Two Flights to Seattle

It's been a month since my last blog post???  How did THAT happen???

Okay, actually, I know how that happened.  Things got busy.  Like, REALLY busy.  I was already pretty overwhelmed trying to get us all ready for our trip to Seattle-- trying to figure out clothes for everyone for a wedding AND for a family photo shoot AND how to get it all in suitcases AND what to pack to keep the kids happy on the plane AND figuring out where everyone was going to sleep once we got there took up all of my mental energy.  And then the week of our trip, a couple of my friends from Manassas decided to come visit me (their spring break was the week before mine), which was awesome, but made things very busy.  AND THEN, the day before we were leaving, Colton woke me up at 4am complaining that his ear hurt, so I had to squeeze in a doctor's appointment and make sure we got antibiotics that he would't be allergic to and that didn't need to be refrigerated for our day of travel...  And then we got home at 2am last Monday and I could barely get through the week I was so exhausted and trying to get the kids (and myself) adjusted back to east coast time...  So, yeah, I've been really busy and REALLY tired.

But I'm happy to report that the actual trip was wonderful and Tracy's wedding was fabulous (no weird drama that you need to worry about), and I'll tell you all the happy details in lots of blog posts to come!  Maybe if I can really get my act together, I'll go back and report on my other kids' birthdays, too! 

For now, this is what we looked like waiting for our plane at the Richmond airport:

Notice the pile of coats and backpacks?  I wasn't planning on bringing coats because they take up so much space, but my mom and sisters convinced me that Seattle was still chilly enough that we would need them.  So glad I listened, even if lugging all that around was a huge pain!

Since Colton isn't in the other picture, here he is to prove we didn't forget him!

The kids were super well behaved for the trip, but our first flight ended up being delayed about an hour, which was a big problem because we only had an hour layover in Dallas.  So we spent our entire first flight freaking out about missing our second flight.  We learned that the Richmond Airport is small and easy to navigate, but that there is something very wrong with the runway situation there, since it caused problems going and coming.  On the way out, we got delayed because the plane was too heavy for which way the wind was blowing.  Normally they'd just use the other runway, but something was blocking it.  After a bit the wind shifted and we took off, but I found the whole thing disconcerting, to say the least.  (And on our return trip, the captain decided to switch planes because the brakes on the plane they originally loaded us into weren't good enough for such a short runway.  Does anyone else find this worrisome???)  We spent the whole flight watching the clock and wondering what we would do if we missed our flight.  As soon as we landed, I told Craig to run and beg them to wait for us, but it's nearly impossible to run anywhere in an airport, and we just ended up on the same train anyway.  But they HAD held the plane for us, so that was a HUGE relief.  (I guess that's the perk to traveling with a group of seven?)  But then Colton tripped and fell and skinned his nose as we were making our way onto the plane, so we all filed onto this crowded plane with one screaming child and I'm sure everyone was just delighted to see us.

And THEN, it turned out that all the people had taken our seats, since they figured we weren't coming by then, so we had to shuffle everyone out of our seats and off to whatever middle seats they thought they'd escaped from.  And in the midst of that, one of the passengers we'd displaced looks at me and says, "Don't I know you...?"  It took me a minute (I was busy wrangling kids and trying to figure out who was sitting where!) and suddenly I realized I was staring at my old bishop's youngest son, who I went to high school with so many years ago!

Small world.  He ended up with Ryder sitting behind him and probably kicking his seat the whole time, poor guy!

Anyway, we arrived in Seattle with no more drama.  Thank goodness for airplanes with individual screens in the seats, my kids didn't make a peep that whole flight.  Then we got our luggage (it all made the flight, too!  Happy day!!!) and our rental car and drove to my sister Natalie's new home in Auburn.  It was close to midnight when we finally got there (so, 3am, east coast time) and she had sleeping bags and beds all set up for everyone and my kids were barely even aware they were being steered out of the car, they were so out of it.

Cross country travel with kids is NOT for the faint of heart.

But we made it!