We went to South Carolina on March 4 to see my family and to celebrate my 25th (!!!) birthday. A quarter of a century gone by... unbelievable. Though Brian had to leave on the 7th to get started on his upgrade stuff, Jax & I got to stay for the week because I was asked to speak at my old high school in an Alumni Forum. It was so insane to be back at my old "stomping grounds" ... I haven't had to be at the high school by 8am in seven years so that was a bit eerie!
Back in Lake in the Hills... Brian got to work from home all of last week which was heaven. It was especially wonderful because we had some warm-ish days and lots of sunshine while he was home so we got to enjoy our back deck for a few days.
I was just about to say that "that's that" for the past couple of weeks and move on to current events, when I remembered we had milestones reached while we were in South Carolina! Jackson started sitting up on his own on Monday March 8th!
So, yaaaaaaaaaaay! Jackson!! We are so proud! :)
Okay, now we'll get to more current events. After a week of home training, it was time for Brian to go to Dallas for his long-term (as in 5 weeks) training at the flight academy. Well, I don't like the idea of just hanging around the house for 5 weeks by ourselves and Brian didn't like the idea of 5 weeks by himself so we decided to do something to appease us all. Sunday morning, bright and early, we made our ways to Dallas. Brian was on a positive space ticket so he had no issues getting down direct from O'Hare. Jax and I, on the other hand, had to go another route because direct flights to Dallas were obscene for standbys on Sunday. They always are, really, but the obscenity was exponentially worse because of spring break and such. So, we decided that going through Charlotte was the best route. The original itenerary was a 7am, 1.5 hour flight (that meant getting up at 4am, folks) from O'Hare to Charlotte, a 2-hour sit, and then a 2-hour flight to Dallas. Well.... I did say "original." So we made it onto the 7am ORD-CLT flight with no issues because it was only about half full. An hour and a half later we landed in Charlotte and quickly realized that the CLT-DFW flight which had looked fine at 4am now had 30 oversales and 7 non-revs (that's what we are who fly on company passes standby) listed above us. All you have to understand about that sentence is that it translates to: no chance. We sat and waited for 2 hours until they began boarding, they did get 27 of the 30 oversales onboard, so it got closer than any of us thought it would, but a lot of good that did us since we were still left sitting in the terminal watching the flight go out full. Bleh. That flight departed at about 12:30, and we now knew we were going to have to wait until 3:40 to try again. Now, the Charlotte airport is a decent airport, but after about an hour you really run out of things to do. Jackson, thank God, was an angel during the whole ordeal. He slept and when he wasn't sleeping he was a smiley, talkative little boy.
Speaking of, he's waking up from a nap so I gotta get him up and fed. Be back in a moment.
Okay, he's not terribly hungry so we're going to see how much of this I can get through before he let's his hungry monster roar.
Anyway, back to our crazy travel adventures. So after another 2 hours in the airport they started boarding the 3:40 flight. The stats had improved, 3 oversales and 7 non-revs above us. We watched the list as the agent called people waiting for seats to the podium. Six people above us, four, three, a party of 2, and then a painful pause in the name-calling. Really? Now, I should mention things were so "dire" that my wonderful husband had already rented a car and carseat and my amazing friend Kelly, who lives in Charlotte, had already offered us a place to stay because I had already decided that once we didn't make the 3:40 we were going to dismiss waiting another 2 hours for the 6something flight and call it a day. Lo and behold! "Spears... Brittany Spears [snicker]" comes over the PA and I nearly fell over myself getting up to the agent who so graciously gave us a seat. Granted, he gave us 25E which is the middle seat of the 3-seat side over the wing. At that point, I didn't care. Two hours of a sleeping baby and a completely wrecked neck/back later we landed in Dallas and took in the beautifully breezy 85-degree weather. Whew! I'm exhausted just remeniscing!
So, here we are. Tuesday in Dallas. Yesterday, Jax and I spent most of the day in WalMart. Not my favorite store, but it's really all that's around, unfortunately, and it was definitely better than a day in the hotel room. So, WalMart it was; we perused the aisles and bought some food and some little things to make life in the hotel a little easier and more "homey." Oh! This was all after Jackson took a dip in the indoor hotel pool!! Although, since Daddy must be here for his "first swimming pool experience," we didn't take pictures so it doesn't count!! ;) Maybe tonight we'll get Daddy down to the pool to see our big boy and take pictures of his second "first" pool time! (Stay tuned!) Brian is in class from 9-6 and trying to put another 2 hours of studying in once he gets "home"; he did squeeze in time for a wonderful dinner at Aspen Creek near the hotel, and tonight Jax and I are probably going to meet Brian and our friend Ryan (who we call Glanzer, his last name). Glanzer is also a pilot at Eagle and has been down here for his upgrade training already (the end of this week is his oral exam which, from what I hear, is brutally nervewracking for pilots). So hopefully we'll get to have dinner with him tonight & he can meet the little guy finally. Then, tomorrow night we're meeting with Creech (Brian has a lot of friends named Brian so we call a lot of his friends by their last names... this one is Bryan with a "y") and his wife and new baby for another dinner and another "meeting of the babies."
Right now, the plan is to head over to South Carolina next week (Monday or Tuesday maybe) and spend some more time with Grandmama & Papa Bruce (and GGmama & GGpapa, and the Great & Uncle Robbie & Zachey & BayBay, and Auntie C & Uncle J... just to name a few, holy moly!) I'm quite excited for a lot of reasons, but one in particular is that, after 25 years, I'm finally going to make my mom teach me to sew! The goal is to make at least one summery dress that I will wear!! I also cut up all of my old sorority tees to practice on and make into a t-shirt quilt at the same time. I'm really excited, and I'm really hoping to enjoy it enough and get good enough at it to justify a request for a fancy schmancy sewing machine. (To go with the fancy schmancy camera I'm also in the market for!)
Well, I think that about brings us all up to date. Now, I have to catch up (again) on the 31-day Challenge stuff. Again, I'm going to post them under the date that they were supposed to be posted, so if you're interested in seeing them you're going to have to scroll down to past dates.
Until next time, take in some fresh air... it does the soul some good!
No comments:
Post a Comment