Something lame about a "job." Whatever. The kids and I were excited to hang out and eat French cereal and go to the pool... Maybe go back to Disneyland (we went last time, but didn't see much of it), since our villa was so close... But The Dad felt like he should go to the airport and see if we could get on one of the flights -- from that other 50% that were still getting out.
And sadly, right after The Boy came in from running around on the back porch in his pajamas making a plastic airplane fly in the air with all the proper sound-effects, I got the call: we could get on a flight that afternoon; we needed to get checked out. Get ready, throw everything back in the suitcases that had mushroomed out all over the kitchen floor because there was a washer and dryer (free laundry!), throw away the cereal, rush, rush, rush... The Dad still wasn't back by the time we had to check out, so we hauled all the bags to the front desk, checked out, and then parked it in the Kids Center.
By the time he came we had an "extra hour," so he wanted to stop by the mall between the villa and the airport to take the kids to an aquarium (to assuage the bitterness that they harbored towards him for getting an earlier flight), while The Sister and I looked around. Note: not the aquarium lovers, nor the teenager who likes to look around, nor the gal who likes to be with the teenager who likes to look around, wanted to do this. We all felt uneasy and just wanted to get to the airport without incident. The Dad was confident, so we all tentatively went our various ways at the mall...
The kids saw baby rays and thought that was cool; The Sister and I found The Educated Monkey (an awesome thing invented in 1916 -- line the monkey's feet up with the numbers you want to multiply and he will give you the answer between his hands!).
The rest is pretty benign -- except the major hold up at the rental car company (there was a dent that had been noted on the first contract, but when we changed our contract the original paperwork got lost, blah, blah) that caused a few chest-tightening moments (as we were really pushing it after the stop at the mall).
After all the usual airport antics we got through to the other side and had a microwaved lunch. For our final Paris sendoff we stopped at the Laduree satellite shop (remember they came in second in the challenge). This time we didn't mess around -- the kids and I picked out a macron the size of a hamburger.
It was a direct flight and the kids dozed and watched movies (The Boy is one of those people who forgets he has earphones on, and so not only talks really loudly, but laughs crazy loud)... I got caught up on what's-on-TV-now and became solidly convinced that our decision to not have a TV is a good one -- we're not missing a thing.
And then we were home. And the trip felt like a dream, like trips do when you come home and the scratch on the door is the same, and the blender is where the blender has always been.
