andrewsfamily: July 2006

There are no pictures for this posting but a nice long story about our horrendous trip to Chicago that marks Ben's first trip on an airplane. Our flight was to leave at 1:25 pm and we decided to leave for the airport at 11:30 am(we live 15 min from airport). Ben was napping right up to 11:30 am and all the bags were packed in my car and ready to go. Ben woke up and we loaded him into the car and, well the nightmare begins, the car won't start. No time for Luke to figure out why it won't start but it didn't. So we unloaded everything and put it into the Suburu. And along we went. Of course the economy lot (closest to airport) was completely full and so we had to park really far away and take a shuttle. We got to the airport and got stuck in the elevator. At this time it was 12:30 pm. We finally got out of the elevator and I ran with Ben ahead of Luke to get in line to check in. The line was almost out the door. Yikes. So I proceeded to the front of the line and asked a lady if she could check us in our flight was in 45 minutes. She said "Oh the line goes fast, please wait in line" So I started to cry and another lady checked us in. So they weighed our one piece of luggage and of course "65 lbs, you'll have to pay $50 penalty" We sighed and agreed to pay it. The lady must have felt sorry for us or something because she asked that we buy a cheap duffle bag and take some of the weight out on the return trip. She let us go. So we ran to go through security. We had Ben (of course) , a stroller, car seat, diaper bag, laptop bag, and a rolly carry on. I went through with Ben and the diaper bag. Luke put everything else through the xray machine. "Who's black bag is this, does this belong to anyone?" Luke and I looked at each other and decided it was not ours. Until all of our stuff had gone through except for the rolly carry on (which was green). Luke looked at the back of the line and saw our bag. They had already called police security and were probably going to blow it up in a matter of minutes. "That's ours!!" So we got our bag. We boarded our flight and were on our way to Chicago. "Whew! The worst is behind us!" UHh yeah right. When we were descending to Midway, Luke noticed that we were circling the airport. Finally the captain said that there was a lighting/rain storm right at the airport and we were to circle until it cleared. Then we started descending some more and all we saw was green grass and farm land. Yup we we landed in Rockford, IL. Frontier doesn't even fly there. With an airplane next to us called "Ryan airlines" and some technicians working on an operating jet engine protecting their ears with nothing but their fingers stuck in them, we were stuck there for 2.5 hours. No food, no water, no nothing. We couldn't even get off the airplane. Poor Ben, he was so good. Finally we took off back to Midway, landed, and waited for another 1.5 hours for a terminal. The storm was so bad, that they had previously closed the airport, so no one could land and no one could take off. So all the terminals were occupied. Finally we got to the gate and deboarded. People couldn't believe how good Ben behaved. He of course was getting antsy, but he was definately an angel. At the airport, they had luckily saved our rental car because Luke booked it through Lockheed. So they thought it was a corporate rental.
We got to the hotel. We were exhausted, especially Ben. I confirmed with the lady that we needed a crib and she said it should be in there. We got to our room. NO CRIB!! Ahh, I was so angry. But they brought us one and Ben went to sleep instantly as did Luke and I.
That is the end of the Andrews Trip to Chicago. The rest of the trip was great and on the return trip, Ben slept the entire time we were flying.