Short but SWEET!

Our son, Lucas, finally made it home for a short but SWEET 2-day visit from Vegas after a 5-hour flight delay and a CP ("crazy person" on the plane) delay which means he actually arrived in Columbus at 2:30am on Thursday (yawn, yawn). The typical "mechanical problems" delay was bad enough but then as the new plane was finally taxiing out to it's runway, some guy sitting towards the front decided to go bonkers so the pilot just turned the plane around and headed back to the terminal - yep, headed back with the rest of the 165 passengers on board. After removing the CP, they were soon on their merry way (more yawning). The bummer was, the whole delay thing ate up a good chunk of Luke's time here and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it - and no bags of peanuts, either - that's what $400 gets you these days on US Airways.

Oh, well, back to Lucas' visit...its been 4 long years since he's been here and, besides hanging out with us, he wanted to see what had changed or stayed the same around the old homestead. We checked out:

• Grandview Heights (Luke used to work at BankOne on W. 5th Ave. - it's now Chase);
• The North Market (for a cup of Jeni's pistachio ice cream - we hope that never changes!);
• The Short North (he lived on W. 6th for awhile) and the great murals on the sides of buildings;
• And German Village so he could snap a few photos to share with his Vegas friends. Those poor folks have never seen cobblestone streets, stately oak trees and grass lawns (think 105 degrees in the shade, overgrown cactus and smoke-filled casinos).

Our 2 days flew by so fast but I'm thankful for these images to prove to myself and the world that he was actually here, that this wasn't a figment of my imagination, and that I miss him so much it makes my stomach hurt.