Coming Home

When we found out on Tuesday afternoon we would be leaving, we got back to the hotel and called Southwest. Again, we had to explain the situation because being SO last minute the flights were much more expensive. We were trying to fly home sometime on Wednesday. The rep at Southwest was so kind and he was able to adjust the airfare on one flight.

The catch? It took off at 5:35 AM. We were an hour and 10 minutes away from the airport, and we had to return a rental car when we got there.  Needless to say, we tried to get as much sleep as possible, got up at 2:15, and hit the road at 3. We plugged the address of the airport into my phone and it said it would take us 1 hour and 30 minutes to get there.... Not good. Mom drove fast and got us there in record time.

I wish I had gotten a picture of what we had to do when we got to the airport. It was CRAZY. The rental car counters were not yet opened, so we had to park the car ourselves. We had 3 suitcases, one backpack, a 2 yr old in a stroller, and a car seat in a backpack carrier. Only two of us. Oh my word, I cannot imagine how we looked. We were sprinting across the parking lot, weaving through construction zones, and trying not to collapse. I had the backpack, a suitcase, and was pushing the stroller. Mom had two suitcases and the carseat strapped on her back! We had to go at least a mile before we reached the rental car counter. We got there, then had to continue into the airport with the luggage. Another 1/2 mile at least.

When we reached the Southwest counter, I tried to walk away after the rep had weighed our bags. She said, "No ma'am, you have to take your suitcases to those security guys over there so they can run them through the machine". Mom and I just died laughing because we were so tired I am sure we both thought about abandoning our luggage and just leaving it there.

We then had to go through security ourselves. At this point it was probably 4:30. We both had water bottles in our purses, which we completely forgot about. We also had packed apple sauce in the backpack for Addy in those squeezy containers. Apparently, those are frowned upon as are water bottles. We got pulled aside and they dumped every. single. thing. out of our purses and backpack. They patted us down, and they even squeezed my ponytail! Again, we just laughed. We were too tired to care.

We finally made it to our gate and sat down for about 5 minutes before we had to board.

 See ya in a few weeks, Minneapolis!

 Sweet silly girl at 5:30 am!

                                                                            

It was actually a pretty bumpy ride from Minneapolis to Chicago. When we got up in the clouds it started snowing and icing pretty bad. It was really pretty to look at, but it was also pretty rough flying in it.

Back in Chicago!

 

 We got back in Nashville at 9am! What a whirlwind of a morning. My dad picked us up at the airport while David was in court. I realized that I didn't have my keys to get in our house, but luckily he made it out of court and home about 5 minutes after we got there. I had started unloading our luggage and setting it at the front door. When he got there, Addy and I went straight to my bed. We laid down and did not move for almost 5 hours. He said by the time he had the luggage in the house we were both out. I guess that's what happens when you experience the worse exhaustion you've ever felt!

Yesterday, we went and got our sweet girl Ella from Alabama! Oh, how we missed her.

We are so happy to be home and back together for 2 weeks before we hit the road again. Mayo called today and we fly back out on May 4th. We will be there until Saturday the 10th. David is making the next trip with us. We are anxious to get there and hear what they can figure out about her! 

We will keep you posted on our next trip!

Laura