VACATION!!!!!!!!!! The airport- Post #1

So it has been a few weeks since a post...we have been traveling and vacationing and now recovering from the trip!  I promise I am still blogging! Work has been busy and getting back into a routine on Wednesday has left me little time to update the blog.  So this is going to be a several-post section to cover all of our happenings over the past two weeks.

Our flight out to Wisconsin (to visit all of our friends and family there) was at 7:00AM.  Peter and I were both up at 3:45AM to get my bike and bags to the airport and get the kids organized and on the way to our flight.  We arrived at the airport an hour early, and Hunter did exceptionally well.  He had heard Peter leave for the first bag drop at 4:15 and was up then- non-stop chatter between him and Paige in our bed about the upcoming trip. 



Heading to the gate



Security is always a fun time for a family traveling with little ones- especially one with special needs.  After getting to the front of the security line, we realized the airport personnel did not add Peyton to my ticket.  Needless to say, I had to back out of line and go back to ticketing.  I left a crying Hunter ("I want Mommy to go with me!") and ran to get the ticket updated and back through the line.  Once we were all cleared, shoes back on, bags with drinks reassembled, we went to the gate which was already boarding for our flight. 



Once we had all found our seats on the airplane, the kids started to settle down and I had done my psychotic clean of all of the trays, seats, headrests, etc.  After about fifteen minutes, the captain came on the speaker and informed us that we were going to have to deplane and go to a different gate to continue our flight to WI due to a malfunction.  AUGHH!!!!!!!! A parent's worst nightmare!  Especially for a kiddo on the spectrum.  As we all deplaned, Hunter was crying, loudly, "I want to fly on this plane!  I want to fly on American Airlines!"  We tried to explain as quickly and as effectively as possible that we were going to take a different American Airlines plane, but we were still going to WI.  We stopped for a quick hot chocolate in a desperate attempt to graze over any more meltdowns, but Hunter was still frustrated. 



They changed my flight!  Boo!



Hot chocolate solves everything!



reading my schedule

When we sat down on our new plane, Hunter immediately asked for his schedule (which we had made the night before) and found his calming mechanism- reading his schedule and talking about the day.  The flight was a success and two and a half hours later, we met Aunt Mel and Aunt Gretchen in WI.  The kids were tired, but you wouldn't have known it by the excitement and conversations.  We made it!

I'll continue the week in a bit! 



getting our luggage...a lot of it :)