With Some Hitches

You know that saying, "that went off without a hitch." Well, yesterday we traveled to Boston from Saline...with a few hitches. :)

First, we had stayed up late Thursday night getting everything packed and in order. I had a load of laundry to do, but all of those clothes were just going to be thrown in the suitcases and off we go Friday morning. Didn't really work that way. Grady woke up around 7:15 (we were supposed to leave at 8) sopping wet (with pee). Joel ran him through the bath and I quickly grabbed his blanket that we take everywhere to throw in the wash. I took along Hadley's too since I was going to wash Grady's. I went out to the washer/dryer and threw them in, then discovered that the laundry from the night before wasn't quite dry. So, those clothes had to dry more before I could put the blankets in the dryer. It was an unfortunate setback.

We finally got all the laundry done, the house straightened, and the kids and luggage in the van. Then, Grady's suitcase stopped latching. We threw it in the van anyway and headed for Mama's house (she was driving us to the airport). Again, an unfortunate setback (that we thought we'd have plenty of time for the night before...besides, we didn't have a choice...there were no gas stations open the night before)...yes, we needed gas. So, we stopped for gas. We made it to Mama's house and had to unload some things that were staying there and borrow one of their suitcases and switch all of Grady's things to that suitcase.

Finally on the road about 45 minutes late, we were able to make up some time due to my husband's unmatchable (well, matched only by his wife) speeding skills. We made it to the airport, but only to find that we had missed the absolute last cut-off time to check in by about 5 minutes. Oh, and there was a very lengthy detour surrounding the airport, and a very slow driver in front of us...both of which added to our unfortunate events.

So, we headed to McDonald's and ate and let the kids play on the nice, oversized inside playground.

One gift that was just from God...they had originally said that we would be flying standby from Houston to Boston (our 2nd leg of the trip), but right before we boarded in Alexandria, LA they told us that we had definite seats...whew...always iffy flying standby.

So, on the plane we got. A quick jump over to Houston, about an hour layover, then on a bigger plane to Boston. The kids did GREAT, helped out at the very end (the last hour) by the new bags we got them full of new fun things. But, we only had to pull those out the last hour of our 14 hour travel day. They are great travelers.

One other unfortunate event we found out about when we got to baggage claim. Thankfully all of our suitcases were here, but the kids' carseats were not. The airline had one loaner carseat. And, it just so happened that Joel's brother and his wife had gone out to a movie not far from the airport without their little girl who is 3 months younger than Hadley. Therefore, they were close by with an empty carseat, so they swung through and we had carseats for each of our kids for the ride back to Joel's parents' house.

Oh yeah, one other little thing. We got to their house, visited a while, and then started getting ready for bed around 11pm. At that point, we realized that another one of our bags was missing although we had gotten it from baggage claim. It was the bag that had all of our shoes and toiletries in it, along with some other random but necessary stuff. It was just a great way to top off our day of unfortunate events. :)

Thankfully this morning Joel called his brother and it had been inadvertantly left in his vehicle last night. Whew...thankful for that. The airline promised to have our carseats delivered to us this morning, although we still haven't heard from them. I'm sure we will get them soon, it's just a hassle is all.

Anyhow, I can laugh about it now, but last night at about midnight I was done looking at the bright side and really wanted to let somebody (anybody) have it. Thank goodness it was time to go to bed, so I just went to sleep (although, as Joel would tell you, I did "vent" a little). :) Oh well, we got here safely and are having fun. We spent today at the beach...so nice.

Still, you gotta love hitches.