On Thursday, we spent the entire day at the airport. Only two of the stores and none of the restaurants opened and only about thirty of us remained in the terminal we were in. It was almost hauntingly quiet most of the day. We entertained ourselves with talking prompts, an airport employee art show, and wandering up and down the stretch of our area. After a brief scare late in the day with the airport opening being further pushed back, I had to have another conversation with the desk agents and we were worried about being stuck at the airport even longer. Fortunately, they believed we’d be fine for our flight. Also fortunately, we obtained airplane blankets from some employees and with many less people than the first night, got much better sleep.

Thursday was my birthday! Despite being stuck at the airport, Evan made my day the best possible with the circumstances. He sang “Happy Birthday” at midnight with a little piece of bread/cake we’d bought the night before, found a red velvet cake chocolate bar and sang again, and when the restaurants reopened made sure we got yummy Cuban food for breakfast and lunch. This was the weirdest day at the airport because people who hadn’t been stuck there were coming back in and didn’t feel the same relief and excitement to leave that some of us were buzzing with. We were pretty nervous throughout the day that something would still go wrong but Evan kept me calm and, sure enough, I got the best present ever simply because we landed back in Colorado and with enough time for me to hug my parents and brother for my birthday.

On Saturday, despite being ready to crash all day, we were up bright and early for Kai’s track meet. Since we’ve been operating on such a flexible schedule, I wasn’t sure I’d get to go to one of these meets at all so I was happy to be there. After the meet, my family took me out for a birthday lunch at Cinzzetti’s. After a car nap, we were off to see Angella and spend some time with her doing errands and dinner.

Sunday was spent at family birthday brunch and homemade biscuits and gravy from my grandmother was definitely a happy sign of being home. Most of the rest of the day has been spent hanging out with Kai and catching each other up on two months of unshared music and memes. We ended the night with a family movie night and look forward to finally catching up on sleep tomorrow.