back to (our new) normal

we were up bright and early the next morning to get ourselves up, ready and fully packed so that we could board the shuttle to the airport for our 11:45 flight.  i'd been warned by the front desk that it could be fairly busy that morning, with lots of other folks scheduled to check out earlier than originally planned.  with a shuttle time of 8:45, they told me to allow at least 45 minutes to get through the checkout process.

while i dried my hair, i flipped through the channels on the tv and came across the channel with the park hours for the day.  sigh.

i left the bean to finish getting ready and headed downstairs to find an almost completely empty front lobby.  checking out took all of 5 minutes, tallying our purchases over the last few days and deactivating our magic bands.  when i got back upstairs the bean was still fiddling with the last of her stuff to be packed, but since we weren't in a hurry anymore i just waited till she was done instead of taking over like i was itching to do.

downstairs, we met up with our travel companion and went outside to the airline check-in desk to drop off our luggage.  this was really convenient, because they were able to get us checked in, tag our suitcases and then we didn't have to deal with it anymore until we landed back at LAX.  we only had to wait at the shuttle stop for a few minutes before the bus pulled up.

when you're leaving the property after your trip to the most magical place on earth, the bus is nicknamed the "tragical express."  heh.

as we pulled away, i eyed the lockers where our luggage had been placed and sent up a prayer that it would actually be in l.a. when we arrived.

the airport was a 40-minute drive, and the bus dropped us off at the very same spot where it had picked us up just a few days before.

i spied a starbucks inside the building, but i didn't stop knowing that we still had to get through security and ride the monorail thing to the departures terminal.  i figured there had to be another one on the other end, right?  ehhhh...wrong.  boo.

we did, however, find time to grab some breakfast at the ruby tuesday's before it was time to board the plane.

the flight back was a little longer than our trip out, but everyone was tired and all three of us slept almost the entire way home.  i was happy to find our luggage when we landed and made our way to baggage claim, and just as it had been when we left LAX was eerily uncrowded. this made it really easy to find the hub, who was parked just outside waiting for us, and he looked relieved to see us walking towards him.

we stopped to grab some lunch before heading towards home, and after dropping off our little friend the bean and i went through the back yard to be greeted very enthusiastically by the dogs.  we were so excited to see them, and then we headed inside the house to check out the progress that had been made in our absence.  this is what will be the new kitchen:

the old guest room/my new sewing room:

laundry and powder rooms:

the guest suite was coming along quite nicely:

and it was really weird to see the ceiling in the living room all opened up.

it didn't take long before we were all settled in again, and it was hard to believe that we'd started our day in florida.  with the hub relaxing in the backyard, the bean hanging out with me in the bedroom and the dogs happily laying at our feet life was back to normal - or, at least, our new normal.

and as if everything wasn't already all topsy-turvy, we were planning to hunker down at home for at least two weeks just in case we'd come into contact with anyone carrying that coronavirus while we'd been gone.  school had sent notice of the shutdown and we were awaiting instructions on how their virtual classrooms would work.  the hub's office was already shut down, and life was on hold for the time being.

 it's all very, very weird.