Trip- Day 8

We flew back to North Carolina on a Wednesday. Again, we had set up the flight for the afternoon/evening so that the girls would sleep (remember how well that worked). We were able to drive down the Albuquerque that same day (and not the night before) which was nice. The girls were perfect on the 3 hour drive down. Not a cry or whine out of either of them. I thought it was a sign that we would have a better traveling day this time...

We made it to the airport just fine. Kaitlyn had had a nice nap in the car and both girls were happy as could be. Security was effortless and we had just the right amount waiting time before our flight. We got on and took off quickly. Then it began again. We had the laptop all set up this time but Kaitlyn got bored pretty quickly. And wanted down. And squirmed. And cried. And screamed. Thankfully the flight was short but we still had a long one to go.

We hurried to our gate because we had a pretty short layover. Once we got there, we were greeted with the happy news that our flight was delayed. We got dinner. The flight was delayed again. And again. Finally we got on. And sat there. And sat. And sat and sat and sat. Kaitlyn was already screaming and we hadn't even started. We finally took off and and began what would quickly become the worst flight of my life. Kaitlyn was just awful. She is such a sweet thing (normally) and I love her but I never want to fly with her again. Until she is 10. At least. She is so, so busy and nosy and curious that she just can't sit still. But we're on a plane, so she had to. So she screamed. And cried. She was tired by the time we hit the midway point of the trip, but she refused to fall asleep. She was standing between my legs, swaying and her eyes were rolling to the back of her head, but if I tried to hold her and cuddle her, she would flip out. At one point she screamed so much that she threw up. Lovely, lovely day. Poor, poor fellow travelers.

Finally, finally, she went to sleep. Kinsey did great through all of this, watching movies on the iPod or laptop. We were about 100 miles from Raleigh when the pilot came over the intercom to tell us that there was a lightning storm in Raleigh and the airport wasn't allowing any planes to land. We were going to have to circle the city until it passed. The noise from the announcement woke Kaitlyn up and she immediately started to scream. She went back to sleep with the help of a bottle which was a huge blessing because "circling the city" didn't mean we would avoid the storm, it meant that we would fly directly into it, over and over and over.

It was not so bad at first, there was some turbulence but Kinsey was giggling and Kaitlyn was sleeping and we figured we would be done soon. It wasn't soon. We circled for almost an hour. Imagine being on a roller coaster for an hour. That is what this was like. We were bouncing around like crazy, with the lovely view of lightning outside our window. Kinsey started to feel sick and started to cry. Jason had to get her to breath in and out of a motion sickness bag (with no motion sickness in it, don't worry) to get her to calm down. I was clinging to Kaitlyn for dear life and praying that we would make it back on the ground alive. Jason was the only one holding it together. And stinking Kaitlyn who blessedly slept through the whole thing. People were crying and throwing up, and when we finally landed, everyone clapped for the pilot.

We didn't land until after mid-midnight, Kinsey didn't get to bed until 2 am. We all slept in the next day (except for Jason who had to go to work) until about 11:30.

I'm never flying again.

Happy Kaitlyn in the airport before we got on any planes



Kinsey "buckled" the puppies in

Kaitlyn ate her way through about 10 bags of cookies. The stewardess took pity on us and said, "Just take as many as you'd like." When we ran out, our fellow travelers gave us some of theirs.