New Years Eve and Flying Home

This will be my last blog about our trip to Layton. I need to move on and get over Christmas, it is February now and I have a few birthdays to prepare for. I just can't stand leaving things undone, so for the lack of more pictures, here a just two.

Melissa and James made a yummy pancake dinner one night. It wasn't on New Year's Eve, (since that is the name of this post I thought I should clarify), but I wanted to give a shot of the kitchen and explain that on NYE we had pretty much every counter space taken up with something edible and way too good! We had so much food I don't even know where to begin: more sausage bread by Nathan, some pasole soup made by Michelle, chicken wings by Bryan, homemade donuts by Alisha, peppermint patties from myself, nachos, candy, rolls, cookies, veggie platter, etc. etc.etc. I am getting sick to my stomach and hungry just remembering it! Boy was it good stuff.

Abigail got really sick and feverish the last full day we were there, just in time to get on an airplane the next afternoon! It was sad. A few days after we were home I took her to the doctor because she had nasty white sores all over her tongue. It turned out that those sores were all over her mouth and she didn't eat anything but yogurt for about 5 full days. She ended up being diagnosed with hand foot and mouth disease, which is extremely contagious and nasty. She got it from someone with a herpes cold sore (don't know who). It was a really gross sickness and unfortunately the Dr. says to expect it back every winter from now on! OH NO!!! Poor little thing! Luckily, none of the other kids got it!

Anyhow, since this is supposed to be about New Years Eve, let me just finish by saying that Nathan and I made the terrible mistake of staying up even later than the countdown at midnight. In fact, I think we didn't got to sleep until around 2am, which just might be a record for our married life! We were watching the movie "Slum Dog Millionaire" on their new Clear Play that edits bad movies. We knew we'd never be able to watch it at home so we just had to finish watching it there. It was a good movie, but in hindsight it was so not worth missing out on the much needed sleep for the next day when we had to fly home!

I wish I had a picture to describe the flights home. It was pretty miserable. We got to the airport with about 1 1/2 hours to kill before our flight was supposed to take off. Instead, we ended up having our flight delayed another hour, making the wait with our kids pretty terrible. Once we got flying we were having a hard time keeping the kids happy. Abigail was still really sick and was with Nathan and Carter in the row behind me and the girls. Our little individual TVs were not working, although at least 80% of everyone else's on the plane were working. That made it harder to entertain the kids. We were worried about our connecting flight because it was originally supposed to leave exactly half an hour after we landed. With our flight being delayed we were sure we'd probably miss our next flight, if not barely get there on time.

We landed in Atlanta and started one of the most embarrassing and memorable races through an airport that anyone could ever describe. We were in gate A and had to get to E (the completely other side of the airport). Now usually there are trains or something to get you from point A to B. The Atlanta airport seemed to have a train connecting every gate but ours, so we just kept running. We were all wearing our winter coats and I was wearing a backpack and pulling a suitcase on wheels. Kaylie and Carter each had a backpack as well, and Nathan took on the double stroller with the girls in it, and a big bag around his shoulder, while trying to balance another suitcase on the stroller. Carter was having meltdown after meltdown. I was sweating and out of breath, not to mention the fact that I was completely stressed about the idea that we could possibly be spending the night in the airport if we didn't catch this flight. In all we probably ran at least 2 miles (no exaggeration). By the time we made it to gate E we were a most pathetic sight. We were all sweaty, tired, out of breathe, and probably looking angry. However, our God was with us and our connecting flight had been delayed. We made it there with about 20 minutes to spare. Once there I realized that our tickets did not have assigned seat numbers on them, so I have them to the man at the front counter and he said he'd fix it for us. He called me over a few minutes later to let me know that the entire family would be able to sit in First Class! I have no idea how we scored that, except to say that we did look miserable and pathetic. He must have taken pity on the poor family with little kids that just had to run th entire length of the airport. So, we lucked out and were able to travel our last hour home in style! None of us had ever been in first class, but boy was it nice. It was really late by that time (like 11pm VA time) and we ended up sleeping most of the flight. Lynette Ercanbrack picked us up a little after midnight and we went home. Wow did it feel good to sleep in our own beds again. Nate and I had to sleep in seperate twin beds across the room from eachother in Layton so it was nice to be in the same bed again.