Easy, breezy, 15.25 hours

Emirates provides a lot of kid swag, and snacks, too!

Our most recent trip home to the UAE was the simplest yet. We had a scant 45-minute hop from Portland to Seattle, then a direct Seattle-Dubai flight that was only 14.5 hours. That was it. We were home. Even after it happened, I couldn't believe how easy it was. When you're used to three-leg flights that tour lazily through the US east coast and then the farthest reaches of Europe before deigning to touch down in the Middle East, or even two-leg flights that, while only two legs, require a 12+-hour layover at JFK/Newark, 15.25 hours of flight time is a DREAM. We were on the road, doorstep to doorstep, for 19 hours, people, which is a new record AND even includes the stop at Costco in Aloha for Jeremy to return a pack of socks. God bless Emirates Airlines, specifically their new Seattle-Dubai route.

Of course, while you're on the plane, 14.5 hours is nothing to sneeze at. The flight was full, unfortunately, which should be against the law for long-haul economy travel. There has to be something unsafe about that many people in that small of a space for that long of a time. The one good thing about flying with children (haha, seriously, the ONE) is that you get to block out more space for your family. There may be four of us, but at least we had four seats to "spread out" in, you know what I mean? We could climb over each other to go to the bathroom and put a kid on the floor to sleep and pick off each other's food and doze on each other's shoulders. The best part, though were the personal video screens packed with hours and hours of time-passing movies and TV shows. The girls were like zombies, staring at those things. And that was fine with me.

Now it's just a matter of settling back into our real lives. Our American summer already seems like a dream - so carefree and yet action-packed, filled with my favorite people and places and foods. Even if the summer itself is over, I can still feel its re-energizing effects. It was good to get out and spend a few weeks in a change of scenery. We've got a few more days to get back into the groove and then it's go-go-go until semester break in January. Sigh.