October Bride
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2008
- Messages
- 154
I don't have time to comment back to everyone here at work, but I promise I will. I figured you guys would rather have the next installment with it's lone picture!
Day 1, Part 1 - Friday, February 1, 2008
Bad things happen when you live in Michigan. Perhaps you have a mild winter; hardly any snow for Christmas. And just when you think youre safe Mother Nature and Old Man Winter get together and brew up a nasty storm to ruin all of your plans 3 days before youre supposed to get married. Okay, maybe its not that bad.
The alarm was set for 4am, but I was up before that. I showered, woke Chuck and worked to complete all of our last minute packing. All the while Im looking outside and watching the snow come down in buckets? In pillows? Whats the appropriate unit of measure for snow? Anthony texts at 5:30am wanting to know what we want from Starbucks and I have Chuck text him to skip Starbucks and come straight for us. Do not stop, do not pass go. He arrives at 5:50am and we are packed and ready to go. We ended up with 3 large pieces of luggage to check, we each had our computer bags and I had my large black WDW bag with my purse in it that I carried on as my purse. We load everything up in his truck and take off.
I spent the whole trip doing one of 3 things:
1.) Using Google maps on my iPhone to check traffic to the airport.
2.) Praying that Anthony didnt spin us out of control.
3.) Calling my sister to ensure that she got up and left early enough for the airport since her flight was at 9:40am.
The roads were bad. Really bad. And Anthony was trying to get us there as fast as possible so he was driving a little too aggressively for my taste. There were a couple of times I wasnt sure we would even survive the drive.
I also called my sister at least 8 times before she finally answered. Let me preface this by saying that I have no faith in my sister. Shes only 15 months younger than me, but there was a three year grade difference in school and shes in my mind still so young and irresponsible. I thought she for sure was going to miss her flight. She finally answers as were pulling up to the service drive for the airport. Not only had she not overslept, she was already at the airport! AMAZING! I was so proud of her in that moment. And I felt really bad because I left her all these crazy messages warning her of how bad the roads were and hoping she was already up and on her way! She even laughed at us because we werent there yet (we were 5 minutes from being dropped off curbside.) I breathed a sigh of relief, wished her a good flight and promised to talk to her when we got in to MCO.
We arrive at the airport, get checked in with no problems, stop at the Starbucks for some beverages and head off to our gate. Chuck picks on me because hes an airport pro since he travels for work so much. I have no idea where were going because were in the fancy, new terminal flying on Northwest. Normally I fly out of dirty, grimy, old Smith terminal on Spirit.
While we are waiting to board the flight I speak with Keith from Carolyn Allen and let him know that my flight is still showing that its on time. He says to just come from the airport to the salon for Chuck to get fitted. I try calling Veronica again from Beaute Speciale since she wanted pre-payment for our make-up appointments by Wednesday and its now Friday. I get her voicemail again, so I leave a message. Miraculously she calls me back just a few minutes later and I give her my credit card information. It turns out that she does all the booking but shes on the West Coast. That just doesnt make sense to me. And, she said that she doesnt check her voicemail often. Now that really doesnt make sense to me. However, were all paid and confirmed so Im A-OK on that front.
Chuck and I were just hanging and chatting and I was going a million miles a minute doing the almost-my-wedding-day-overloaded-bride thing and I remembered that I needed to D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T for the Dis and this TR. I pulled my camera out to take the first picture of the trip and the guy sitting across from us was kind enough to offer to take the picture!
I cannot find that picture?!?
While we were waiting, Chuck took the opportunity to tell me how we were going to board. We were still in coach, but we were flying business elite so we got to board the plane right after first class. In this case, extra time on the plane was not to our advantage.
We board the plane on time. And then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Then the flight attendant gets on the speaker to let us know were waiting for some people who need to be on the flight who are still on their way to the airport?!? Ive never heard of such a thing. After 20 minutes or so a group of 4 people get on and get settled. Yet, they dont close the door. So, were still waiting. Then the attendant gets on the speaker again saying that were now waiting for some folks from a connecting flight!! Finally, those people board. An hour has passed since we boarded on time and were still sitting there. Our seats were just in front of the engines and we were lucky enough to watch them defrost them. Im not a nervous flyer, but this was a tad scary to me. We finally start taxiing and the pilot comes on to let us know that were pulling up to a station to be de-iced. He made a lame attempt at a lame joke to let us know that we had an appointment so it should take long. Ha! When we finally finished with that the pilot comes back on to let us know that were taxiing to the runway and that were second or third in line to take off. Apparently that didnt work out for us because we ended up being directed to another runway and we waited FOREVER.
During all this waiting, I decided to document and we did a self-picture on the plane.
Note the snow outside the window of the plane!
Finally we take off!! At this point were over 2 hours late. Im thankful that were flying but Im also concerned about all the errands we have to run when we land and that we lost 2 hours out of our day. Im also really excited to be leaving the cold, snowy, nasty weather of MI and arrive in my sunny, warm happy place. I dont know about the rest of you, but when I step off the plane everything plumps. My dry skin becomes supple and my hair poufs out and theres this distinct Florida smell in the air and IFL.
Up Next: Landing at MCO and the chaos that ensues.
Oh my word i am starting to worry now, i have got to get 34 of us from my house to airport and on a plane from the UK.......i hope i can cope ok lol
But I'm glad you started your TR! 
He should have demanded a replacement pair of underpants... although then not only would he have come home smelling like a stripper, he'd have been DRESSED like one too!
I would have to draw the line there. I'm not into my man cross-dressing!
Can't wait to hear that everything turned out wonderfully.
*ok I'm done venting now*...
Oooooh I wanna come lurk! Unfortunately I think I'd have to be closer to the end of May after the semester is over! 
Let's just hope I can plow through b/c after Spring break my 8 week online class starts on top of my current classes. 
or 
It keeps the masses entertained 
while I'm gone. 
I don't mean to be. 
-ball no matter what. I didn't expect any less. 
. Boy am I really glad I booked Randy now! What a beautiful day you had! Very nice 
