Part 3: Coming home

We got up pretty early on Sunday morning to go to the airport. I was completely exhausted. We got there uneventfully and Eva was really good on the plane again, thankfully. On our layover in Phoenix she watched the planes out the window with Daddy and ran around saying hi to everyone in the airport. She sure loves strangers.



We got into OKC at about 3pm and then drove back to Altus. When we got here we found that the power was STILL out from the storm. It was weird--we saw all these power lines and signs and stuff that had been blown over. Our house smelled pretty gross and stale since everything in our fridge had gone bad and there had been no air circulating for a couple days. We stopped by the lodging office and learned that the power wouldn't be back on so they would pay for us to stay at a hotel that night. Since most of the hotels in town were booked, we got a reservation at Quartz Mountain Resort--the place where we were going to stay for our anniversary and didn't get the chance. And for free! So after meeting up with the Cronks (they came up there with us and stayed there too) and stopping for dinner at Subway, we made the 17 mile drive to the resort. We were surprised at how beautiful it was up there. There were mountains and everything! This is the view of the lake on the way up to the resort. We were pretty excited at all the things we saw to do and we definitely want to go back with our friends. They had mini-golf, paddle boats, camping, a little fair with rides, swimming in the lake, and tons of fun stuff. Too bad we got up there too late to do anything--plus it was Sunday anyway. It totally didn't feel like a Sunday. :)

Once in our room, we just relaxed and watched Jon and Kate Plus 8, one of our favorite shows. Eva hung out with us until bedtime.

Of course, she and Daddy engaged in their favorite pastime together--eating ice. They had a whole bucketful to entertain them. Ice is our family thing--we all love snacking on it. Especially Andrew. Doesn't he look happy? That's about as big of a smile as our camera ever gets out of him.
The next morning Andrew had to leave early to get back to base to report for a meeting. Eva and I stayed and slept in until about 9am, when we ate the breakfast Andrew had left for us. I let Eva make a mess all over the bed with the lemon poppyseed muffin, and she had a great time. We tried to go to the pool with the Hillarie and the girls, but of course it was closed. They had told us the night before that it would be open at 7am the next morning because they were just filling it up, but that morning they still hadn't cleaned it or put the chemicals in it. The hot tub was also turned off, but it was still fairly warm so we hung out in there. Eva loved it in there--especially playing with Livvie and Frannie. She loves those girls. She kept wriggling out of my arms, so I let her stand on the bench by herself and hold onto the edge. She slipped under the water once for a second or so and it scared her enough that she was better about holding still after that. It was pretty funny, though, seeing her come up out of the water all surprised and wet. It was really cute.

After drying off and checking out, we headed back to Altus in the Cronks' awesome humongous van. It's the kind with a built-in television and it's tall enough you can stand up in it. I totally want one--if it weren't for the terrible gas prices, I might consider it. :) It's a perfect roadtrip van. Andrew was home waiting for us and had the rest of the day off. We didn't do anything at all. I know, welcome back to Altus, the city of boredom. I'm getting a little sick of it here, I'll be honest. I'm so glad our friends are moving to Wichita Falls and we can drive down there and hang out whenever I want. If it weren't for Andrew's lame schedule (he has the midnight simulators for the rest of the week and on Saturday) then I would go down there right now!

But we did have a fun trip and I'm grateful for that. I can't say I'm thrilled to be back home, but at least we have fun memories of our time away from here.