Christmas Eve 2007

After our experience of flying on Christmas Eve 2002, Rob and I swore we would NEVER do that again. We were living in Boston and flying home to Salt Lake City for Christmas. We hadn't flown home the previous year and were excited to spend the holidays with family. We chose to fly out on Christmas Eve since the fares were cheaper and I had to work on the 23rd. The night before we were to fly out, the airlines called us and said our flight had been cancelled! What! How can they cancel a flight on Christmas Eve when they know everyone on the flight is trying to get to their families? We were suppose to fly through Chicago and they were getting a big storm so they cancelled our flight. To this day, we choose not to fly through Chicago in the winter.

The lady from the airlines found us another flight that went through Dallas and got us into SLC at 3:30pm. Not too bad. Our original flight landed us in SLC at 2pm. Well as she was booking it we got disconnected! Perfect! Rob called back to make sure the flight was booked and it wasn't. Are you kidding me? So they tried to get us on that flight, but it was full. We ended up flying out of Boston on Christmas Eve afternoon, flying through Dallas and landing in SLC close to midnight! Rob and I spend Christmas Eve dinner at Chili's in the Dallas Airport eating boneless buffalo wings. The flight from Dallas to SLC was awful. We were in one of those tiny commuter planes that was so bumpy. I was on the back row next to the bathroom. The door to the bathroom kept opening and closing with each little bump and it smelt awful! Rob was a few rows ahead of me next to a larger man wearing shorts. His legs were really hairy and since he was quite large his legs kept touching Rob's legs! We were so bummed that we missed Christmas Eve with our families so we swore we would never book a flight on Christmas Eve.

Skip forward 4 years to 2007. We are looking for tickets to fly home for Christmas. They were outrageously priced and when you have to buy 3 tickets you might as well buy a car instead! Then one day I was checking on tickets and found a great deal, but we had to fly on Christmas Eve! Ahhh, what do I do? Well I did what we swore we would never do again, I booked us tickets to fly on Christmas Eve! Of course I made sure we weren't flying through Chicago. It was a direct flight which is always a plus with kids. Well since I have dragged this story on for this long, you are thinking that our flight got cancelled or delayed. Well surprisingly, it was one of the smoothest experiences at the airport we have ever had! Skycap checked-in our 4 suitcases & 2 carseats - what a relief to get rid of all of that, no line at security (which is a good thing considering we had 12 of those totes full plus a double stroller), our airplane took off on time, and we landed on time even though it was snowing pretty good in SLC. I don't mean to brag, but our kids were seriously angels on the plane. Lily slept the entire 3 hours and Evan watched a movie for half of the flight and slept the other half. Our airplane was full of kids and over half of them were crying at any given time. We wish we could contribute our "fabulous flyers" to our great parenting skills, but really we realized that our kids are the perfect ages for flying. We felt so bad for the couple across the aisle who had a 15 month old how wouldn't sit still and couldn't calm down enough to take a nap which resulted in crying for over an hour straight. We arrived in SLC around 4 pm just in time for all of the Christmas Eve festivities!

We had Christmas Eve dinner at Rob's grandparents' house - Grandma Barb & Grandpa Karl. All of Rob's family was there except his brother's family. Plus Rob's uncle & aunt, Jeff & Marian were there with their 3 kids - Morgan, Mike, & Jake. The food was great and it was so good to see everyone and have them meet Lily. It is always so nice to be around family, especially at Christmas time.

Whitney practicing with Lily for her baby sibling who is coming this March. Whit will be a fabulous sister to the new baby.

Steph (6 months pregnant) & Brian

Evan flying his truck from Grandma Barb & Grandpa Karl

Evan and Taylor with their trucks

Mike (I wonder what side of the family Evan gets his curly hair from?) & Morgan holding LilyTaylor climbing all over Jungle-Gym-Jeff