travel saga

Getting to Virginia was not the most pleasant of experiences.  Here's the rundown-

10am - We leave home for the airport

11:30am - We board the plane for Mattie's first flight and proceed to sit there for 2 hours

1:30pm - We get off the plane; they can't start the engine and must wait for a part to fix the plane.  We spend the next 6 hours in the (tiny) Sacramento airport taking walks, watching movies, playing Go Fish, and eating snacks.  

7:30pm- Back on an airplane, and this time it takes off!  Jilly uses headphones for the first time which is just as exciting to her as watching a movie.

1:30am- We arrive in Dallas and because we have kids and are the last ones off the plane we get at the end of a very long line.  An extremely unfriendly American Airlines employee gives us a hotel voucher and our boarding passes for our flight to Richmond the next morning.  She doesn't give us any instructions on how to get to the hotel so it takes us a while to get outside where the shuttles come.  Then we call our hotel and the phone rings and rings and rings- no answer.  

2:30am- The hotel is too far to walk and we can't call a cab because we don't have car seats (they were checked on the original flight and they would not get them out for us) so we finally give up.  We've already come out through security so we're stuck in baggage claim with our two little girls and a sliding door that opens every 10 seconds to let in all of Dallas.  Chance of sleep = 0%  Bryan makes a bed for Jilly, I hold Mattie, and we watch movies on the computer.

(that smile is 100% fake)

4:30am- the airport opens so we go through security and get to sit somewhere much safer and a little more comfortable.  We take turns napping, get breakfast, and watch the news.

7am- back on an airplane

11:30am- 24 hours after leaving home we finally arrive in Richmond and sigh in relief.

Though this was a nightmare-ish experience, I am so so so grateful that this happened when Bryan was with us and not when I was flying by myself with the girls (which I will be doing soon, ack.)  Also, Jilly and Mattie were both awesome.  Mattie was happy as can be sleeping in my arms, and while we did have a few meltdowns for the most part Jilly was a rockstar.