We ended up needing those presents to sweet talk Raquel. The airport in Phoenix was so nuts when we arrived it took us an hour an a half to collect our luggage and finally leave. This, in addition to the fact that Raquel arrived early, meant that she spent a total of two hours circling the airport and waiting for us. Needless to say, by the time we finally got in the car she was very hungry (athough she still managed to save us three homemade carmels–thanks!) and in dire need of a restroom. Many thanks to Raquel for helping us surprise our family!

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Back in October, Scott and I started scouting around for plane tickets. We knew that we would be traveling home to Phoenix for the holidays and were determined to get a good deal on the flight. Unfortunately, there is rarely a good deal from Columbus to Phoenix. We watched tickets hover around $300 dollars and then begin to rise in price as the holidays drew nearer before we decided we might as well bite the bullet and fork over the change (how’s that for a couple of clichés—Mrs. Snyder would be proud!). We did find a (relatively) good deal on airfare, but it meant leaving a day later than we would originally like, since the flight on Saturday would cost us about an extra $300 dollars. Our flight was scheduled to leave on Sunday, December 23 at 6:30 pm, meaning we wouldn’t arrive in Phoenix until 12:00 midnight. Bummed, but pleased with our (relative) good deal we hit “purchase” and crossed one item off of our to-do list.

As Christmas drew closer and everyone was discussing their plans to leave Columbus, I became antsy to travel home. (One a side note: People have very interesting reactions when we tell them we’ll be spending the holidays in Phoenix. Many (after incredulously asking us why we would move from Phoenix to Columbus because the weather was so bad during the winter) wondered how we could spend the holidays in anyplace that had absolutely NO chance of getting even a few snow showers. Others, like one of the ladies I worked with, warned us to drive safely—do they realize how that it’s a 29 hour drive between the two cities and not something you would undertake a couple of days before Christmas?!? ) Anyway, the thought of spending the weekend waiting around to leave was a little unnerving and I was hoping something could be done to remedy the situation. So, I spent the afternoon on the phone trying to communicate to the man with the Indian accent (why are all phone operators from India?!?) that I wanted to get home earlier for Christmas but I didn’t want to spend any more money. His reply—“You can leave Saturday morning but it will cost $420 in exchange fees and ticket price increases.” I said “great” in what I hoped was a rather disgruntled voice and hung up. I resigned myself to one more week at work and a weekend of waiting before traveling home.

Last night (Friday) we went out to dinner with Dave and Candace. While we were eating Jared called us up and said, “you guys are flying Northwest right?” We replied that we were and he let us know that Northwest’s major hub in Minneapolis was scheduled to get a heavy storm on Sunday and due to the high volume of holiday traffic, they were trying to get as many people to leave on Friday and Saturday as possible. Thus, they waved all the exchange costs and ticket increases. We hurried home to check out the possibility of changing our flight and found that we could basically leave anytime we wanted for the same price. Excited by this news, we quickly changed our flight from Sunday night to Saturday morning. We decided not to tell anyone and surprise them by showing up at the door with all our luggage and Christmas presents (we figured the presents would win over anyone who wasn’t so excited to see us arrive early) in tow.

During our layover in Detroit, I called Raquel and let her know that “she had been selected.” She said, “great, what does that mean I have to do?” (“being selected” in my family has become synonymous with “I have something that you don’t really want to do, but you have to because you’re family and you can’t turn me down.”) I let her in on our secret arrival time and requested that she pick us up from the airport. Apparently, she wasn’t one of the ones we needed to schmooze over with our Christmas presents; because when she found out why she’d been selected she was actually pretty excited to come pick us up. I think that fact that she was the only one (in either mine or Scott’s family) to know the secret helped a bit.

So now I’m writing this on the plane while Scott scouts out all the amazing Christmas presents we should have bought from sky mall. I have to admit, some of them would be pretty good. He’s already perused the escape options available on our DC-9 and our 757 before we left the terminal. He made sure to warn me about which escape to head for in case of emergency (the one behind us, because apparently we don’t want to exit in front of the jet turbines because we might get sucked in and the slide going down looks like more fun.) I have to say that he is an interesting travel companion, as he always makes me laugh and plays with my hair when I’m trying to go to sleep in awkward positions in my seat, after staying up late cleaning the house and packing! I didn’t get the window though…

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Scott and I spent our honeymoon cruising on the Royal Caribbean from San Diego to Catalina Island to Ensenada and back. We had a great time and left with the opinion that a cruise is the best way to spend your honeymoon. One thing that we liked in particular (besides when Scott won a bottle of champagne at the black jack tournament :0) was when we would return to our little room and find a towel animal waiting for us. The cleaning ladies on the ship would always leave us with a monkey, rabbit, or some other small creature to welcome us back after a hard day of lounging around the cruise ship or sight-seeing. Scott has continued the tradition even after our cruise ended. I will randomly enter our bathroom and find some creative towel animal welcoming me. It is always a nice surprise and lets me know that Scott was thinking about me.

Just the other day Scott created probably his best towel animal ever. I came home from work to find the laundry processed, the kitchen clean, the floors vacuumed, and the bathroom sparkling. Needless to say, I was a bit impressed. I was even more impressed when I saw the towel animal that was awaiting me in the bathroom. Scott had outdone himself with the amazingly crafted towel elephant.

I continued to be impressed for the rest of the evening until Scott sheepishly told me that he found a cruise lady on YouTube who gave directions on how to create the towel animals. That explained the quality of this particular one (always before he just made up some design). Despite him not creating the animal completely on his own, I still was impressed with his willingness to make me smile!

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Despite the fact that we don’t have children, we (me, Scott, Candace, and Dave) decided to check out the sights at the Columbus Zoo night lights. The entire zoo was very packed, but it was fun to wander around and see the lights that were decorating everything. Without a temple with lights nearby we decided that the zoo lights would have to suffice. I have to admit though, Fluffy (the world’s largest snake on exhibit) didn’t quite carry the same spirit the musical performances at the temple usually do. Nevertheless, despite the cold and the lack of religious spirit we still had a good time.

This is Fluffy.

This is Dave making Scott stand next to the sign saying “Fluffy” and thinking it’s hilarious because Scott’s family calls him “Fluffy.”

Apparently, others before us found the zoo lights as romantic as we did! :0)

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Driving in Ohio is not quite the same experience it was back home in Arizona, not including the driving in snow aspect. Maybe it’s just because all the roads are older and narrower, but it is really an adventure. Here’s a few strange quirks we’ve found so far…

1. Drivers feel absolutely no guilt about cutting people off and merging across gore areas when entering the free way.

2. You can come to a four-way intersection where none of the corners has a stop sign, indicating that all cars could just drive straight through if they so desired.

3. On many two-lane roads there is no middle turning lane, so any car that wants to turn left will just stop in the middle of the lane and traffic will back up behind him. Everyone waits patiently until the one car gets a chance to turn.

4. There will often be two off ramps on a freeway at an interchange. Cars will back up for miles in one lane and leave the other lane completely open, when they could join the open lane easily and cut of 15 minutes of their commute. This often results in a completely jammed up lane behind which everyone just waits patiently (see number 3).

5. You have about 10 feet of space to merge onto the freeway. Meanwhile cars from the freeway are trying to merge into your lane so that they can exit the free way, all in that same 10 feet of space. Scott claims that driving on the 270 is like playing a video game—you need 8 lives to make it home alive.

6. Rather than making a sharp 90 degree turn onto the freeway (which would make sense and take up less space) you have to take the ramp on the east side of the road to head west on the freeway and make a 360 degree circle before doing so. Here’s an example:

7. Along some roads it is perfectly acceptable to just park in the right lane. You’ll be cruising along in the right lane minding your own business when suddenly the car in front of you just keeps getting bigger and bigger. With a jerk, you realize that the car is parked and you’ll have to merge with the traffic in the left lane to make it around. It’s a completely new way to go about driving.

8. Main roads cut right through residential neighborhoods. During the fall these residents will dump all their fallen leaves along the side of the road making driving all the more difficult.

9. Street lights are not quite as professionally installed as may be expected. In Mesa the street lights are all attached to firm poles, where as here they swing from wires. The other night I was waiting at a stop light while I watched a gigantic icicle swing precariously from the street light above me. I was rather relieved when the green arrow came on and I could abandon my dangerous position.

10. Most streets are dark. Unlike the well-lit streets of Mesa, Columbus prefers to build streets without lights along them. I have to admit, though, that I rather prefer this method. Usually when a street does have lights, they are attractive old-fashioned street lamps, rather than the big, intrusive silver lights that occur every 5 feet in Mesa.

11. I saved the best for last. Street signs often make you shake your head in wonder, like this one…

I drive past this one quite often and can never help chuckling to myself.

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