I wanted to put up a lovely christmas photo here with this post, possibly one of our shots we recently took while we were in Munich last weekend. However we just haven't had time to get those online before we left London and came to Vancouver. I'm sorry, but you'll have wait until we return to London for some photos as they are on Rick's computer which is currently not with us.

So we have arrived home to Vancouver, more correctly White Rock/South Surrey for Christmas and all I can say is how relieved and overwhelmed I am from the whole travel experience. I honestly didn't know if we were going to be able to get on our flight! If you haven't heard already, Heathrow airport is in an absolute mental state! So bad in fact the government got involved and handed over the military to help! Over 130,000 people have been stranded at the airport for the past few days and about 20,000 more people were stranded across Europe trying to get into London, not including people from many other countries across the world. Everyone leaves London at Christmas because almost no one is from London. Its the one time of the year when everyone wants to get out! With a massive dump of snow in a couple hours and Heathrow not being prepared to deal with this, things were looking very grim. Most airplanes were frozen to their docs and snow had to be dug out manually from underneath the plans. A virgin plane was stuck right in the middle of one runway for days! And of course with many cancellations, there was nothing but a "knock-on" effect trying to get people to their destinations. For more info see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/. The Brits are calling it "Frozen Britain."

Rick and I got on our flight yesterday with mild disruption. It was a bloody miracle to put it straight. Also, we are so blessed to have been living there so as not to be stuck living in an airport of days like so many other people. Our flight was the first flight to Vancouver from Heathrow since the "big storm" came upon us. Luckily we were booked with British Airways (which was given priority unlike Air Canada), and we had a long-haul international flight whereas all short-haul and domestic flights were cancelled. We were delayed by 3 hours which was pretty panicky as everyone was worried it would snow again, but in the big scheme of things, nothing really. Everyone on the plane was clapping happily when we finally took off and arrived in Vancouver.

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year, and would completely suck without the love of friends and family around me. I think I would have balled my eyes out if I couldn't have make it home. I am so thankful we are here now and we can enjoy the lovely rainy weather Vancouver has to offer. Yeah for a rainy Christmas. Who really needs snow anyways? To all my loved ones out there - thanks for your prayers - I believe they really helped us make it home for the holidays. There are so many people who will not be with their families for Christmas this year with this disruption. I truly feel for them. I am so looking forward to enjoying my time here in Canada with everyone. Its the best Christmas present ever!

Merry Christmas everyone. Love you all!

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