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Monday, March 27, 2017

takeoff trouble

I'm back!
No excuses for not blogging except the computer gets used less and less by me these days.  I have lots to share so I'm trying to get back to it!

Backing up to our spring break vacation...

I made this Mickey/Minnie Countdown for us to look forward to our trip!
The kids were so excited to take turns moving Minnie's bow every day!
When there was one day left, we were pumped!  We headed out of town a day early because Daddy had a basketball championship game and Kerigan had a tumbling meet!  Nothing like cramming in a ton of things right before our vacation!
We ran into our old friend Avery from Kerigan's old tumbling gym!  They were so happy to see each other!
My girl would've placed 3rd but she had a mistake that cost one of her scores to be removed, called a scratch.  She was such a good sport and was still smiling in 5th place!
Afterwards we stopped over at Craig's brother's house to see some family that was in town since Daddy was still at the game.
Then we headed to Ga Ga and Papa's house to spend the night since it was closer to the airport and they were already ahead of us in California!  They were predicting snow, but I didn't expect to see this when I stepped out of Target for a few last minute things!
Kerigan and I had fun giving ourselves a pedicure in Ga Ga's "spa!"
When the kids were in bed I cuddled up and watched the Bachelor on mom's cozy couch by the fire!
The next morning we headed to Minneapolis!  We called Ga Ga In Cali on the way and said we'd see her in a few hours (or so we thought)!
It was also Daddy's birthday!  We met Craig's brother and his family for lunch and they drove us to the airport.  We were leaving our car with them for the week!
So we checked our bags in and waited for our flight.
And waited.
And waited.
Suffice it to say, the plane was majorly delayed.  Apparently it had had mechanical issues in Chicago and that pretty much screwed up the rest of our day and night.  We were set to head out before the snow storm, but since the plane was so late, we watched it start snowing and I began to get nervous...

FINALLY....
They called us to board the plane!!  
At this point we were 6 hours behind schedule and had missed our connection out of Denver.
I took all these pictures of us saying thumbs up all around!  We were finally on the way!  They had set us up on another connection out of Denver which we would have to rush to when we got there...
Until....
They decided to deice the plane for the next hour.
So we busted out the reinforcements.  At this point I could've cried.  I held it together but I am a planner.  I had reservations at Disney for the next day and things were not looking good that we were going to make it.  We knew at this point we would be missing the second connection flight as well.
We finally arrived in Denver around 10pm.
And this is where I need to brag on my kids for a minute.
They were AMAZING, people.   I couldn't remember the last time we'd eaten, or slept, or gone to the bathroom for that matter. We were all exhausted and the kids just kept on going.  
Things get a bit fuzzy here, but I fought for about an hour with a lady from our airline (note- we will never fly Frontier again!) to get us out of Denver THAT NIGHT.  I told her under no circumstances would we be staying overnight and catching the morning flight to Orange County (at this point there were no more flights that evening to OC).  I told her to find a way to get us to California.  So we ended up switching airlines and flying into San Diego.  Which meant renting a car and driving another hour and half once we landed.  And baggage issues.
My girl had a very special appointment at the Bippidi Boppidi Boutique at 8am that I was not willing to miss.  For those that don't know, these appointments are impossible to get, and cannot be easily rescheduled.  And, you're only 5 once!
Whaaaat?!  You're telling me I'm going to miss my appointment!?

Anyway, as you can imagine our princess dresses were packed in our luggage and would be heading to the wrong airport in the morning.  So, daddy came to the rescue and ran down to go through baggage claim and check in AGAIN just to get our bags switched.  He also had a fight with someone who told him this process would take 45 minutes, which would put us on the plane and in the air without him!
Let's just say he was not willing to let this happen.  His facebook post said it best!  Ha ha.

A very nice agent from Southwest (the airline we switched to) made sure we got our luggage on the right plane, and came to personally escort Daddy through security so he wouldn't miss the flight to San Diego.

So.  We arrive in SD around midnight.  Still hadn't slept or eaten, and now had to find a car.  They directed us to a shuttle, which took us to a long line of rental places.  We went in the first one and were told they were out of cars.  The next place?  Same thing.  By the third time I was ready to lose it.  Thank goodness they had some availability and ended up upgrading us to a minivan, which was perfect!
They're still smiling!

So we pulled up our Disneyland hotel on our GPS and drove an hour and half to Anaheim.  We arrived at 2:30am (that's 4:30am back home!) and got a royal 5 hours of sleep before we had to be up and ready for princess day at Disney!
I have to say I'm shocked we actually made it.  We ended up being 9 hours late.  We were supposed to meet Ga Ga and Papa at Downtown Disney for dinner to celebrate Daddy's birthday.  So we were bummed. 

But I was so thankful we made it in time for this...


And my sweet neighbor made me laugh when I woke up to this on my Facebook feed...


More to come soon from the Happiest Place on Earth! ...