Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Before planning anything we set a few guidelines for our Spring trip together to help us stay focused on what we wanted to do:

1. We wanted to fly wherever we decided to go (because I haven't flown commercially since I was Eli's age)

2. We would save up and pay cash (which gave us a set amount of money to work with, and thus reduced our possible destinations)

3. We would go somewhere where the words "man, the kids would love this." were not coming out of our mouths constantly.

4. April vacation week was a set date because of the babysitting availability.

5. A slightly warmer and drier climate would be nice (but not too warm to where we would be worried about seeing any pornography).

Seems simple right? Well, actually it was. I googled "vacation destinations for April". The top results were Florida and Arizona. So with the click of a mouse we had a destination: Arizona, and the Grand Canyon!

Our relaxing week away from home started with getting all of our boys out of the house by 9 to head to Grampy and Nana Lisa's house for the week. drop offs went well and we were easily eating lunch in Portland with time to catch our flight at 1:30 PM. At noon we kissed Caleb goodbye and practically ran to the terminal so as to help the departure seem less stressful for all involved, especially Amanda and myself.

A wonderful breakdown of our first day on our wonderful vacation:

12:45 PM: sitting outside our gate eagerly waiting with great nervousness to board our flight. Okay, I was nervous, Tyler looked like a frequent flyer, which he almost is.

1:15 PM: watching the plane that we were going to board land and drop off a lot of passengers.

1:30 PM: listening as a high shriek came over the speaker explaining that the mechanic needed to check our plane out and it would be about 30 minutes, but that we would all be set to catch our connecting flights in the wonderful state of NJ (sarcasm detected).

2:30 PM: high shriek again reveals that the mechanics are working and almost done, just another 15 minutes or so. Thankfully, the lady next to me was quite entertaining and loved to talk.

3:30 PM: In an ear piercing volume: "the mechanic is finished and just waiting for the final paperwork to be completed on the repair, should be boarding in about 15 minutes"

4:00 PM: Still waiting for the paperwork to be signed

5:00 PM: the flight is not taking off for some unknown reason, so we are going to setup later connecting flights for everyone and get another plane in here from NY

6:00 PM: The plane in New York will be taking off and coming to pick us up, kiss your connecting flight goodbye.

7:00 PM: The plane in New York is taxiing down the runway heading in our direction.

7:30 PM: The plane that we were originally going to fly on is suddenly fixed, signed and ready to go, boarding in 15 minutes.

8:00 PM: Boarding on a plane that was supposed to takeoff at 1:30 PM.

9:30 PM: Arrived in Newark; I take off running to customer service to try to get in the front of the line to get a hotel room and finished connecting flight details.

10:30 PM: waiting in line (Again), to catch a shuttle bus to a hotel.

11:00 PM: In bed in, of all places, NJ with an alarm set for 4 AM so that we can get to our connecting flight to Phoenix in the morning.

What a start to a relaxing week of vacation. I am now not so fond of flying, and was continually reminded why I love road trips. But hey, not once on Monday did I find myself saying "man, the boys would have loved this!"

disclosure: no actual photos were taken on day 1, but I put one on from day 2 so that you weren't entirely bored with just words.