Before we moved to Oxford, we knew that Christmas 2015 was going to be spent with all of Jeremy's siblings finally under one roof (nobody on missions, all of the married siblings on the same rotation with in-laws, etc.). We also knew, as soon as we decided on Oxford, that we might be the only ones to ruin that.
Of course we wanted to go, who doesn't want to spend Christmas with family? but it was going to be really expensive, especially for a student loan budget. Even if we bought our tickets early. Then we found out one of our friends was getting married in Provo the weekend before Christmas, which meant that if we flew to Jeremy's parents (which would mean flying into Salt Lake), we could totally catch the wedding before we headed to Rexburg.
So I called my dad. We thought we could at least get estimates on what flying standby would be like and see if we could maybe even possibly justify the rough chance of perhaps making it over the ocean in time for all of these events. It took a while to get in touch with him during normal hours for both of us, and when we finally got a hold of him, it was already the first week of December, and if we were going at all, it was going to be like the next week. By a miracle or two, he found us some buddy passes, and we just bought them. Without a lot of further consideration. We were so excited by the prospect of going to see family for Christmas (and the fact that it wasn't going to cost us a couple thousand dollars), we didn't have much time to worry about how crazy it is to fly standby, ever, but especially around the holidays.
And of course, whether we gave it ample consideration or not, crazy it was. Jeremy still had some classes/projects to finish, so Berlin and I were leaving first, hopefully getting a decent head start on the holiday rush. It was cheaper to fly out of Brussels than to fly out of London (by a few hundred dollars), so we took a bus from London to Brussels. It was an overnight bus that didn't leave until 10PM, and was a 7-hour bus ride, which isn't the most ideal for a toddler, or his mom, but hey. We can make a few sacrifices, right?
We got to Brussels at about 5AM, which turned out to be good timing because it took me a while to navigate the train station. Not because it's incredibly difficult, but because I could not for the life of me find a bathroom, and I just wanted to change the poor kid's diaper (who had only slept for about 4 hours but who was now wide awake). We made it to the airport in plenty of time for standing in line, getting through the line and being sent to another wing of the airport, confirming that Berlin's info was all correct (people were positive he was older than 2, which was a little annoying, but. I get it. Here's his passport...), and getting back to that first line. We also finally found a great bathroom (which means "clean and not cramped"), and there was a sort of playground in the waiting area in the shape of an airplane, so Berlin got to stretch his legs.
Fortunately, we made it on the very first flight we tried to get on, fortunate for a lot of reasons, but most especially because there are only two flights that leave from Brussels that go to the US, and they leave at the exact same time, so you can only try to make it on one of them. Berlin fell asleep while we were waiting for them to call our names, and he got a decent amount of sleep on the plane (great for me because it meant I could also sleep).
While we were waiting to get on the plane in Brussels, I happened to meet a couple who were also headed to Salt Lake. I happened to notice their "Bountiful, UT" luggage tags as they noticed my BYU shirt (also kind of a weird coincidence because I almost never wear BYU shirts in public. Not because I don't like to, but I just generally sleep in them. So I try not to wear those ones in public).
Our flight went from Brussels to Atlanta, and once in Atlanta, there were two more planes going from Atlanta to Salt Lake that night. And both were overbooked. Some quick things to know about standby: 1) everything is about priority, which is set by the date whatever employee started working. 2) Buddy passes are the lowest of the totem pole, regardless of the priority of the employee that gave you the buddy passes. So if all of the other standby passengers make it on and there are still seats available, a buddy pass holder might get a seat. If the plane isn't overweight or anything.
So I was looking at the standby passenger board and seeing my name very far down the list for next to zero seats and trying to mentally prepare myself for spending the night in the airport with Berlin while still paying rapt attention to the TSA desk in case something changed. The Bountiful couple wife came over to me and said something like, "This doesn't look good for anybody." I laughed and made some comment about that being the way it goes flying standby, not thinking much of it, still focused on the board, and she said, "And you have the baby..." I maybe should've seen that she was trying to be sympathetic, but of course, still not paying a ton of attention, I just said, "yeah, it's okay. We've done this a few times before."
It came down to one seat left, and the Bountiful couple was in front of me in line for it. They were talking to the TSA person, but I'd stopped listening and was trying to decide how far I wanted to walk to find dinner. Then I realized that the wife was pointing at me. The couple had decided that instead of splitting up so one of them could take the last seat to Salt Lake, they would let me take the one seat (Berlin was riding in my lap) and they would stay with some friends in Atlanta and try for another flight the next day. Talk about Christmas miracles. I cried. I was so grateful and trying to blubber out an intelligible "thank you" as the TSA lady was rushing me through the door down the ramp. I hopped on the plane, heaved a huge sigh of relief that was mingled with one of the most powerful gratitude prayers I think I've ever offered, and Berlin and I fell asleep before takeoff.
My grandparents met us at the airport, and we got home to this. Oxford's winter means rain, albeit cold rain, but not snow. I think for the first time in my life, this much snow was an incredibly welcoming sight :)
Our plan was to stay with my grandparents until Sunday, when we would get on a bus to Rexburg after church and hopefully still surprise the majority of Jeremy's family (we did tell Jeremy's dad, for the sake of logistics, but we hadn't told anybody else). Jeremy was supposed to take a bus on Wednesday night from London to Brussels and fly out of Brussels on Thursday morning, making it just in time for Zack's bachelor party.
So naturally, he didn't get on the flight to Atlanta on Thursday morning. Not because there weren't open seats on the flight, but because the plane was overweight. Which is so frustrating. At this point, of course, it was cutting it really close for Jeremy to even make it for the wedding (Saturday), even assuming he made every flight after that.
This was the only time I'd ever considered what would happen if Jeremy couldn't make it out of Brussels. And I was freaking out. Of course my mind jumped to the conclusion that if he couldn't make it out on the Thursday before Christmas, he wasn't going to make it at all. Sheer panic. This was an overreaction, but standby is merciless and doesn't care about Christmas. Or weddings. Or happiness.
So I started frantically searching for flights in nearby countries (if you have never flown standby, I understand that this might not seem logical. I promise it was). I found a flight from Paris leaving the following morning that had a large amount of empty seats, so even running the risk of being overweight, it was likely that Jeremy would get a seat on the plane. It also was a direct flight to Salt Lake City, so it meant avoiding one more crazy airport like ATL or JFK, making it all around the best bet. So he spent the day running around in Brussels (which ended up being almost zero sight seeing), spent the night in the Brussels airport, I switched his buddy pass information, and he took the first train to Paris the following morning.
While he was at the Brussels airport, some guy asked to borrow his computer cord and ran off with it. Rude.
I was panicked during this whole lapse of time, largely due to sleep deprivation. From about 9AM on Thursday his time (1AM for me Wednesday night/Thursday morning) I was losing it, so psychotically worried he wasn't going to get on a flight (I also had only been in the US for 24 hours and had definitely not adjusted to the time difference). He should have left on the Brussels flight at 2:30AM my time, that came and went, so we searched for another option at 3AM. Around 3:30 when we decided Paris was the best option, I finally went to sleep. I think Jeremy did too, right on the airport floor.
The following evening for me at about 5, Jeremy had gone to sleep about 1AM his time and needed to be up at about 6AM (10PM for me) to get on the only train that would get him to his Paris flight on time. So at 10, I was waiting for him to text me that he had gotten up and was leaving the airport. Our UK phones pretty much only work in the UK, so Jeremy was dependent on places with wifi to communicate with me. It was 11:30PM when his train should've gotten to the Charles de Gaulle airport, and I still hadn't heard from him. Panic panic panic panic. At 12:30AM, only an hour and a half before his plane is supposed to be flying away from the airport, I got a text from him.
It was a picture of the passport line, which is the line and a still a bit of a walk away from the actual security line.
Cue the aneurysm.
Meanwhile, he continues to text me lyrics to the Christmas song that's stuck in his head, cool as a cucumber. I didn't even have the stable or witty nerves to text back emojis of the weapons I would have liked to injure him with just then. Jeremy doesn't have a good track record for not missing flights, and remember, I was losing it.
I was trying to be relieved by his lack of stress, but of course my stress was only amplified with his apparent lack of stress. You cannot miss this plane. You can't. You can't ruin Christmas. But in true Jeremy style (for everything BUT flights), he got to the gate with plenty of time to spare without stressing (or acting like it to me, anyway), especially since they don't start calling standby passengers until most of the other passengers are already boarded. And somehow he wasn't worried, probably because he's practical and knows that there's no amount of stressing that helps you make it through a standby list. I'm not super practical when I haven't slept in several days, so I probably had a twitch or two at this point, besides the sea of pessimism my poor tired brain wasn't even trying to swim through.
It was 2AM when he texted me to tell me he was boarding the plane. I probably would've cried if I hadn't been so annoyed at him for being so calm through all of it. I said goodbye and fell asleep, completely forgetting to ask him what time he was supposed to land in Salt Lake.
So he missed the bachelor party. Which, as it turns out, he wouldn't really have made if he had made the first series of flights anyway (something about a last minute change of plans), so that wasn't the worst thing in the world. We were both going to be able to be at the wedding. What more can you ask for?
Well, actually, your luggage, despite how hard it is to complain after the miracle of making it on a flight. Somehow, even on a direct flight, Jeremy's suitcase got lost (I still am shaking my head. It was one flight...), which besides clean clothes also had his suit, the one that he was planning on wearing to this wedding, and his electric razor. He also hadn't shaved in a few days, and he had a bit of a beard going, so switching to a disposable razor wasn't going to be a great fix.
By another miracle, however, Jeremy had decided in Brussels that he didn't want to fly looking like a scrub, so he'd changed out of his sweats and put on dressier slacks and a white, collared, french-cuffed shirt with cufflinks. So he did have to borrow a tie (and my sweats and one of my t-shirts while we washed and dried everything he was wearing), but he did at least look presentable without having to run out and buy completely new clothes.
Miracle after miracle, we made it to the wedding, and wearing wedding clothes. This picture of all the boys (present at the wedding, anyway) from the ward where we all met is probably my favorite of this crazy week. It was such an adventure for us to get there, but we were so glad that we'd made it. Beautiful sealing, beautiful couple, and a great party afterwards.
Dancing at the reception
Of course we should have known that seeing as many people as we did who are all as active on social media as they are would mean that we couldn't keep our surprise from Jeremy's family for very long. Sure enough, Sunday morning (we were surprised it even lasted that long) we were receiving texts from Jeremy's siblings about how they all knew we were coming (nevermind that we decided only the week before that we were actually going to make it, sans flight trauma...). The unfortunate part about this was that once all of Jeremy's siblings knew, there was no guarantee that Jeremy's mom didn't know. She wasn't as likely to check Facebook, so I frantically started telling everybody to keep the secret from their mom! But I forgot to text Jeremy's dad. So Lane came home from a meeting, made some casual remark about how we would be there in a few hours, and Elaine dropped everything she was doing in shock.
Oh well :)
Waiting for the shuttle to Rexburg (my arm is numb)
It's so fun to see these little cousins play together. Even if it means no sleep for anyone.
He really, really likes hats.
Sledding.
Berlin hated it.
Really, really hated it.
This is my favorite of the snow pictures. That's Elaine, pinned under there.
We went for a horse-drawn cart ride. Everybody was pretty happy about it.
Especially Berlin, who requested snuggling in Daddy's coat.
This was Berlin's first Santa visit. I didn't know what to expect, but he sat very happily on Santa's lap when Santa offered him a candy cane, and he said, "I want legos and cars." He doesn't get it, but man, the kid knows what he wants.
I didn't finish Christmas gifts before I left, so I spent every free minute finishing these just before Christmas Eve. In hindsight, asking to make sure I had their sizes right first would have helped. But hey, they were cute!
Christmas Eve snow
I maybe got a little carried away with planning costumes for our Nativity. But I really wanted everyone to have a costume. Here I'm measuring the two-year-old for angel wings. She was very cooperative.
Expected Christmas Eve family picture
Realistic Christmas Eve family picture
Christmas Eve present (Berlin has stolen Grandpa's)
Christmas Day- Santa listened!
Jeremy took this while the boys went snowboarding. Incredible that this is real.
Our German host family's daughter is spending a year in the US and happened to be in Rexburg while we were. A very happy coincidence.
I don't even know.
Lunch at the hospital. Of course, this was all he wanted for lunch.
Baptisms with Brita and Kiersten. Cold! but fun!
Crashing after jump rope practice (I think Kiersten went running?)
We celebrated Berlin's birthday before we left so Grandma and Grandpa could be part of it. When he started opening this present he was squealing and jumping up and down because he knew what it was. It was so fun to watch.
My birthday was the day we had to drive back down to Salt Lake, so we had my choice for birthday dinner the night before.
I regret nothing.
Jeremy playing the stereotype that all of his classmates think he should be.
Driving back to Utah
We went to Nickel City for FHE with Tietjens the night before we left.
Good times had by all. Especially Berlin.
Berlin and I spent a few days in Florida while Jeremy went home to study for finals. He set these up in Berlin's room.
He missed us.
The only remotely Floridian picture I got during our time in Florida.
And while it's not great of us, that guy's timing was perfect.
It was so fun to be with family, and we were so grateful for the huge list of Christmas miracles that made it so we could spend our Christmas with them. So much fun, so little sleep, not enough time together with all of them. I hope we all get to do it again soon.
[title from merry christmas, here's to many more by relient k]
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