
This morning Sennen and Ailyn came over to pack. They're now able to work with me to develop their packing lists and then go implement them. While they delay a little and sometimes can't find one thing or another – overall they did good, quick work. They're now at the age where they can anticipate their own needs and make smart decisions.
They're also super-excited about their next half of summer in Patmos.
Even the long flights don't bother them. Sennen is happy we'll be flying 14 hours to Istanbul for our first segment, getting the bulk of the flying done.
"We do more than fourteen hours. It's easy!"
Which makes for the kid who was disappointed at the end of a 19-hour nonstop to Singapore because he had to stop watching movies.
Ailyn seems more neutral about the flights and is a little critical of our new travel path. We leave Wednesday flying to Istanbul where we then connect to Athens. Unfortunately, we land too late for the Thursday ferry and there are no Patmos-bound ferries on Fridays. That means we need to stay a night in Athens and on Friday take a domestic flight to Kos where we can grab the ferry to Patmos. Ailyn is not a fan of this Kos connection plan.
Nonetheless, Ailyn seems willing to take the Patmos she can get. So with swimsuits and her arts and crafts packed, she is overall a happy girl.
For today, I'll keep the post brief. It's just a day in the in-between. Tomorrow I get the kids at 8:40, we leave for the airport at 9am and we are on our way to our other (and honestly better) house. With my mom waiting there – the kids are flying into the eye of grandmotherly love.
Not a bad deal.
