Seattle or Bust

We are home from a very fun trip to Washington to see family! I am going to try and post about everything we did... so there will be a lot. (I also took a TON of pictures so I'm going to make them into collages so it wont take up so much room!) Where to start, where to start....

The trip there... uggg. Our flight left Des Moines in the evening- we picked up our friend Kristi and we went to the airport. (she was going to take our car to her house while we were gone so she could also pick us up.) We check in and are told we are at gate C1. We go though security, and go to our gate and wait. About 45 minuets later a voice comes on the intercom telling us that everyone at gate C1 needs to go back to the ticket counter because our plane has mechanical problems and wont be taking off tonight. Bummer. We get to the ticket line to rebook, and wait. I call Kristi to come get us. While Chad is in line I go to put our stuff in the car. As I pick up the first suitcase Chad runs out yelling that it wasn't our fight that was canceled. They had changed our gate to C2 without telling us. (even thought there was NO ONE at gate C2 when we were there. ) They also inform Chad that our flight leaves in 3 minuets. We run off (leaving a very confused Kristi standing there- thanks again Kristi!!!!) to go back through security and to try and catch our flight. Chad is pushing the stroller with the girls and tells me to go and try to hold the plane. As I'm running a pilot sees me in distress and asks me if I'm OK (as the final boarding call for our flight is being announced. I tell him what happened and he asks my last name to try to help. We FLY through security... mainly because we had just gone through. They even helped us carry some stuff to the gate even though they aren't supposed to (or so they said- but there was no one else in the airport.) We get on our flight out of breath and very sweaty- but we made it.

Oh Seattle- it's a good thing you are so beautiful.

I might as well tell about our flight home right now. Yuck. We made a HUGE mistake of taking a red eye. We left my Mom's house at 9:30 pm on Wednesday- our flight was at 11pm from Sea-Tac to Chicago- a 4 hour flight. Lily screamed for 2 hours. She was so tired but wouldn't sleep sitting in our laps- she wanted to lay down. (Ellie was passed out as soon as we got on the plane so that was good.) After those long, long 2 hours I got her to fall asleep if I held her- not let her sleep on my lap but I had to hold her up and if I moved she would wake up and cry more. By the time we got to Chicago my hands were numb. We switched planes in Chicago (our gate was on the other side of the airport naturally...) and found out our fight was over booked. They offered people two tickets if you would take a later flight (three hours later). We just wanted to get home so we got on the plane ready for a quick hour fight back to Des Moines. Hindsight is 20/20 but we should have take the two free tickets and waited. We pulled up to the runway as the storm clouds came in. We waited there for about an hour. They finally told us they found an alternate route to take but we had to go and get more gas, and we would be flying down and around Kansas City to go to Des Moines- making an hour flight now two hours. I am so so so so glad that Lily finally fell asleep, and Ellie stayed asleep. The flight was awful. I've never had so much turbulence. In the end we made it back to Iowa at 9am on Thursday- feeling like it was still yesterday. Let's just say it might be a while before we fly again.

Now that the bad stuff is out of the way enjoy all the WONDERFUL stuff we got to do while in Washington! There is a total of 4 posts after this one to see!!