We'll be home for Christmas

Early November
We are going home for Christmas! It is a surprise...but Stephen and I will be spending Christmas in Utah!!! We hadn't planned to go home because it is just to expensive. We decided our only visit home would be in April at our half way mark of living on the Island. Neither one of us were admitting it but we were both pretty bummed we weren't going to be with our families for Christmas.
We were so very happy and grateful when we found out that one of my wonderful brothers thought it would be nice for the whole family to be together for Christmas. So he offered to fly us home for a couple weeks! Stephen and I were both in shock for a few days after finding out we would be home for Christmas. We had been mentally preparing ourselves for not going home until April but immediately got so excited. So excited that it was hard to focus on anything but the fact of going home.
Christmas really is my favorite time of year. What I love most of all about it is being with family. I feel so blessed to have such an amazing family and husband.
The reason I waited so long to post this is because once we found out we were coming home we decided we would surprise Stephen's family in Utah!

December 16th- travel day one
Finally heading home! We have literally been counting down the days on a paper chain for over 5 weeks now just waiting to come home. This morning we woke up at 4:00 am to head to the airport. Our first flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30 from Dominica to Antigua. Well it left over an hour late. We only had an hour and a half layover in Antigua. So once off the plane we hurried to our next flight that should have left in 5 minutes. We made it to the gate to find out that it to was delayed. About an hour later we left for San Juan, and landed about 15 minutes after our connecting flight to Philadelphia had taken off. Our entire plane was pretty upset because half of us missed connecting flights because of Liat. Liat is a Caribbean airline that are notoriously known for having delayed and canceled flights. So we knew ahead of time that we had about a 15% chance of making our flight to Philly. Unfortunately there were no other flights that day to Salt Lake City other than the one we missed. We tried to get on a new flight to Philadelphia but as the lady was checking us in on it the flight closed and we couldn't get any seats. So she quickly checked us in on a flight to Charlotte NC and we barely made that one with about 15 minutes to spare. I refused to spend a night in San Juan. I just wanted America! Once to Charlotte we went to talk to a US Airways worker to see if she had better options for us than the worker in San Juan of getting home before late the next day. She didn't give us a lot of hope. So we went to delta to see how much it would cost just to fly home upfront. That would have been 800$ a person. I then looked up flights to Salt Lake for the next morning. Like the worker said they were all full but we asked her about standby options. Our flight was for 1:00 the next day but there were three flights before that one to Phoenix. She put us on the standby list for the next morning. Then we went to the front desk and found us a hotel for the night. It was a nice little 50$ a night hotel close to the airport. We headed there and went straight to bed after midnight.

December 17th - travel day two
We woke up at 5:00 am and headed back to the airport to get on standby. The first flight to Phoenix was at 7:30. Once to the gate we got some breakfast and waited for the plane to board. They called our names once almost everyone was boarded and told us they had room for us on the plane! We were so excited. Off to Phoenix six and a half hours earlier than schedule. We just had one last flight to get on before making it home. There were 3 scheduled flights to Salt Lake before the evening one that we had. Once to Phoenix we hurried to the departure gate for the first flight out to Salt Lake. We asked her if there was any way we could get on the flight. She said it would cost 75$ a person because it wasn't a full flight. We took it! We boarded shortly after that and made it to Salt Lake City by 1:00 pm. We were finally home and freezing after traveling for 36 hours.

Our plan for surprising Stephens family was to show up while they were all together having dinner in Salt Lake. We had my mom call and set up a dinner with them and my parents in Salt Lake for the 17th, but Stephen and I were going to be the ones to show up instead. We were stressing like crazy thinking we weren't going to make it in time because of all our missed flights but we were persistent enough we made it happen. It was great! The restaurant we were meeting them at was at the gateway mall. We got there 40 minutes early and hid in the restaurant right across the street to see when they all showed up. We had talked to the host earlier letting him know what we had planned and where to seat them. They all showed up 20 minutes early. We watched them head in and get seated. Then we walked across the street, turned the recorder on, and headed inside. It was the best surprise ever!

Finally made it to Utah!

SURPRISE!!!