We've Returned!

Just a quick post about our return to America. The girls did well on the plane, though not much sleeping ocurred due to excitement. We received plenty of positive comments from passengers and the flight attendants and the girls were proud (righteously proud, of course) of themselves.

Morning started early today (3 am) and we enjoyed a good American breakfast thanks to Grandma and Grandpa. The girls have had fun going down memory lane--playing with Grandma's toys, watching missed PBS shows and visiting with cousins.

Here's what our list of things to do looked like in England:
-get rid of lots of food (one mover had to rip open one box when he realized he had packed some food items , everything was taken out until he found the culprits--a bottle of corn syrup, a bottle of vanilla and a tiny bottle of almond extract. I thought our whole shipment was done for!
-try to rent vans and end up quoting lines from Seinfeld to help us through the experience (It took two vans to get our family and luggage to the London airport; it took one American-size van to pick everything up from the Chicago airport.)
-sell van (4 day process)
-take loose change in to bank (1 hour before we left for the airport Jon took a big ziploc bag full of our UK coins to the bank, parked illegally and went in to find long queues. A bank manager came over to Jon to speed up the line, saw his big bag of change and said, "What do you want to do with that?" Jon's reply: "I want to deposit this." "You can't do that here! You'll have to seperate each denomination into these little bags." Apparently the automated coin counting machines have not yet made it to the UK. Jon survived the ordeal laughing.)
-try not to get kicked out of hotel (Hannah reached a breaking point very late at night which was loud enough for her to be quickly removed from the hotel by Jon--he took her on a drive. Sadly, the move has been hard for her to understand.)
-Forward our mail to the US (it costs $15 a month versus our free year from the US)

Here's what our list of things to do looks like in Chicago:
-See friends!!!!
-Pack up house
-Enjoy driving our very missed van
-Go to Wildberrys (a great place for breakfast)
-Go to Portillos (a great place for lunch)
-Go to Giordano's (a great place for dinner)
-Go to Target!
-Go outlet shopping
-Go see Wall-e
-And some boring stuff thrown in there about selling a house, closing on a house, coordinating shipping cars, finding out when all of our stuff arrives--but who cares, 'cuz we're home!!!