Sunday morning, we had planned to go to Church in Charlotte. Chris had found a ward that met nearby at 9 am. That would have been perfect, except for the fact that no one woke up until 8:49 am. Yes, we also missed "breakfast" at the hotel, although from the looks of where they were serving it, it couldn't have been much more than juice and a doughnut. I decided to have everyone all get dressed in their Sunday clothes anyway, just so that we would remember it was Sunday as we were traveling back to Atlanta.
We told the kids we would have breakfast at IHOP one more time, but when we got there, the line was out the door, and cars were circling the parking lot looking for spots. We decided to keep on driving and hopefully find one that was a little less crowded. We did, over an hour later, and four super hungry children later. We did have some snacks in the car to keep them going, but we were all very excited to see that big blue and white sign. Noah was watching all the signs along the freeway, and he saw lots of other restaurants, but no IHOP. We finally had to pull over and use Chris' GPS on his Blackberry to find out where the closest one was. We had to take a slight detour to get there, but that stuffed french toast was SOOO worth it.
While waiting for our table, I felt a little silly sitting there in all our church finery. But then the local whatever-congregation let out, and a whole slew of people came in dressed in their Sunday Best. We didn't look out of place at all. The kids decided that the man sitting across from us must be a preacher because of his tie with a picture of a cross and an open Bible on it. Wish I could have somehow gotten a photo of it, sure haven't ever seen anything like that in our ward. After we were pleasantly stuffed, we headed off for Atlanta. It had taken so long to get to IHOP that we now only had a little more than halfway to go.
The hotel Chris found for our last night in America was seriously so nice. I would recommend this place to any one, but especially families traveling in America, especially if you are staying for an extended period of time and don't have family to stay with. It is called Staybridge Suites and it was so nice none of us wanted to leave. We were actually hoping the Lufthansa strike would still be on, and we would "have" to stay another day. Alas, that was not the case, so we could only enjoy for a short bit. There was a large room for the kids with two double beds. They also had their own bathroom with shower and bathtub. There was a living room with a couch and an armchair, as well as a dining table with four chairs. There was a corner kitchen complete with two burner stove, microwave oven, large fridge, and a sink. The cupboards were filled with plates, cups, Tupperware and pots and pans. We had our own separate bedroom with a queen sized bed and full bathroom as well. Each of the three rooms had its own tv, which came in handy when the kids couldn't decide if they wanted to watch cartoons or the Olympics.
Chris went out and bought another set of luggage, which I proceeded to fill that night. In the morning, we went out and did a bunch of last-minute shopping, including picking up three more duffel bags because we still had stuff I hadn't been able to pack up. We filled those, and ended up picking up one last duffel bag literally on the way to the airport. In this we stuffed all the kids booster seats and a few odds and ends while on the sidewalk in front of our terminal. When we pulled up to return the rental car, they took one look at our packed full car and decided it would be too much trouble to take it all out and load it up on their shuttle bus. Instead, they had Chris put Noah on his lap, and had one of their employees drive us directly to our terminal. That is where we unloaded everything and she drove off. We got a skycap to come load all the stuff on to one of his big carts and then he unloaded it onto the conveyor belt for us by the check in desk. Best $20 we ever spent. We ended up having thirteen checked pieces of luggage, plus a carry on for each of the seven ticketed passengers.
The flight back home was not as easy as the flight over. Alexandra refused to sleep, even though it was night to her body and I could not get her to be quiet. She wasn't really crying, just wanted to play and talk and sing and not let the other passengers sleep. The flight attendant came by twice to try and calm her down, which worked as long as she was talking to her, but stopped the second she walked away. Oh well, at least the other kids slept and were well-behaved. We had kind of a long layover in Frankfurt, about 3 hours, and then a super quick flight back to Zurich, only 30 minutes! We were so happy to be back in our quiet, clean, small hometown airport. We even got to ride on one of those electric carts they usually reserve for elderly passengers. The man saw me carrying the car seat with Alexandra in it and all those little kids with their carry ons and he told us to hop aboard. Took us right to the baggage claim department, such luxury!
It took another 4 hours for me to actually get inside my front door, but I didn't mind, we just took it slow and didn't stress about catching a certain train. It takes a rather long amount of time to load all that luggage and all those people on a train that only stops for 2-3 minutes max. We got a lot of curious stares, but no one actually picked up a bag, or even attempted to get out of our way while we were throwing them in through the open train doors as fast as possible. One nice girl did keep her hand on the buzzer, so the doors wouldn't shut on us, also preventing the train from pulling away, which we really appreciated.
When we got to Affoltern I stayed at the train station with Alexandra and the bulk of the luggage while Chris and the kids took the bus home. He left them there and came back with the car to pick me up. While we were loading everything in, someone hit our car while they were trying to back out of the parking space next to us. Chris could see she was having trouble backing out long before she acutally hit the car, as she came close several times. He was trying to help her manuver her way out, but her skills were just not up to the job. Her passenger was all enraged and kept saying that it was Chris' fault for parking the way he did, but the driver fessed up to her guilt right away. Fortunately, no damage was done, and even though she bumped into the car a few more times, she eventually made it out of the parking lot and we were able to continue loading the car without incident.
Despite all that, it was a relief to be home. The kids t
hought the carpet was really hard, but they loved how nummy the water tasted. It was a fantastic trip, but it is also fantastic to be home safe and sound.