Craig, who was already planning to take a week off in July for Scout Camp, didn't feel he could miss work for quite as many days as I wanted, so I flew out with the kids a couple days ahead of him. This sounds daunting, but my kids are actually at a great age for this now, and they were wonderful for the whole long trip. The scariest thing was just trying to figure out how to feed them, since our layover in Charlotte was too short to get food (it was so quick I was honestly worried we wouldn't be able to make our connection at all, since I've had bad luck with that in the past). Fortunately, I hit upon the idea of Lunchables a few hours before we were leaving, and not only did those work out great, they were also on sale! An all-around win!
The bad thing about the Charlottesville airport is that they are VERY thorough when you go through security. The good thing, though, is that it's a tiny airport and no one else was there and the TSA people were also incredibly helpful. So even though they checked all our food all over, we got through without too much trouble. The lady checking us in suggested we gate-check all our carry-on sized luggage through to Seattle, saving us both the fees AND the trouble of lugging stuff through the Charlotte airport. She was super helpful.
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| Relaxing in the Charlottesville airport |
Our first leg of the trip was on time and we raced through the Charlotte airport, getting there with thirty minutes to spare, so that was awesome. (We could have gotten food after all!) Camille spent that half hour talking to an elderly lady who was heading off for an Alaska cruise. I can never decide in situations like that if my children are being charming or annoying, but the lady seemed happy to talk to her, so I let it go.
The next flight was LONG. Oh, that flight is so long. The kids did great. Colton and Camille both put their heads down on my lap and snoozed for a decent chunk of time, and the bigger kids were occupied by their tablets. I was pretty annoyed when the flight attendant woke Camille up because her legs were sticking out into the aisle. Yes, the cart was coming and she needed to move her feet, but I could have fixed that without waking her up! What the heck, lady???
By the time we landed in Seattle and actually got off the plane, it was late and we were on the verge of collapse. Camille nearly started crying on the plane (I realized she was standing carrying her backpack while we waited to de-plane and quickly pealed the backpack off her and made her sit back down). And Colton was almost crying while we waited for the shuttle to take us to the rental car place. And while we were waiting for our luggage, they all plunked themselves down on the floor like homeless people. Just getting into that Seattle spirit, I guess!
We got the shuttle and people were very helpful. And then I got my rental car and they GAVE ME THE WRONG CAR. I absolutely did NOT want an American-made mini-van, but that was all they had. I'd paid extra so I could have a Nissan Quest (and that was only because I couldn't find any Toyota Siennas or Honda Odysseys!) so when I hauled all my stuff to the correct spot and found a Dodge sitting there, I was about ready to spit nails. (It didn't help that it was now three in the morning, east coast time.) But in the end, there wasn't much I could do except climb into my junky mini-van and drive to Natalie's.
Later in the week, my mom tried to adjust the rearview mirror and the whole unit fell off the windshield and dangled from a wire. It hung like that the whole rest of our trip. And even Craig had to admit that maybe I had been right to try so hard for a different car.
We got to Natalie's place without any trouble and everyone fell into bed.
I'd insisted that my parents and Tracy come by and say Hi, so they dutifully came over the next day to see us. I hadn't thought about the fact that we were all jet lagged and sleepy and not exactly at our best, but it was still good to see everyone and the kids were VERY excited to meet their newest cousin, Cora!
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| A double rainbow across the street! |
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| My kids were also excited to play with their cousins' parakeet, Jet. |
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| Playing Spot It together |
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| Camille was fascinated by Samuel's cello |
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| Early morning snuggles with Claire |
Craig arrived Friday night and Natalie took me to pick him up. That turned out to be a very good thing, because they'd changed the cell phone lot at Sea-Tac and the whole set up is TERRIBLE now. If I'd been driving myself, I would have been SO lost!
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| Adjusting to west coast time and to Natalie keeping her house so cool! |
Saturday Natalie and I did a whole ton of grocery shopping. Natalie had been put in charge of getting food for the entire group (so, enough food for 26 people for five days), which made tons of sense at the time because she lives closest to Suncadia and knows all the Costcos around her and stuff. What we hadn't considered was that Natalie and I also have the most kids between us and therefore the least amount of extra room in our cars. So while we were happy to do the legwork required for this endeavor, we were pretty nervous about how we were going to actually pack all that food into our cars around all the suitcases, sleeping bags, pillows, and bikes. Fortunately, Natalie is a master packer, and we did manage to make it all fit. SKILLZ, my people. We should have taken pictures!!!
Also on Saturday, Natalie and Cameron watched our kids so we could go to the temple. (I was supposed to watch their kids so they could go the day before, but poor Cameron was post-call and ended up sleeping through their temple time. But the upshot was that when I showed up with Natalie to pick up Craig, he got the fun surprise of it being me instead of Cameron!) Unfortunately, we got there at 7:32 only to discover that the last session was at 7:30, NOT 8:00 like we'd been assuming. That was kind of a bummer... But the temple was still lovely, so I'm glad we made the effort!
Sunday was church, and it's always exciting trying to get thirteen people showered and dressed and out the door!
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| Caleb is CRAZY! |
My friend Erin came over to visit that afternoon, and it was SO FUN to see her again! Unfortunately, I (once again) didn't think to take any pictures, so there is no photo proof that we hung out. But we did! Really!!! Thanks for making the trip out to Auburn, Erin!
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| Lovely sunset with weird clouds from Natalie's backyard |
And then Monday we got all packed up and made another trip to Costco, this time for everything that needed to be refrigerated. We crammed all THAT into our already packed cars around all the other stuff and... headed to Cle Elum for our family vacation in Suncadia!!!
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