“Who are all these people behind me?”

We were definitely nervous the night before the big trip.  It was 2 AM and neither of us had slept a wink.  Coincidently, a huge monsoon rolled in and our windows were getting pelted with rain which didn’t help in the falling asleep department.  So with about 3-4 hours sleep, we got the kids up and dressed and headed to the aiport.  People that know me, know that when I fly I try to get to the airport just as they are about to board the plane.  This has resulted is some very sweaty moments as I’ve had to run around aiports to catch my plane.  That being said, I gave us a 3 hour window from leaving the house to get to the gate.

Only 2 more hours to we land.  We can do it!

Things went very smoothly, almost a little too smoothly. Paige freaked out only once when we were boarding the bus from the parking lot to the terminal.  The bus driver was being nice and lowered the bus so she could get it, but doing so releases a bunch of air and a loud noise.  Man did we get nervous when we saw that freak out.  How was she going to be when the rumbling on the plane starts?  Needless to say, we got the car parked, got the baggage checked in, and made it through the security gate wth almost 2 hours to spare.  Crap, now what?

Getting ready for bed!

We started pulling out all our tricks to get the kids busy at the gate.  We were hoping to save all that for the plane.  Did you know Southwest doesn’t pre-board families anymore?  Would have been good to know before I decided to print boarding passes late.  Thankfully, a nice lady moved for us allowing us to sit in a row together.  Drew fell asleep right away.  After giving the other two bendryl, tylenol, some motrin, and some liquor, they soon passed out too.  We totally trashed the plan, we used all our snacks the entire flight to keep everyone busy and the floors were covered in crushed cheese nips, pretzels, crackers, dried yogurt thingys.  Having Drew in our laps, not the best move.  He is too freaking big and it was soooo uncomfortable.  Anyone notice how all flights are full nowadays?

Our kids totally rocked.  And you guys were nervous, come on!  The funny thing was, behind me, a couple had their daughter who was about the same age as C & P, and they were arguing on taking care of the kid, because she wasn’t dealing well with the flight.  She needs to take lessons from our kids (minus throwing toys, bottles, and food all over the floor)!

Oh yeah,swimming!

On this trip we are getting 3 rental cars and renting car seats on each leg of the journey.  I have to say, the first leg worked out really well.  The car seats are very nice and all 3 fit very snugly in the back seat of our Chevy Trailblazer (no min-vans for us).  I totally botched the rental car rental though. We flew in to Midway, but are leaving from O’hare to NY on  Saturday.  Luckily they are letting us return the car to O’hare, at 4 in the morning mind you!

The kids are doing really great. I think they get the concept of vacation. We are all sleeping in the same room together and Paige and Cole are sleeping on a queen pull out couch.  All that space on the bed, and they end up sleeping on top of each other.  Funny stuff.