The Journey There

When Craig and I went to buy our tickets to Seattle, we discovered that all the flights were at TERRIBLE times.  They were all red-eye flights, or involved ridiculous things like 14-hour layovers in Denver.  (Just for the record, if it's longer than eight hours, I don't think it qualifies as a "layover" any more.)  Factor in trying to do this with five kids and we knew those flights just wouldn't work.  And the few that might be feasible were so incredibly expensive we just couldn't stomach it (even though my parents were footing the bill!).

So rather than leaving the first Friday or Saturday of spring break, we finally decided we would have to leave on Monday.  This led to a series of other consequences: because we were leaving later, I wanted to stay later.  And because Craig couldn't stay as long as I wanted to stay, we decided he would need to return home sooner than I would.  And because I was terrified of trying to fly with all five kids on my own, we asked my sister Tracy to if she could fly back to Virginia with me to help out.  And thank goodness, she agreed!  So we had our very strange schedule all set!

But even then, our flights were still a huge pain.

Going to Seattle, we departed at 6:35pm.  That doesn't sound so bad, except when are you supposed to eat dinner???  Airlines don't serve food any more, so that wasn't an option.  And I knew the kid wouldn't be ready to eat at 3:30 before we left (plus then I'd have to clean it all up or else return home to dishes that had been sitting in the sink for a week-- gross!).  I finally figured out that what we needed to do was leave even earlier for our flight, and then eat dinner at the airport.  Fortunately there was a Chipotle right near our gate, and our kids LOVE quesadillas, so we were all set there.  I also went ahead and had the kids wear their pajamas in the hopes that it might encourage them to sleep on the plane (this worked for the second flight, from Denver to Seattle, but I think it was due more to sheer exhaustion than it was to their apparel).  (I originally was going to make them wear their matching sleepers from Christmas, but then I realized that Bentley was probably too old to make him do that, and the thought of letting Ryder use an airplane bathroom with his sleepers dragging on the floor made me want to puke, so we didn't go with that route after all.)

Craig documented stuff, selfie-style

Colton was so excited!

Unfortunately, even with all this brilliant planning going on, we were still arriving in Seattle around midnight (which you'll note is 3am, Virginia time!), then having to go through the whole process of collecting our luggage (five suitcases and three carseats), transporting it all to the rental car place, renting a car, and then driving it somewhere.  We figured we'd be too exhausted to deal with the ferries, so we instead went to my sister's apartment and crashed there.  She already has a family of five in their 3-bedroom apartment, so all 7 of us were a bit overwhelming to the place, but we made it work.  I'd packed one suitcase that was just the stuff we needed for that night and the next day, so at least we didn't need to bring ALL our luggage inside her place!

We got there at 2am and crashed thankfully into the beds, couches, and sleeping bags she'd prepared for us.

We were exhausted. 

But we'd arrived!