So happy to be...

...after hugging and kissing Grandpa goodbye and driving two hours to the train station....after we got there and found out our train would not be arriving at all because of a frieght train had derailed earlier that morning, blocking the main tracks...after thanking God that it wasn't our train that had derailed...after being told that they were sending a bus for us and that it would be there to pick us up sometime in the next four hours...after a delightful drop-in visit with Annabelle's Great, Great Aunt Lois...after Annabelle got very well aquainted with every nook and crany and man, and said hello to every woman and child in that depot...after a almost 6 hour bus ride across half of Montana, and witnessing this not so small miracle: that Annabelle did not cry, not once the entire time she was stuck with us on the jam-packed bus...seriously, in those five plus hours, she was better than perfect, truly a miracle...after finally boarding the train, 9 hours later than we had orginally planned, we settled in for the night...after a total knock-down-drag-out-melt-down at bedtime that felt like it lasted hours and included, much pacing back and forth down the train car aisles, and finally ended in her giving in to her exhaustion, poor baby...after hours of dozing and then staring out into the black of a snowy Montana night...after my Dad met us at the train station, and helped us carry our ridiculous amount of bags to the truck, we said our good-byes and left for home...after driving in freezing fog, knowing the roads were beyond slick, coming upon 3 cars in less than two minutes that had slid off the road...after stopping for a nap, because David couldn't keep his eyes open any longer...after the fog cleared to show off snow-capped, mountains and trees glittering white in the late morning sun...after cheering as we turned off the freeway, knowing it was the last leg of the last leg of our journey...after all of that...


Home.
Sweet.
Home.