So we were able to get to the airport without incident. The kids were obviously exhausted from their days of sun and swimming and not enough sleep. Not that I thought that it was a bad thing. I knew they enjoyed the trip tremendously. I was hoping to be able to keep Gwen awake through at least the point of being in the air so that the plane trip for her would go by quickly.
Earlier in the week, Kevin and Kelsey took their trip back on Monday, which was pushed to Tuesday. They were on the plane, pushed back from the gate, then heard that they had a repair issue, and it wasn't going to be fixed until late that night. They opted to have my dad come back and pick them up for the night so they could try again next morning. I had thought that would be the bad travel luck for our family for that trip. Unfortunately I was wrong.
When we got to the gate, the gate next to us was already having issues, and again I thought, ok...it's not us, so our luck should be great. Our arriving plane was late, but not extremely late. Probably an extra 15-20 minutes onto the trip. No big deal. The kids seemed to be ok. I had packed extra snacks for Gwen to keep her occupied. So they tried to rush everyone on the plane as best they could before the pilot came on to say that they were waiting for some paperwork before they could leave the gate. The paperwork should be in "momentarily". Never a good word to use. 15 minutes later, they said they were waiting for the maintenance check guy to finish his check, then he would sign off on the paperwork, and then we could get going. 30 minutes later, the pilot came on again and said his hands were tied, we could not leave without proper paperwork, which somehow, headquarters was not giving him. Or at least he said they did not give him the complete numbers he needed. Everyone around us was puzzled.
Let me note that since we were leaving from Florida, there was a big percentage of kids on the plane. But a lot of the people that were crazy were adults, like the kids. When we finally had the gate doors closed, it was an hour and forty-five minutes later than our departure time. Trevor got to play his DS, and Gwen and I played princesses, and ate snacks, and somehow neither kid threw a fit. I have no idea how. Gwen wanted to watch the princess and the frog movie, but I didn't want to run the battery down.
So we push away from the gate, the flight attendants are running through the safety routine, and the power cuts out. In mid sentence. Everyone groans. About 3 minutes later, the plane moves, the power resumes, and the safety routine continues. The flight attendant was nice enough to explain that they took off the auxiliary power which was what caused the power to go down. It was nothing to worry about. She was more concerned about the thunderstorm we were flying into. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Before taking off, the pilot warned us that the flight attendants were not going to be able to come around for a bit because there was going to be heavy turbulence when we took off. He was right. The kids of course, were screaming joyfully at the bumps in the flight. A few of the passengers took it upon themselves to get out of their seats to use the restroom. The flight attendants were not happy about this.
After the turbulence, they brought out the snacks and drinks. Shortly after, Gwen was watching Princess and the Frog, and fell asleep. She slept through the entire rest of the flight. We landed, and found out that they didn't have a gate for us. But that one would be available in 5 minutes (which our pilot translated to at least 10 minutes). 15 minutes later, they sent us to another gate.
Gwen finally woke up when we were parked and ready to get off the plane. While we were all hungry, we decided to get back home before eating dinner. We just wanted to be home. We thought the quickest way to do so was to grab a cab.
Gwen was in true form as as soon as we were in the cab, and ready to head out, she started asking me who was driving us. I said he was the driver. Next is Gwen: "Hi Driver, my name is Gwendolyn, what is your name?" Once she got his name, she just kept talking. I guess I'll have to defer to Russ on this. He always seems to remember the exact conversation. I believe she mentioned her age, the fact that we were just in Florida, that she went swimming there, and anything a caring cab driver would love to know about her.
Getting home was very nice. Russ ran out right away, and got dinner. I started cleaning, unpacking, and doing laundry for his trip the next day.
Since that day, both kids have destroyed the house. And I have no motivation to clean it. I guess I'll have to do that now, since I finished my homework. It will be nice to have Russ home for the next week. We have Trevor's school conference in Monday. Good luck Trev!
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