Trip to NC Part One

I took the girls to NC August 8-16th to be with Mom Joyner while she had major surgery. James had to work, so I flew with the girls. It was Anna's first flight and Lily's first time to be aware of flying.

We had an adventure trying to leave Pensacola though! Mrs. Woody was kind enough to take us to the airport while James was at work that Thursday afternoon. She dropped us off at my insistence and we went through security, arrived at our gate just as they were boarding, and settled into our seats.

Anna was a lap baby and Lily had her own seat.

Not that the poor girl had much lap. :-) Unborn baby David was sharing the space.

We were seated in the last row with our backs to the restroom wall.

Mom Bryan was worried about the girl's ears hurting so she gave us some skittles to help during takeoff. Lily sorted the colors and totally rejected the brown ones.

This is as far as we made it. The entrance to the runway.

The pilot revved his engines to prepare to takeoff, and came on the speaker to say there was a problem with the hydraulics controlling the nose of the plane (or something like that) and we would be going back to the gate to re-board another aircraft. He told us to go the check-in counter.

So we de-planed, got our gate-checked carry-on luggage, and towed the girls back to the check-in counter. It took over an hour to get to the front of the line to be reassigned a flight. The girls were really very good with the wait. Lily played on my old iPhone with toddler game apps, and Anna ate some raisins. I give these details to help John and Vanessa as they take a toddler and a baby to Maine next month. :-) 

As we waited in line, I was hearing others say there were no other flights out that night. Mom's surgery was the next day at 2pm, so that was my deadline for arriving in Charlotte. As it got later and later, I called James and figured out that he would be off of work by the time I finished getting to the front of the line and he could come pick us up.

After finally arriving at the front of the line, I learned that my best option was a flight out the next morning at 6am. We were told to be at the airport by 5am. So much for having rested children as I'd planned. :-) 

James arrived right after I finished, and we got to see him again after only a few hours instead of a week! That was kind of nice. We ate supper at Dairy Queen on the way home since I'd obviously not planned to eat at home that night.

It was weird to come home but only be there one night. We expected the bunkbed to be delivered that afternoon, and it came at 6 or 7pm via UPS.

"This is huge! It is this long! Oh my word!" -Lily