Leaving!!

I woke up really early on the 6th of February. I had gone to bed at 4 am, but had set my alarm for 8. My niece was coming to stay with the dogs for two nights, and the house needed to be perfect for that.

I then realized that we have 5 suitcases and 3 duffel bags. Only now do I remember my husband is broken--and I will be the one carrying the duffle bags with the straps digging into my shoulders. So I headed to Target and bought a suitcase set. Came home and dumped 2 of the duffel's into the suitcases--now there were 7 suitcases and 1 duffel--for 6 people!

On the way to Target it was just barely snowing. We had had terribly cold weather for the weeks previous (negative zeroes) but hadn't had any snow. By the time I came out of Target I could see that it was starting to snow harder and it was sticking.

So I rushed home and told everyone that we needed to leave now. Not my luck--my husband hadn't even showered yet-so that was out of the question. We finally got on the road--later than I wanted--and the roads were awful! So now we are REALLY late. We stayed behind a semi truck simply believing that if anyone spun out in front of us--he would take them out before we would. Cars were off of the road all along the way. Very scary.

We got to the airport, with about 45 minutes till the flight leaves and we still haven't parked the car. So my husband dropped us off and then sped over to the parking garage. I managed to get through the skycap with 4 kids and so much baggage, and then we made a run for security. I kept Barrett in his car seat and just pulled him behind me. I could hear everyone laugh as we went past--it looked like I was pulling luggage--but when we got past them--they could see it was a little boy. Security--what a JOKE!! I had to take the coats and shoes off of 4 kids plus me. Lift 3 carry on bags, and get Barrett out of his chair. My oldest Jake--saved the day! What an amazing help he was!

So we are through security and running looking back for my husband when I notice -- he's ahead of us. WHAT???? How did that happen! He must have passed us at security and not noticed us (how that is possible, I dare not think!!!) He came back and corralled the kids and carried some of the carry on. We were the last 6 people on the plane. Only middle seats available as far as the eyes can see! (Gotta love Southwest) So luckily there were some really sweet people, Michael got to sit with Grayson, Jake sat alone, Blake sat across the aisle from me and I sat next to Barrett!

Now in all this rush from 8 am on, I had completely forgotten one MAJOR thing! Grayson came back to my seat to show me his cool coloring and the woman just diagonally behind me asked me how old he was---I said, He's ...7 years old--today!! It was his birthday--and in the madness of it all--I hadn't even said Happy Birthday! So I went up to his seat--bent down over his ear, and sang him happy birthday!

It wasn't until we landed (no snow to be found) that we heard that there had been a 50 car pile up on the Interstate that we had just been rushing on. And only minutes after we got in the air Midway airport cancelled 140 flights! We would have been SUNK!! But we were blessed immensely and we made it to Phoenix in time to set up the house for company to come over for Grayson's birthday dinner and cake!