Airport Fun

Day 1: Friday September 4

We started off our trip early (5 am early!) for an all day traveling event. This was Benjamin's first time on an airplane and Rachel's umpteenth time (I've lost count). Both kids did great on the plane, we didn't loose any luggage or children...but we may have lost a few hairs. :) We learned that Traveling with children is not relaxing, at all! You have to entertain them, keep them fed and happy in close quarters. When we would sit them together on the one seat Rachel would complain "he's squishing me!" and Benjamin learned the word 'No' only he says it as 'Do'. His favorite thing was to slap me on the face while saying "Do!' Ahh, the joys of traveling. When we got to Denver we were supposed to have our little stroller to use in the airport but someone didn't read the tag right and it was put under our next plane with the rest of our luggage...so we had to hold him, let him walk, keep track of him too. Our plan was to let him sleep in the stroller so he could have a good nap but that didn't happen.

So during out 2 1/2 hour layover in Denver we had to find a way to entertain the kids. Benjamin enjoyed climbing anything he could, and they both loved the moving sidewalk, which Rachel calls a 'roller coaster.' So we spent the majority of the time going back and forth on the sidewalk and up and down the escalators. During this time we also decided that it might be time to teach Rachel about 'stranger danger' because every one that she met she said "Would you like to be my new friend?" Then she proceeded to talk their ear off. To her it didn't matter if they were 60 years old or 2 years old, to her everyone was her friend and everyone was nice enough to say yes and humor her except one little boy. He answered her question by saying "I think I'm in a different family."

*No children were hurt in the making of this film.

Benjamin ended up taking a 45 min nap on my lap on the next plane. When we arrived in MN we had another adventure awaiting us...getting the rental car. First we had to ask where the rental car area was, then we had to ride the tram over to the next terminal, go down one hall to an elevator, ride it up 1 floor, go down another hall to another elevator to go up 1 floor, down a long hall and there it was tucked away in a corner...mean while we had 2 suitcases, a stroller, 2 kids, 2 car seats and 2 carry-ons. At this point I just wanted to be done traveling but I had to figure out the car thing first. The lady said they were out of the car I had reserved but would gladly upgrade me to a bigger car...for a fee!!! I said just give me whatever you had me down for which has a Ford Focus! Ford Focus people!! These cars are tiny!! Can you imagine? All of us, with our luggage in that car!? Well somehow we made it all fit and we headed down the road to Hastings MN and good old family for a week full of adventure :)