Hey, It's Good To Be Back Home Again...

 I'm quoting some John Denver lyrics in the title of this post because I was a huge John Denver fan back in the day and it was the perfect title for this post.  I would have posted sooner but I've been battling some nasty jetlag this time.  Usually if I'm going to get jetlag, it's going East and this is the first time I've experienced it going West.  But considering all the running around I did while we are home, I'm lucky I didn't catch something.

It was so wonderful to spend time with our newest grandson, Ezra.  He is such a good baby.  He sleeps a lot and when he was awake, he just spent his time looking around his new world.  He is a good eater too and just a joy to behold.

 This is how Rocketman used to hold our babies too when there were young.  It brought back so many memories.

                                          Rocketman's father came up to see us and Ezra.

                                      My folks came up too and this is my dad holding Ezra.

 My mom asked me what to bring for Noah and I suggested a Super Soaker.  But knowing my mom, I knew she probably would be bringing up a knockoff which she did from a recent trip to Walmart.  We took it out of the package and filled it with water.  Noah was so excited and could hardly wait to get it outside.  I went outside with him to watch him have fun only to find out the knockoff Super Soaker didn't work.  I tried to get it to work to no avail. 

Noah was so upset that he ran off and sat down to pout.  He looked so cute that I just had to take a picture to capture the moment.  I asked my mom how much she paid for it and she said, "Five dollars."  We told Noah we would go to Target and get him another one which we did right away.  He was so happy. 

 Minnesota is not know for it's triple digit temperature but they did make an appearance two days we were home.  It was hot!

 We also had a wicked storm come through right before we came home.  I was looking out a window into our backyard when I noticed a hole in the sky that was usually covered with trees.  I walked outside and found some huge branches of our mountain ash laying on our nearby crabapple tree.  I ran and got Rocketman to show him the damage.

We didn't have a chainsaw so the first order of business was to go out and buy one.  He decided on a battery operated one for cutting the limbs high up in the tree.  After he bought one, he was going to go up and cut the limbs down.  I was terrified so I called my sister's new husband, Colin, who was happy to come over and help. 

 He took care to cut down all the limbs that had been damaged.

 That left all these branches for Rocketman to chop up for the dump.  He found out that the battery power for the chainsaw didn't last too long and in the future he will purchase an electric one working on branches already on the ground.

 It took him a few days out of his busy schedule to get the branches small enough to take away.  Our son helped along with my dad.  It was not the way he wanted to spend his time in the U.S. but what can you do.  The weather has been crazy this year.

 One of our friends from Korea bought this for Ezra.  It was so cute and so unique.

 I had brought some peanut butter M&M's and I caught Noah using his kid chopsticks to pick up each M&M to eat.  We had bought him the chopsticks several years ago when we were living in Korea and I was thrilled to see him use them and also how well he used them.  Rocketman was also very impresses.  It's not easy to pick up M&M's with chopsticks.  We've going to pick up a pair now for Ezra.

 Our seats for the return flight was the new Delta seats that can lie totally flat.  The seating layout reminded me of a zipper where you face the aisle.  Rocketman found these seats uncomfortable while laying flat because of the leg room.  He felt the space was more narrow than a normal business-class seat.  I liked the seats because of convenience of getting out of your seat without disturbing anyone and the ability to lay flat.

                                                         The seats go all sorts of ways. 

 The only problem I had and I've never experienced this before was with the flight attendant assigned to my row.  She never gave me a menu.  She came around for my choice and when I told her that I didn't have a menu, she seemed miffed about it.  She got me a menu and then stood there while I quickly looked over the choices.  It was unnerving.

Another flight attendant passed out the washclothes and the linen tablecloth.  When she came around with beverages, she didn't even look at me and went right pass me.  She did deliver my salad and that is when I asked for something to drink.  Her answer to missing me was always, "Oh."  I finished my salad and was knitting waiting for dinner when I noticed that she was taking trays away.

I caught her as she passed by and asked her if I was going to get dinner.  She asked what I had ordered and went to get my dinner.  It came and I quickly ate since everyone else was done.  They were getting dessert ready so I hit my call button to have my tray taken away.  She missed that it was ready everytime she passed by.  Even with my call button pushed, she walked by until I called her.  She took my tray to which I thanked her. 

I did manage to get a dessert by some miracle.  She came around during the flight to give out bottles of water always missing me.  I decided NOT to have breakfast and wouldn't you know it, she did come to me to ask what I wanted.

The whole experience was upsetting to me.  I could see with the new seating how it could happen but to miss me repeatedly seemed ridiculous.  I also noticed several people around me having lots of trouble with the new equipment.  The flight attendants also.  The tables were hard to pop in and out and the popout screen on some seats wouldn't latch.  I don't know how long these new seats have been around.  This was Rocketman's first experience with them.  I did love the choices for movies.  There were easily a hundred different movies to choose from also television shows and HBO.  Enough to keep you busy for 14 hours.

When we flew over, we connected in Narita, Japan and I did some shopping in the airport.  Hello Kitty!

 Japan is also famous for it's comic books and cartoon characters.  I bought this cartoon character.

 This is the box it came it and you didn't know what you got until you opened the box.

                                                    This is what I got.  Isn't she cute?

 We ended up being delayed about 1 1/2 hours at Narita.  Nearing the end of our flight, the flight attendant brought this acrd for Rocketman.  He was in the bathroom at the time.  She came back later and offered him a bottle of wine or champaign for his troubles.  Wow, that's how you are treated if you have over 3M miles on Delta I guess.  He didn't accept the offer but it was appreciated.

While back home, I ordered a magnifer with lights to help me with my chasu.  Rocketman just took the box and put it into a suitcase.  Here's what it looked like when I got to Korea.  They had taken it out of the box and them just threw it back in.  Luckily, nothing was broken.  But when they opened the suitcase, a pedometer I had also purchased must have fallen out.  Rocketman said that is why he puts little things in a ziplock bag so that won't happen.

But it's good to be back in Korea and back to my craft lessons.  Homework, here I come!