Hey 'Chele, I hear ya about the weather. The west coast needs its summer!!!!
Nicole, so cool that she got to swim with dolphins in the wild. Glad it went well and she enjoyed it. Safe trip and have fun!
Hope you got some good rest and got things together the way you wanted Leah.
Hope everyone else is doing well this week. I dropped off radar for a week or so other than a little TR updating. Busy busy as we ramp up to end of year here at work.
Also had Kyra (14 ...almost 15) leave on her first solo airplane trip down to Phoenix to visit her "aunt and uncle" (Roxy's best friend and her husband) and their two little boys for two weeks. It was a major headache - beware Allegiance Airlines!!!
She had an 8:20pm departure so we got there at about 6:45pm. The lines were long and unorganized at the ticket counter with initially only one person working it. They finally got a second person there and I walked forward to discover two things. First, we were in the wrong line as they had a little sign pointing one way for people with checked bags and another for those with just carry-on.
The upside of that is that we got to move to a shorter line. The downside is that i saw the sign stating that the flight was delayed 2 hours

We checked her bag and went upstairs to the observation deck and talked for a while. When we came back in we heard there was an additional hour delay. It was Sunday night so there wasn't much to do other than just sit there. But then we got another announcement ...delayed another hour
I talked to the guy at the counter and found out the scoop ...the airline had 4 different planes with problems on the ground in Phoenix. They had tried fixing the one that was supposed to come our way and finally gave up. They then had to have a plane fly in from Vegas to Phoenix, get set, and take on all the passengers and bags.
Since we still had a chunk of time to burn I looked on my phone and found that we could drive back into town and catch a showing of X-Men: First Class. So at 10pm Kyra and I found ourselves getting popcorn and drinks and settling in for a show in a mostly empty theater.
It was a good movie and kept us occupied for over 2hrs. We made it back to the airport and said our goodbye's and she headed thru security to the gate. I went back up to the observation deck, having promised that I would stay until the plane was in the air.
Interestingly enough the only other people up there was a couple who was seeing their 14yr old niece off from a 2 week visit with them, it was her time flying unaccompanied also. What are the odds of that???
They unloaded the plane and let Kyra and the rest of the passengers on at about 1:15am. At 1:45am exactly they were lifting off. I had been keeping Dan (uncle) up to speed on things as the delays came thru and texted him her arrival time of 4am. She landed on time and then had the 1 1/2hr drive from Mesa to Surprise, AZ where they live. Got a text from him at 5:32am saying they made it home.
Needless to say neither Kyra, Dan, or I have had much sleep. The workday has been almost surreal

Life is colorful sometimes isn't it?