We ran, like crazy people, through the Houston airport, vainly hoping there’d be time.  There wasn’t. As if in one last homage to the Central American vibe our plane left almost an hour late… and landed, as the connecting flight was loading.  Even so, we ran.

There are worse places to be stranded than Houston; especially with a hotel voucher that put us up in one of the nicest Hilton’s we’ve ever been in.

True, we missed our planned overnight with my long lost cousin, which was sad, but we ate a quiet dinner, took tub baths and slept long and hard, which is more than could be said for our last night in Antigua.

Re-entry is a weird thing. It’s easier when we drive and move more slowly. Flying from stem to stern of a continent, swapping climate zones, languages, cultures and more inside three hours is a shock to even the most resilient systems.

Grandma and Grandpa’s Great picked us up in Chicago with our van, freshly cleaned and battery replaced by friends who are better than gold. I had to close my eyes a couple of times as we careened out onto the expressway and pointed the big green van toward Wisconsin.

Hannah and I laughed as we took turns talking to complete strangers in Spanish. We ate as quickly as we could because the noise and crazy of the buffet restaurant (a classic mid-west staple) proved to be serious over stimulation for all six of us. It will be a couple of weeks until we settle in and quit telling each other how COLD it is every time we open the front door or pointing out malls and fast food restaurants and commenting on how nice and clean and organized everything is.

The great grandmas were glad to see us.  Our last day in the USA was spent with with them, it’s fitting that our first day back is too.

Great Grandma Miller almost remembered us. She didn’t confuse her grandson with her brother-in-law this visit, and while that’s not exactly improvement, it isn’t deterioration either. She asked about six times how our trip to “Kalamazoo” over the winter was. She never did remember Gabriel’s name, but she knew Laurence Welk on the television and she told her nurse off soundly in our presence, so we know she’s still the same old Grandma in there somewhere.

Great Grandma Parker was, as always, cooking up a storm when we arrived: Baked chicken, cheesy rice, stuffing, pea salad, chopped vegetables, olives, jello, cookies and more were spread in the common room of her apartment complex as she welcomed us in grand style. The food parade won’t stop for the next three days and I’ll gain five pounds, as I always do, when we visit!

Today is Gabriel’s birthday. He’s thirteen and resisted my idea to postpone this particular birthday for another year. I just can’t imagine how we came to have two teenagers in our family, and yet, here we are. The whole apartment complex of grammies sang to him this morning over breakfast. He played his guitar for them and they clapped. Great Aunt Jeanne beat me to making the birthday cake and we’ve assembled a few tiny presents to fete him with over dinner tonight.

How many kids get to celebrate their thirteenth birthday with four generations of their family?

We are blessed.