Déjà vu

With January firmly under our belts I thought it was about time I took a few minutes to blog... I am really going to try and be more consistent this year about blogging, but I can't make any guarantees...

My nephew Mark arrived from Ireland last week to visit with us and we had a GREAT time together. His flights were on Wednesday from Dublin, via London and then Vancouver BC before getting here to Portland. Well, he didn't really get off to a good start. The UK received a right royal dumping of snow the night before his flights and all that morning, and London Heathrow were not prepared (shock horror!)! They had all the passengers strapped into their seats before they realised that they didn't have a deicing machine available... so, they went and found one of those (it took them hours) and then once they got it they realised they didn't have any deicer! WHAT!?!?!? So, about FIVE hours late, while everyone is still strapped into their seats they finally managed to get ready for take off.

Needless to say, Mark missed his connecting flight in Vancouver. They had transferred him to the last flight out of there that evening, but he missed that one too... it was to take off at 8.30pm and his flight didn't land until 8.20pm.... He had to spend the night in a hotel - but at least it wasn't a night at the airport...

We had gone up to Portland to pick him up, and had heard of the delay, but we still thought he would be able to make the connecting flight in Vancouver. So, we did some shopping and had a bite to eat while we waited... At 9.15pm once Mark had gotten through security and found out what was happening he called to say he wouldn't be arriving til the morning... Boooo

We were going to go and stay at Cory's brothers in Tualatin which would have meant a lot less driving and a lot more sleep, but it wasn't to be. I didn't have the pills I needed to take that evening or first thing in the morning... so we headed home and went straight to bed.

The following morning we got up and headed to Portland. His flight was due at 9.50am, so in order to miss the rush hour traffic we left a 7.45am. A little early, yes, but it would be miles better than sitting in traffic. I had the weird sensation of Déjà vu...

As we were driving I received a text message from Mark saying there was a delay. A sensor on the plane wasn't functioning correctly so they were going to try and fix it! Oh boy!

Well, they couldn't get it fixed, so instead they got a new plane.... a little, bitty twin-prop! Yikes!

We parked in the cell phone waiting zone at the airport and waited... and waited! Finally his flight had landed... 90 mins late, but it was here.

So we headed over to the airport and met him, grabbed his bags and got back on the road... headed for Mac... after 36 hours of travelling he was here... finally!