I'm sure y'all have missed me =)...but we just returned from a one week trip to NY. One of my best friends from college, Auntie S (to the kids), got married and we absolutely had to be there. It was a fun-filled week, but definitely seemed too short....although we were all glad to come home to sleep in our own beds! After a week of sharing beds, I'm sure the kids were ready to be in their own beds as well.Here's a run-down of our trip...
BEST MOMENT: PACKING
After all these years, I'm proud to say that I've finally figured out a good packing system so that I'm not up until 2am the night before we travel!! Our flight departed on a Wednesday, so I started packing on Monday. BUT this time I started to gather things as if we were leaving on Tuesday. See?? See, what I did there?? Yeah, I'm all about the mind tricks. I started packing up my carry on diaper bag, putting all the clothes into packing cubes, got all our shoes, reorganized the first aid kit...basically everything but sleep stuff and toiletries were ready to go. I was in freak-out mode that night, but managed to get a good portion done. Soooooo, I basically had my freak-out 2 nights early...which meant that on Tuesday, I spent the day leisurely putting everything into the luggage bags. By 9pm, I was just walking around trying to find something to pack...and there was nothing left to do! It was awesome! That has never happened before! I was pretty proud of myself. Really, I was. I actually went to bed at a decent hour and all was well.
It was great...actually, too good to be true...and it was.
WORST MOMENT: DEPARTURE
When we reached the gate, we realized that our flight was delayed 2 hours!! I was so upset. We just had the perfect packing experience, the smoothest and most timely arrival to the airport...and we were rewarded with this??? Seriously?!?
The kids were great and spent their time watching planes take-off, playing card games and charades, doing activity books, making silly faces, and eating lunch.
2 hours is a really really long time, folks. Here was Elina's synopsis of the whole situation after 2 hours...
Usually when we fly, we let the kids spend half of the flight time doing non-iPad things and then for the second half of the flight they can use the iPad. But this time we just let them watch whatever they wanted to watch for the 3 hour flight. They had been so good in the airport and we were already so tired, we just didn't care anymore. This led to another...
BEST MOMENT: KIDS
All the kids, even Eulee, were great on the flight! Yay!
TOP MOMENTS OF OUR STAY:
1. WARWICK
We spent a few nights (before and after the wedding) in Warwick at my 2nd mom's house. It was a nice, relaxing time....hanging out and catching up. We went to the park, ate lots of chocolate chip cookies, played with my 2nd mom's dog, played drums, played games, got pedis, and ate yummy home cooked food.
2. COLLEGE REUNION
I was really excited to see my college friends again. It's been years since all of us have gotten together. Elina asked me about my college friends and I was shocked to tell her that I've known this group for 19 years now. Wow. Auntie S was the very first friend I ever made at Columbia in 1994.
The kids kept themselves entertained with chess, a foosball table, and each other.
The wedding was beautiful and Eli did a great job as the coin bearer (Filipino tradition) handing the coins to the officiant.
My girls also looked pretty cute in their new dresses (although Eulee's is Evie's old dress that she wore to a wedding, too!).
The reception was so much fun! The kids danced the night away...and of course, Evie was our little party girl! She would even throw in some of her karate moves. It was awesome!
I even got on the dance floor with Eulee in the Ergo and she actually fell right asleep in there. Love it!
5. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
On Monday we met up with my college friends at the American Museum of Natural History in the city.
After such memorable moments, it was unfortunate we ended our trip on a low-note....
WORST MOMENT OF ALL: RETURN FLIGHT
When we arrived at the airport, B got an email saying that our flight was delayed 2 hours. We were so sad that this could happen AGAIN! B checked the United website and there was a 30 minute delay now. Our connection in Houston was tight--only 30 minutes--so we knew we wouldn't make it. When we got to the counter, B asked the lady if we would make our connection and she wasn't even aware of a delay. She started asking B for information..."How delayed is it? What time is it supposed to depart now?" I thought, "Shouldn't YOU be sharing this information with US??" Then she checked our reservation and this is what happened--
Agent: (rudely) Your connection in Houston is so short. It's an illegal layover time. Did you book this ticket yourself?
B: Yes, on YOUR website. I figured if you were going to sell it to me, then it would be ok
Agent: (scoffing) You thought you could do that short layover with all of them? (pointing to all the kids and bags)
B: Not with the bags, too.
Is this lady for real?? I couldn't believe she was saying this stuff, but I was too panicky about the delay that I didn't even think to look at her name tag! Ugh! I was more focused on not making it back than on getting her info. (But this is not going to stop me from contacting United about this experience!)
After this, the agent told us she would try to get us onto the later flights from Houston to San Antonio (since we wouldn't make the 3pm connection). She said, "I can only get 4 seats on the 5pm, but then I can get 1 on the 7pm." B said it was fine because he would take the 3 older kids first and then I would ride with Eulee on the 7pm. At that point it didn't matter anymore because we just wanted to get home. So we got re-booked.
As we walked to the gate, I wanted to grab a bottle of water and some food because I was so thirsty and hungry. But B wanted to at least check the gate first....good thing we did because when we got to the gate, THE FLIGHT WAS ON-TIME!! My jaw dropped!! We told the agents at the gate what just transpired and they were shocked the agent in the front didn't know that there was no delay. So they try to put us back onto the 3pm flight and there were ONLY 4 SEATS LEFT!! Now I wanted to scream! They told us to just race to the gate at Houston and hopefully I could get on standby.
The plane ride itself was uneventful...thank God. We bought food on the flight, so all was well. I literally drank a full can of apple juice in 15 seconds when they served the drinks. All the extra in-flight nursing really does me in!
Once we got to Houston, we (tried) to race to the gate. And, luckily, we all managed to get on the plane. I was so relieved. We all had jacked-up seats though...in the first 2 rows on the left and right side of the place--3 middle seats and 2 together. I sat with the baby and Evie together. Then Elina sat in the middle behind me. As we put Eli in the middle in the other 2nd row, this kind kind kind kind man offered to take B's middle seat so that B could sit next to Eli. I use the word "kind" that many times because he gave up his window seat to sit sandwiched between 2 men who were about 250 pounds each. Bless this man! Luckily, it was a short flight!
I was so thankful when we landed. Even though our bags didn't make it, I didn't care anymore. I was just glad to get home, get the kids to bed, take a shower, and pass out in my own bed at 9pm.
It was quite the adventure to get home, but totally a fun trip!
1 comment:
I'm so glad that you were all able to come, but sad that I couldn't spend more time with you all... Thanks for trekking all the way to Beacon!!
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