Home again

It was a long and adventurous trip but we've made it home safely. I will elaborate more on it later. I am quite tired now. I suppose I am getting old and jet lag is started to get me. I never used to have problems with it before but now I travel with kids and they don't let me get any sleep on the flight.

Anyway, this morning I got up and went to the bakery to get some breakfast items. When I went out, it started snowing lightly for a while. It was really nice. It only snowed for about 30 minutes but it still made my day. :)

Leaving a good impression

Today was my last day at the office before returning to my telecomuting schedule. I am sure that I left a wonderful impression with everyone by oversleeping and showing up quite late for work. I still had quite a lot to get done this week so Sunday I got only slightly over an hour of sleep and Monday night about 5 hours. Well, last night I went to bed around two and simply failed to wake up when the alarm went off. I finally woke up at 9:40am. By the time I got ready and made it to work it was very close to 11:00. So, on my last day there I was terribly late. That made for an even busier day. Finally at 5:30 I managed to leave and took back the car that a friend so graciously loaned me for the entire month. Chris then picked me up to get me home.

At home I had a surprise waiting for me. As soon as I looked at Mia I knew that something was wrong. Her eyes were red, she had huge under eye circles and she had some type of rash on her back. Just lovely, I thought to myself. Grandma's nursing instincts kicked in and she jumped in with a diagnosis and medications. We hope for the best in the morning. Otherwise an already difficult trip will turn even worse. Traveling with a sick child has to be right up there on the list of things that we shouldn't do but we do it anyway just because we're not quite sane. Should I fail to post another blog after this, you'll know that I simply lost my sanity or ability to think coherently after the extra long trip with a sick and a naturally stubborn and opinionated 3 year old.

I'd better go get some sleep. It's 2:00am already.

Vacation is almost over

We've enjoyed last couple of weeks very much. It's been busy but pleasant. If I didn't work the entire time it would have been even better. :)

We went to Atlanta for two days and visited Fernbank Museum (natural history museum) and the Atlanta aquarium. Kids enjoyed it quite a bit including the stay in the local hotel that featured an indoor swimming pool (grandpa made an excellent choice when making reservations). Eight of us rode in the van and it made for a very fun trip. Chris just bought a portable DVD player and I am thinking that now we're fully equipped to take kids on longer trips. I suggested that we do something really soon to which he replied that we haven't even completed this trip. :)

Here is a little activity overview... Kids went to McWane center several times, then to a number of playgrounds, to Chuckie Cheeses, met up with old daycare buddies to play (that was huge success, kids had a blast), visited relatives, bought and watched new cartoons, played new games, read new books... Chris and I got to visit with friends, go out a couple of times to dinner (hooray for Cheesecake Factory) and saw a few movies (movie review in a separate post), shopped (probably too much), and ate lots of turkey and cake on turkey day. I met with a number of friends over lunch which was really great too. All of this definitely made for a very memorable month but the time has come to head home. We're traveling on Wednesday and hope for a good trip. That remains to be seen. I have a couple of more days of work and then some more packing to finish.

At the cash register

Continuing my string of money-related posts...

When making a purchase in Croatia, we frequently use cash. Especially for smaller purchases. I often find it annoying and here is why...

All cashiers, as a part of some great conspiracy it seems, absolutely always ask you for a particular combination of currency so they can give you back perfect change. For example, assume that the cost is 7.30 kunas and you pay with a 10 kuna denomination. Instead of just getting change you will instantly get a question whether you have 2.30 kunas in change so they can give you a single 5 kuna coin back. I've had cashiers give me annoyed looks because they noticed that I had smaller denomination bills or coins in my wallet and I still paid with a different bill. They'd even point out that I could pay with a different bill. I however like to keep those to pay parking and to go to the bakery. I just can't describe to you how annoying this is.

I wanted to see how US cashiers stacked up. Believe it or not, cashiers here are cool cucumbers. Not a single one asked me for specific change. They just gave me back exactly what I was owed regardless of what combination of change they had to give me back. At Taco Bell yesterday my purchase was $5.01. Without missing a beat I was refunded exactly $4.99. I don't think it even occurred to them to ask me if I had a single penny on me. I have to say that I liked that. In Croatia they would have asked you if you have that one penny. If not then they would just let you get away with it and not pay it. On the other hand, frequently if you're owed 1-3 lipas (equivalent of a penny) as change, you typically will not get it back. Yes, I am very anal and find that annoying too. Money is money I think and I don't like them rounding off the cost.

Rock bottom dollar

Dollar has reached it's rock bottom status. Simply stated, I freelance for US customers and get paid in US currency. When I convert the money to kunas, one dollar is worth less and less each day it seems and is at it's lowest exchange point ever. So money is just melting away even without us touching it. Had we not used our savings for a down payment on the condo last year and for furnishing the place, we definitely wouldn't have had enough cash anymore if we had to do it now. 4-5 years ago one dollar used to trade for some 7.3 kunas. Last year it was at about 6.3 kunas. Today for the first time it dropped under 5 to about 4.8 kunas. That just hurts. It's like everything keeps getting more expensive for us but not for others as their purchasing power isn't tied to USD.

Maybe we should just spend it all and clean out the account. Then we won't have to worry about it losing value? :) What do you all think?

Gas prices

I have noticed the gas prices creeping up to new heights. Even at these very high prices you should still consider yourself lucky. The rest of the world pays a whole lot more. One gallon is 3.785L. We pay 8kn per liter which is $1.60034. Now do a little math... At today's exchange rate in Croatia we pay about $6.06 per gallon. Now don't you feel better now?

Great timing

I find it very amusing that we managed to hit "fall back" time change in both countries. Weekend prior to our trip we moved the clock back and once again weekend after the trip. Better now then in the Spring I suppose when we lose time. :)

Bad hair day and other tales

A few of you know that we've made it safely across the pond a few days ago. The trip was quite long. Kids handled it relatively well though. Aside from Ivor's vomit episode on the flight from Frankfurt I suppose. :) We flew on the medium sized plane from Zagreb to Frankfurt, jumbo sized plane from Frankfurt to Washington D.C. , and small little airplane from Washington D.C. to Birmingham. Sounds like a Goldilocks and the three bears story, doesn't it? :) However, the little, 50 seat airplane was definitely not our favorite. There was hardly any room to even get in, but we somehow managed.

At the Frankfurt airport, where we had a three hour layover, we've learned the value of a soda. Since liquids are no longer allowed as carry-ons, we didn't have anything with us as we normally would, so Chris went to look for a beverage. He had a few dollars on him. He managed to use American currency to buy a drink for the unbelievable sum of -- $4.20 for a half a liter drink! Can you say rip off?He got Euro as change. I suppose that will come in handy at some later time.

The weather was beautiful the whole way. A little bit of rain that we started out with turned into sky full of sunshine and kids enjoyed peering out. Neither of the kids wanted to sleep of course. They probably figured that sleeping would make things too easy on their parents. They had to play the part. So we told stories, amused them, played card games and had tea with Disney princesses. And finally it was time to land at Washington D.C. 10 minutes to landing I sat next to Ivor and talked to him. 6 minutes to landing I looked over and he was sound asleep. See the problem there? It was a 9 hour flight which sounds like enough time for a little nap but he waited until it was time to land. Unfortunately, he had to be woken up and the fun began. We had an hour and 50 minutes to clear the immigration, customs, claim and recheck our baggage and catch our connecting flight. All with two excessively sleepy kids in tow. Namely it was their exact bedtime by the Croatian clock, and good and obedient kids that they are, they just wanted to sleep.

Anyway, we joined the massive crowd all gathered to pass the passport control. That seemed to drag on forever. We then claimed our 4 large bags. We traveled with 5 carry-ons (2 laptops, one food bag and two kid entertainment bags) as well as 4 jackets (it's cold in Croatia folks). Add two kids to the mess and you've got yourself quite a pile. Fortunately, we were able to pile everything on two carts. Kids were pleased to sit atop the bags and go for a ride. Then we gave a courteous nod to the customs officer. He was kind enough to just let us through. After checking the bags we proceeded to look for our flight. After a long walk around we managed to find the departure gate for our next flight with a few minutes to spare. Once we boarded, the kids went back to sleep. Mia slept on top of me as I tried to make her nap as comfortable as possible. My back was hurting and my arms went numb but we lived through it. Grandpa and aunt Ann Marie waited to greet us at the Birmingham airport.

We rested the next day. Kids had some catching up on sleep to do. The next day was Halloween so as the day wore on we got ready for a fun trick-or-treating evening. We joined Ivor's daycare buddy Brady and the fun began. Brady's dad got a wagon full of hay so we enjoyed a hayride on a mild Alabama evening. It was great. The kids had a lot of fun and got some candy. They were exhausted but happy. Sorry, the pictures are still in the camera and it's already getting late for me to get them downloaded. I'll try to do that in the next few days. I do have to go to work in the morning and will need to go get some sleep soon.

Yes, I've been working regular business hours. It's been weird to have to get up in the morning to go to the office. It's been well over a year since I've had to do that. It was great to catch up with everyone again though. I am seeing many fun lunch dates in the near future catching up with friends.

Also, on Friday, a new member joined the Phillips clan. Evelyn Marie (aka Evie), was born Friday morning to Chris' brother Michael and his wife. Cute little one too. Yes, I'll have pictures but not yet.

You know, writing all this, it sure seems like we've already had an eventful stay in the US.

That finally brings me to the event that describes the title of this post -- the bad hair day which happened on Saturday. Our perfect looking children were not given their haircuts prior to the trip. We really tried but it simply didn't happen. So Saturday we figured we'd take them to get their haircuts at a local Hoover hair salon. Well, our intentions were good but the results were awful. Both their haircuts look bad. I had to tell you all that so if the kids don't look perfectly adorable in the pictures like they normally do, you'll know that we're not to blame. We tried explaining what we wanted to the hairstylists there but without luck. Grandma tried to comfort us by saying that it wasn't that bad. Yes, it certainly could have been worse but we know that it should have been so much better. Anyway, I am thinking that we'll be visiting our regular hair stylists as soon as we're back. We were appalled at the price too. It cost us $31 for two haircuts (that we didn't like) and we typically pay about $10. I'll just have to get over it though. I think that I probably would have handled it better if it was me that met with the hair mishap and not the kids.

Got to go to bed now. I have to get up waaaay early tomorrow morning. Oh, the cruelty...