WEEK OF JULY 30, 2012

SATURDAY - AUGUST 4, 2012
Catch up time! This week's been a big blur. Alex and I left on July 31st from Dallas to head back to Yakima. Our departure time was relatively late and we were supposed to arrive in Seattle around midnight, so I'd booked us at a hotel with a shuttle on Tuesday night so we could just go to sleep and then Candace (Darvin's cousin) could pick us up from the hotel the next morning and take us back to their house where my car had been parked.

Loaded down and ready for the trip

You can see that we were pretty well loaded down for the trip! lol Alex and I each had 2 carry on bags and then we had his carseat. We were in good shape as long as he was cooperative. He had the 'monkey on his back' harness so he couldn't get too far away. I'd checked us in online so I didn't have to worry about that when we got to the airport.

Heading inside the airport

So we just needed to get ourselves through security and to our gate. Thankfully we had plenty of time as we'd budgeted to arrive 2 hours before and even with the accident on the other side of the freeway slowing down traffic we arrived about 2 hours before our scheduled departure. We were moving along just fine albeit sporadically with Alex being diverted a bit by the escalator. We found the right place for security and wound our way through the roped line. There were two lines feeding into the one TSA security checker. I took the right hand lane. As we got closer to the security man Alex spotted him and acted like a stubborn oxen. He would NOT move! He did not want to get close to that security man. I kept letting people go ahead of us and tried to persuade Alex that it was a good thing and OK for us to go through but he was NOT convinced! He just dug his heels in and wouldn't budge. I showed him the Cars backpack that I'd gotten him for the trip and even got the Lightning McQueen frisbee out to try to motivate him to come through security so we could see what else was in the backpack, but no amount of convincing was working.

Finally I just left our bags at the head of the line, and lifted up the protesting Alex and took him with me and our tickets and my identification to the security guy. By this time I was sweating up a storm and wondering how in the world I was going to get us to the gate and dreading the rest of the trip!! The security man was really nice, he had blue gloves on and thinking that this was bothering Alex he told Alex that he really did have hands underneath the gloves and proceeded to pull them back a little to show Alex. Nothing was going to persuade Alex, he was putting up a pretty good fight! After our boarding passes were stamped I decided the only way we could get through security was for me to hold Alex while grabbing our bags one or two at a time and taking them to the baggage screening line. As I was just about finished a very nice young woman came up behind us and grabbed Alex's carseat and put it next to our pile. I took out the usual items (liquids, laptop, took out my hand weights as they'd caused problems coming down to Texas, etc) and got everything on the conveyor belt all the while with Alex protesting and not wanting to get close to the xray machine. They let me hold him through the machine but wouldn't let his frisbee come with us, so of course this was a source of distress for Alex.

He had a fit about putting all of our stuff on that conveyor belt. I tried to reassure him that it was coming through on the other side and that we'd get it all again. When he finally saw it coming through on the other side there was a miraculous transformation, Alex no longer had a problem in the world! lol Oh my, what a kid!! The very nice young woman and her husband were waiting for us at the end of the conveyor belt and each of them grabbed a bag for me and escorted us to our gate which was the opposite direction from theirs. These were the first of our trip angels!

When we got to our gate Alex checked out the rest of the items in his backpack. His favorite things were the Tow Mater lollipop teeth and the Cars puzzle.

I made him eat some dinner which we got from Burger King before I let him suck on his lollipop. I'd hoped to save the lollipop for the flight just in case he needed to suck on something at take off, but it was gone long before the flight. Oh well...

After dinner he chowed down on the sucker and thoroughly enjoyed learning how to put his puzzle together. As usual he was an audience charmer. An older gentleman nearby struck up a conversation with Alex asking about his puzzle, giving advice to put it together, listening to Alex tell him all about Monster Jam, etc. Pretty stinking cute. Of course he was a charmer on the plane as well. As soon as we stepped on the plane he headed to the left to the pilot's cockpit! I was so loaded down that there was nothing I could do about it except listen to him ramble on with the pilots about Monster Jam and so on...! The flight attendants thought it was the cutest thing ever and encouraged his visit. After we got settled in for the flight one of the flight attendants brought him some 'flight wings'.

He was a proud little boy! He chatted up the lady sitting next to us. Throughout the flight he colored and played with his puzzle,etc.

My goal was to not let him go to sleep on the first leg because I knew it would be impossible to carry all our gear AND a sleepy boy off the plane and through the terminal in Denver.

Our plane departed late, so late that I was afraid we wouldn't make our connection in Denver. Thankfully before we touched down they came on the PA system and asked that passengers who were at their final destination or who had plenty of time to make their connections to please allow the other passengers off first. And thankfully we were in the Economy Plus seats nearer the front of the plane. Still it was challenging and we were strapped for time. As we came off the plane I checked to make sure that we were still loading at the same gate. Then I did my best to rush Alex and I through the airport. A lady sent her late teen/early 20 year old daughter after us to offer assistance. Bless her, another angel! She grabbed a bag or two from me and we picked up speed. We used the people mover flat 'escalators' but every time we disembarked I was afraid Alex would fall. I kept prompting him to prepare him and he did fine, but Nana was scared every time! Finally we arrived at our gate and just in the nick of time. There were only a few standby passengers left when they finally loaded us on.

On the trip from Denver to Seattle I was hopeful that Alex WOULD sleep and he didn't disappoint! First, he had to make his obligatory trip to the pilot's cockpit and chat up the other passenger in our row! Oh that boy is such a cute little character. I finally remembered that I could tilt his seat back and that helped him to sleep better in his carseat. As we were starting our descent he started squirming and getting fussy. I tried to comfort him and finally asked him if he wanted Nana to hold him. He of course said, "Hode you". So I took him out of his carseat and held him in my lap where he proceed to fall back fast asleep. I knew it was just a question of time before they made me put him back in his carseat, but I was dreading it as I was afraid he would go into a full-blown cry!

They made the dreaded we're making our final descent announcement but I just kept holding sleeping Alex. A male flight attendant came by and asked me if Alex had had his 2nd birthday. It was like I was in a dazed stupor because without thinking I said, "No". So the flight attendant just moved on through the cabin getting it ready for landing. As soon as I realized that I'd just lied I felt HORRIBLE. But not horrible enough to correct myself! I confessed to our seatmate and told her that I couldn't believe I'd just lied and that I didn't make it a habit to lie! I think it must have been because it was late, I was tired and just zoned out myself. Anyway, she said, "well it must have been meant to be". So I held Alex through the landing and he slept the whole time!

It was cold when we arrived in Seattle and we had to wait for quite a little while for the hotel shuttle so Alex was wide awake again and had a hard time settling down when we finally did arrive at the hotel. Consequently neither of us had a very good night's sleep. When we were ready in the morning for Candace to pick us up we waited and waited. Finally I called her and apparently they'd been down in the parking lot waiting for us and her text to me hadn't gone through!

We finally made it to Yakima to start a wonderful 3 week adventure!

MONDAY - JULY 30, 2012
Kudos to United Airlines customer service. I called them because I'd gone online to try to change seat assignments to make sure Alex and I sat next to each other (I didn't think that any of the other travelers would appreciate being in charge of a squirly almost 3 year old! lol). On the first leg of our trip from Dallas to Denver there was a seat available next to Alex, but when I went to change my seat the system wouldn't hold the change, so I called United's reservation line. The guy who answered had the same problem I did so he placed me on hold for a very long time and when he came back he asked me to check my email. He'd made the changes and sent email confirmations with our seat assignments. He placed us in Economy Plus seats and didn't charge us extra...NICE!