Well we just got back from our trip to Tennessee on a food crawl, i mean to visit Sam's family. but partially that is true...we were on a food crawl and DANG was that food good! i managed to leave evelyn's favorite book on the plane. the only book she will actually not turn her eyes from when we read it to her and look at the book stack! go me. i guess i'm going to have to find another copy of it since it was given to us when she got her 6 month shots.
now let me just say this. traveling with a baby is hard core. it is no lazy-sunday-afternoon-nap-on-the- couch. it is messy and chaotic at best. and i'm sure we received many a glance of insanity on our journey to and fro. the flight from denver to nashville was the most challenging because we had woken early, and when i say early i mean the sun wasn't even warm yet, gotten to the airport about 4 hours too early and had to keep evelyn awake so she would "pass out" as we took off. not.so.easy. this girl is high energy all the live long day. me being the slight germ-a-phobe that i am (at least i'm honest) i wouldn't let her crawl on the ground in the airport. yeah, i didn't. so by the time we got onto the plane she was a ball of tired, figity and limitless energy. now there is just something about "tired" energy that is more of a challenge than "i've slept great" energy. so we are sitting in our seats and the pilot comes on to tell us they have a minor issue with the left wing's de-icing
whatever that needs to be fixed. now let me just say that all it takes for me to lose any logic or level-headedness that i may possess is to hear a pilot tell me something needs to be "fixed" on a plane i'm about to strap myself to. so we are sitting like sardines in an stuffy, non-airconditioned airplane sweating like its mid-july in the south. i am holding evelyn who is trying desperatly to free herself from my lap, grab the poor, unsuspecting woman's hair in front of us, touching everyone who passes by, and, you know, giving me a run for my money. blissful, really. it was just a fantastic start to our little vacation. but we weren't going to let it ruin the day or the trip.
a few minutes later the pilot came back on and said they had fixed the problem and we were ready to go. WAAAHOOO. so we begin to pull back from the gate. stop. pull back up. huh?! the pilot comes back on and says, "um, we have another small issue that needs to be fixed. we will let you know when it gets fixed and then we will be on our way." oh.no.
jesus. there is still no air conditioning and now evelyn is screaming bloodly murder because she has been confined to car seats, strollers, arms and laps for somewhere around 5 hours. we have become "
those people." you know which ones i'm referring to. those people who have a screaming baby in an airplane/restaurant/insert your own small and confined space here. thankfully we had nice people around us who didn't give us grief or the stink eye but tried to makes faces at our rosy-cheeked, exhausted baby. bless them.
well the pilot comes back on and tells us that one of the engines WON'T start so they have to do it manually with some machine. REALLY? um, is it too late to get off this ride??? i look to sam and say, "well at least if we die we're all going to heaven together!" that was the only upside i was seeing. so three attempts later at starting the engine (and if you've never witnessed this, and i hope you haven't, you must know that the sound it makes is something kin to a siren and a very unnerving sound!) we were good-to-go! ha! it had been a solid hour and we were finally pulling away from the gate. shortly after take-off evelyn was asleep and i was breathing again. i think i stopped breathing for a solid fifteen minutes.
but we landed, had a great trip. saw lots of family and some friends. we are SO blessed. it just wasn't long enough, it really wasn't. while in Memphis, evelyn got her first black eye. yep. she managed to pull a t.v. tray down onto her face. i'd post a pic but my camera has crapped out on me.
we do love our tennessee. it is where we met and started our life together. it is where evelyn was born. and it still feels partially like home. maybe it always will.
to all that housed, fed and loved on us, we are so thankful and our hearts are full! we love you, miss you and think of you often. you're worth every bump of travel that it takes to see your faces. we will be back soon.
