Only 23.5 hours

We blew it by not stretching the journey out to a full 24 hours, but yes, we made it. We left our house at 9:50 a.m. Swiss time on Monday and arrived at my parents' house at 9:20 a.m. Swiss time on Tuesday, which was 1:20 a.m. Utah time. Wow.

The kids were great. They watched movies most of the way on the flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. Of course, they fell asleep for just the last hour of our nine-hour flight, so we had to wake them up, drag them through Customs, have them sit in Minneapolis for three hours, then get on the plane to Salt Lake. Lindsey fell asleep on that flight, so when we landed, we had to wake her up to get her to the rental car. Lindsey then fell asleep during the drive to the house, so we had to wake her up and get her into the house. By then, she was getting pretty cynical about this whole falling asleep thing, so she actually had trouble falling asleep once we got her in bed at the house. The kids were up bright and early at 8 this morning, so I think they're headed for a collapse about nine minutes from now.

I was able to get Tanner and myself into first class on the flight from Minneapolis to Salt Lake, and he, of course, thought that was about the coolest thing ever. He stayed awake for most of the flight, very excited about the pre-flight drink, the nice seats, the hanging up of his coat, the free Twix bar, all of that. I've probably ruined him for coach for the rest of his life.

Stace, as usual, had trouble understanding the whole issue about trying to smuggle liquids and laptops through security. In Zurich, she informed me that yes, this time, she had definitely handled all of her liquids correctly. The half-full soda bottle that security found in her bag said otherwise. Then, in Minneapolis, security nailed her for failing to take her laptop out of her bag prior to screening. While we're in the States, I'm going to enroll her in a Homeland Security seminar entitled "What We're Really Saying When We Tell You that You Can't Bring Large Amounts of Liquids Through Security and When We Tell You that You Have to Remove Your Laptop from Your Bag Before You Attempt to Go Through Security." (Some of you may not be aware of the background of Stace's attempt to smuggle large amounts of liquids through security in Minneapolis back in May. I've asked her to appear as a guest blogger to write up the entire story. It's classic Stace. I'll try to have her do that while we're here on vacation. I'll make it clear to her that this is a one-time invitation and that she should not expect to make regular contributions to the blog.)