Up Up And Away- Take Two (And Three)

We took our second family flight this past June.  We took the earliest flight out so we had to wake up at 4:00am to get everything ready.  I had all of the girls' stuff ready and laid out so we only woke them five minutes before we left at 5:00 am.  Rollins is our late sleeper so I thought she would for sure fall back asleep in the car on the way to the airport.  Nope.  Auden, who is typically my early riser (with the sunrise), fell asleep instead.  I guess Rollins knew something was up and was too excited to miss anything.  She didn't fall asleep until we were 10 minutes from our friends' house in Dallas.  Meanwhile, Auden fell asleep again on the plane.  Proof that you can never predict what toddlers will do during travel days.  

Auden loved getting to use her new suitcase and travel backpack (that daddy so graciously attached to his luggage for her).  We got quite a few comments from those passing by :)  The bags worked well, held a good bit of clothes and were definitely easy to spot!  Thank you Amazon Prime!

Auden had a semi Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and it was so cute. She loved getting to go to the airport WITH her daddy since he's always going by himself for trips.

Early morning smiles are hard.  Haha.

Rollins had Chick-fil-a chicken minis for the first time and was clearly in heaven.

I snapped a few shots from my phone once we got on the plane.  It's hard to believe that the last time we all flew together Rollins was only a 6-month-old! 

My seat partner, who didn't sleep a lick on the flight.

I suppose she was too engrossed in the clouds. :)

We had a great visit with sweet friends and the week flew by far too quickly.  On the way back, I flew solo with the girls because Jon had a trip himself.  We survived (after missing the bag check-in window by 2 minutes and getting bumped to the next flight leaving 3 hours later).

Face palm.

With the help of a friend (shout-out to Noel who came back to pick us up once she heard the news), we made the best of the situation and managed to secure the last few seats on the next flight.

As we trudged down the aisle to the very last row, strangers offered smiles, encouragement and even assistance in putting away our overhead baggage so I could get the girls to their seats.  There are still good people in this world, and I'm convinced traveling with small children will either magnify or discredit that.  Thankfully, for us, it wasn't the latter of the two.

We survived on graham crackers, dinner (I grabbed Subway before we boarded the plane) and a few downloaded shows from Netflix (thanks for the tip Aunt Bek!)

It was a bit of a challenge getting everyone, their things, the stroller and my checked bag from the terminal all the way to the employee parking lot, but we made it and Auden was such a trooper and help!  I then had a bit of an issue trying to exit the parking lot gate with Jon's pass.  But after getting ahold of him (thank you Jesus!) we got out, and were on our way home!

At that point, I was beyond beat down.  And much to my, and especially Auden's, delight we saw a rainbow!  "Mom, I've never seen one in the sky before!" she exclaimed after spotting it.  It was a great reminder of God's promises at just the time my married, single-parent mommy heart needed it.

All chaos aside, we had a wonderful trip and are very grateful for the ability to travel such long distances for free (assuming there is a standby seat) :)