PrncessA
Dis_Mom_
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2009
- Messages
- 1,858
I tried resizing the photos since they are huge, but for some reason it isn't working well... I'll try again later.
Now on with the show! And later a Dis Meet Update!
So we made it through the dreaded airport security, and I am certain that our next stop was a bathroom. This was a trend for Lorelai on this trip, it was odd if 30 minutes went by and she didn’t utter the words “I need to go to the bathroom!”
The kids really want to fly on a plane with a cool picture on on, unfortunately we always get the duds.
After our Lorelai break, we headed toward our gate, which thankfully took us by the food court and a Starbucks! I grabbed needed iced green tea and the kids wanted chocolate milks. There was a bit of confusion when there was no one working the area where the chocolate milks were, and we assumed that we paid for them at the Starbucks. NOT the case, as we found out seconds later when a woman who spoke very little English started screaming at me in another language! My mom paid for the chocolate milks while I grabbed my tea, and the crisis was averted. We had a good laugh and headed down to our gate.
I don’t have any photos of our wait because I was in panic mode trying to find an outlet to plug my phone into, so it didn’t die before we made contact with my sister in San Diego. O’Hare is not the best airport for this! They have sporadic outlets, but most of them don’t work, and “charging stations” that are few and far between and people are usually camped out at them. Add to that, that the airport was fairly busy at the time, it was a miracle I found an open charging station with a USB plug… that didn’t work. Luckily a gentleman took pity on me and gave me his seat and charging station! It could have been the look of panic on my face that he took pity on, because I was!
At this point we only had about 45 minutes until boarding, and the kids were acting crazy! My mom had camped out at the gate, but the kids were running back and forth and I was shackled to my phone and she had our carry-ons. After some not-so-veiled threats I managed to calm them down and I juiced my phone as much as possible. It was still only at 67%, so I made a quick call to Erik to say we were about to board and off it went. I had really wanted to watch Saving Mr. Banks on my phone during the flight, but I guess I was just going to have to make due with whatever the on-flight movie was.
We lined up to board early since I really wanted to get as much use out of our Group 1 boarding as possible!
Ethan Selfie:
I promise we had Lorelai, but she was moving to much to stay still for a photo. Can you tell we were excited?
Ethan was a terror with that bag! It didn’t matter if you were in front of him, behind him or beside him. He ended up hitting and running over all of us multiple times. I think I am going to give him backpack for our next flight!
We were the second group on after Group 1 started boarding and we had plenty of room for our one overhead bag and the kids stored their bags under the seats after taking out the essentials.
Of course Duffy had to join us!
My flight book! I had brought two on board with me, this and a Walt Disney biography. But I guess I felt like crying that night. If you have not read this book, you should! I heard about it from emmysmommy and I read it cover to cover the week I got it and used an entire box of tissues!
The flight it’s self was pretty uneventful, after we finally took off about 45 minutes late. I could see Ethan in front of me and he watched the two movies he had downloaded, Planes and Big Hero 6. Lorelai jumped from game to game on her Surface before falling asleep and I shuffled between the in-flight movie, Tomorrowland, reading and sleeping. Lorelai had to use the restroom twice during the flight, which was always fun waking up the guy on the end of row. She actually had to go a third time, but I couldn’t wake him up (or he was ignoring me) and Lorelai refused to just climb over him.
The most exciting part of the ride? The descent! It was a really hard descent for everyone’s ears, worse than I have ever experienced. I was hoping Lorelai would sleep through it, but it woke her up and between the extreme pain in her ears and needing to use the bathroom, it was not a fun landing for me or her! As soon as we landed Lorelai jumped up to run to the bathroom, tears running down her face.
But isn't San Diego pretty?
Oh did I mention that my mom is a smoker? She had now gone over 6 hours without smoking so she was NOT happy. This was also only her third flight ever, and as soon as the plane landed…. She wanted off NOW! We were in the back of the plane and still hadn’t even taxied to the gate. That was a fun exchange between the two of us.
Finally we were seeing this:
Everywhere we went in Cali, things sparkled. Especially at Disneyland where they were celebrating their "Diamond" Anniversary. It became a running joke.
My sister had texted to tell me she was waiting for us at the luggage pickup, but of course Lorelai had another bathroom break to make. I am not kidding!
First time we saw my sister in 2 years!
Our luggage had just started coming out so my sister and I left my mom with the kids near the door and we started looking for our bags. We were able to get two of our four before the carousel backed up and stopped… my mom was looking panicked so Jen took her and Lorelai out to the car.
Ethan was ready to grab our bags!
10 minutes later, no bags. Finally someone came over and announced that our bags would be handed in through the back door next to the carousel, but only one of ours was on there. I was beginning to get worried when the carousel started moving again and out ours came.
My sister had parked very close to the doors and in no time we had our incredible amount of luggage sitting next to her tiny little Juke. Have you ever saw a Juke, it is like a clown car, I am not kidding. They are TINY!
Not my sister's obviously, but you get the picture.
We considered taking two trips or calling a cab for extra room, but I was determined to make it all fit! I wish I had pictures because it was comical. Thank goodness the parking lot was dead and the space next to us was empty, because the kids were burning up some of their energy running in circles in it.
Finally we ended up with two suitcases in the back, with one of the kids rolling suitcase. One sitting on the floorboard in front of Ethan and my mom’s huge suitcase sitting on her lap! Her backpack was on Lorelai’s lap and I was in the front seat in the dashboard with my backpack on my lap and a small suitcase under my feet. We could not have fit one more bag in that car!
I took some blurry pictures of the city lights as we passed them. Including this bridge that I normally wouldn't share if it didn't have a funny story attached to it.
In our sleep deprived state my mom made a comment about how cool the bridge was and how fun it must be to “drive up it and down it”. She really thought that was how you drove over the bridge... My sister and I burst out in giggles and we couldn’t stop!
We made it to our motel (nothing fancy, just a Best Western) and we were pooped. We unloaded our bags and basically poured ourselves into bed!
Ethan apparently had time to read. He has become obsessed with Calvin and Hobbs since Erik bought him a book a few months ago and we bought him a new book for the trip. He really relates well to Calvin I think. Ever since he started reading it he carries his stuffed tiger "Stripes" around with him nearly everywhere. It is adorable.
And that is the end of our travel day! Now to the beach!!!!
Now on with the show! And later a Dis Meet Update!
So we made it through the dreaded airport security, and I am certain that our next stop was a bathroom. This was a trend for Lorelai on this trip, it was odd if 30 minutes went by and she didn’t utter the words “I need to go to the bathroom!”
The kids really want to fly on a plane with a cool picture on on, unfortunately we always get the duds.
After our Lorelai break, we headed toward our gate, which thankfully took us by the food court and a Starbucks! I grabbed needed iced green tea and the kids wanted chocolate milks. There was a bit of confusion when there was no one working the area where the chocolate milks were, and we assumed that we paid for them at the Starbucks. NOT the case, as we found out seconds later when a woman who spoke very little English started screaming at me in another language! My mom paid for the chocolate milks while I grabbed my tea, and the crisis was averted. We had a good laugh and headed down to our gate.
I don’t have any photos of our wait because I was in panic mode trying to find an outlet to plug my phone into, so it didn’t die before we made contact with my sister in San Diego. O’Hare is not the best airport for this! They have sporadic outlets, but most of them don’t work, and “charging stations” that are few and far between and people are usually camped out at them. Add to that, that the airport was fairly busy at the time, it was a miracle I found an open charging station with a USB plug… that didn’t work. Luckily a gentleman took pity on me and gave me his seat and charging station! It could have been the look of panic on my face that he took pity on, because I was!
At this point we only had about 45 minutes until boarding, and the kids were acting crazy! My mom had camped out at the gate, but the kids were running back and forth and I was shackled to my phone and she had our carry-ons. After some not-so-veiled threats I managed to calm them down and I juiced my phone as much as possible. It was still only at 67%, so I made a quick call to Erik to say we were about to board and off it went. I had really wanted to watch Saving Mr. Banks on my phone during the flight, but I guess I was just going to have to make due with whatever the on-flight movie was.
We lined up to board early since I really wanted to get as much use out of our Group 1 boarding as possible!
Ethan Selfie:
I promise we had Lorelai, but she was moving to much to stay still for a photo. Can you tell we were excited?
Ethan was a terror with that bag! It didn’t matter if you were in front of him, behind him or beside him. He ended up hitting and running over all of us multiple times. I think I am going to give him backpack for our next flight!
We were the second group on after Group 1 started boarding and we had plenty of room for our one overhead bag and the kids stored their bags under the seats after taking out the essentials.
Of course Duffy had to join us!
My flight book! I had brought two on board with me, this and a Walt Disney biography. But I guess I felt like crying that night. If you have not read this book, you should! I heard about it from emmysmommy and I read it cover to cover the week I got it and used an entire box of tissues!
The flight it’s self was pretty uneventful, after we finally took off about 45 minutes late. I could see Ethan in front of me and he watched the two movies he had downloaded, Planes and Big Hero 6. Lorelai jumped from game to game on her Surface before falling asleep and I shuffled between the in-flight movie, Tomorrowland, reading and sleeping. Lorelai had to use the restroom twice during the flight, which was always fun waking up the guy on the end of row. She actually had to go a third time, but I couldn’t wake him up (or he was ignoring me) and Lorelai refused to just climb over him.
The most exciting part of the ride? The descent! It was a really hard descent for everyone’s ears, worse than I have ever experienced. I was hoping Lorelai would sleep through it, but it woke her up and between the extreme pain in her ears and needing to use the bathroom, it was not a fun landing for me or her! As soon as we landed Lorelai jumped up to run to the bathroom, tears running down her face.
But isn't San Diego pretty?
Oh did I mention that my mom is a smoker? She had now gone over 6 hours without smoking so she was NOT happy. This was also only her third flight ever, and as soon as the plane landed…. She wanted off NOW! We were in the back of the plane and still hadn’t even taxied to the gate. That was a fun exchange between the two of us.
Finally we were seeing this:
Everywhere we went in Cali, things sparkled. Especially at Disneyland where they were celebrating their "Diamond" Anniversary. It became a running joke.
My sister had texted to tell me she was waiting for us at the luggage pickup, but of course Lorelai had another bathroom break to make. I am not kidding!
First time we saw my sister in 2 years!
Our luggage had just started coming out so my sister and I left my mom with the kids near the door and we started looking for our bags. We were able to get two of our four before the carousel backed up and stopped… my mom was looking panicked so Jen took her and Lorelai out to the car.
Ethan was ready to grab our bags!
10 minutes later, no bags. Finally someone came over and announced that our bags would be handed in through the back door next to the carousel, but only one of ours was on there. I was beginning to get worried when the carousel started moving again and out ours came.
My sister had parked very close to the doors and in no time we had our incredible amount of luggage sitting next to her tiny little Juke. Have you ever saw a Juke, it is like a clown car, I am not kidding. They are TINY!
Not my sister's obviously, but you get the picture.
We considered taking two trips or calling a cab for extra room, but I was determined to make it all fit! I wish I had pictures because it was comical. Thank goodness the parking lot was dead and the space next to us was empty, because the kids were burning up some of their energy running in circles in it.
Finally we ended up with two suitcases in the back, with one of the kids rolling suitcase. One sitting on the floorboard in front of Ethan and my mom’s huge suitcase sitting on her lap! Her backpack was on Lorelai’s lap and I was in the front seat in the dashboard with my backpack on my lap and a small suitcase under my feet. We could not have fit one more bag in that car!
I took some blurry pictures of the city lights as we passed them. Including this bridge that I normally wouldn't share if it didn't have a funny story attached to it.
In our sleep deprived state my mom made a comment about how cool the bridge was and how fun it must be to “drive up it and down it”. She really thought that was how you drove over the bridge... My sister and I burst out in giggles and we couldn’t stop!
We made it to our motel (nothing fancy, just a Best Western) and we were pooped. We unloaded our bags and basically poured ourselves into bed!
Ethan apparently had time to read. He has become obsessed with Calvin and Hobbs since Erik bought him a book a few months ago and we bought him a new book for the trip. He really relates well to Calvin I think. Ever since he started reading it he carries his stuffed tiger "Stripes" around with him nearly everywhere. It is adorable.
And that is the end of our travel day! Now to the beach!!!!
I am so glad you are here!!!!!!
By the time we got to the beach Ethan regretted his decision and he was stuck with a pink flowery boogie board. LOL 
I want to say that even though he has new glasses now, I have 4 glasses repair kits that will be taken with us to WDW. 
We all had a good laugh, she must have thought we were nuts. During our time in the office Lorelai had to of course go to the restroom, again, we had stopped at one when we got out of the car, so my mom took her. 
