2015 Texas Trip

I'll preface this post by saying I do not know how people travel with kids on a regular basis. When Esther was a tiny baby it was easy enough, but now that she's mobile, and only sleeps in a crib this trip was pretty chaotic. Maybe other parents are more easy going than me, or maybe they have more docile kids than Esther. Either way this trip was a ton of work. But I'm glad we did it. It was fun for Esther to meet all of her cousins she's never met, and for us to catch up with all of Leland's family that we never see. I'm sure we'll look back on this trip and only remember all the best parts.

But for posterity sake (and to remind myself to never fly with a toddler again) here is all the things that went wrong in the first two days.

-First our flight out of Salt Lake was delayed FIVE HOURS! Do you know what it's like chasing after a toddler in the airport for 5 hours who refuses to nap? Not Easy.

-Then because of our delayed flight, we missed our connecting flight to Dallas. Instead we were given the option of rerouting to Austin or waiting the next day for a flight. There was no way I was going back home at this point so I choose to fly to Austin. 

-Once Esther and I finally arrived in Austin (at 11:30 pm) my bags weren't there. Apparently they got lost when I got rerouted. We talked to the people at the baggage claim forever, borrowed a car seat and got a bag of toiletries then we were finally on our way. At this point Esther was beyond tired but luckily she slept as soon as she hit the car seat. 

-Leland had already left (driving) two days before. The plan was for him to pick us up in Dallas and for us to stay at his mom's house two hours away. Since I was now going to be flying into Austin we decided to just get a hotel there to spend the night. Leland reserved us a hotel, but because of the lost bag fiasco, we weren't able to check in until after midnight. Apparently this hotel gives away it's reservations if you aren't there by 12. So we tried to find another hotel. Every hotel we went to was full. We seriously tried like 8 hotels.I guess there was a Texas heatwave that had everyone flocking to the hotels. By this point it was 2am and I was throwing up. (I guess because I was so tired + hadn't eaten enough that day, morning sickness is weird). Finally I started calling around to hotels and we finally found a super overpriced hotel.We took it because #desperate times. We got there and slept and slept. 

-By this point our troubles were mostly over. We had to go back to the airport because my bags were supposed to be there. (They weren't.) While I was again talking to the baggage people, Leland was chasing after Esther all around the airport. While she was running she ran into someone and got knocked down. She bit her lip and had blood streaming out of her mouth. I got there in time to see Leland holding her and panicking. I took her to the information desk and asked the lady if she had a first aid kit. She didn't so she just called an ambulance instead lol. This was the first time Esther has really got hurt so I was freaking out a little myself. But about 2 minutes later she stopped crying and bleeding and I could see that the cut in her lip wasn't that bad. She even wanted her binky so I figured she was fine. But the lady insisted that we wait for the EMTs. It was a little awkward when they kept asking if we were sure we didn't want to go to the hospital (yes), and how far she had fallen from (the floor). Once everything calmed down we just wanted to get out of there. And Esther and I now had blood all over the only clothes we had. 

Two days later I finally got my bags back, we were in a nice hotel, spending time with family and going to the beach. Our trip got much better from there. The beach was really nice, warm and a lot of fun. The first day we went (purple swimsuit) Esther was a little hesitant, but the second time we went (rash guard swimsuit) she had a blast playing in the water.  

What we had to do to keep E contained while eating since we didn't have a high chair.

Waiting to go to the beach. 

After our time at the beach we headed back north to see Leland's Granny, Esther's great-grandma. Sadly I didn't get a picture of that. We spent time there, then went to see some of Leland's other aunts and cousins. It was a good time with a lot of great food and a lot of playing with toys for Esther. After that we still had 4 more hours to drive to get back to Leland's mom's house. (There was a lot of driving on this trip). The next two days we hung out with friends and cousins and then headed back to the airport.

The flight back was much less eventful. Luckily Esther was so good on all the flights. She didn't cry or scream at all thanks to snacks, dollar store toys and lots of Monster's Inc on the tablet. 

As fun as vacations are it's nice to be back home. Now if only we had another week free to recover from it all :)