WOW What A Day...

WOW What a day so far. Mommy was up at 4:30 and daddy a little bit after that. Shortly after 5:00am the phone rang and our driver from Oregon Limousine was outside the front door. A long white stretch limo was there waiting for us. It’s odd putting car seats into a limousine! The limousine became known as “big car.” When we first said there as a big car out front for you, Rebekah asked “Grandma’s car?” (Grandma has a Lincoln Town Car. We had to tell her this was even bigger than Grandma’s car! You know luggage is going to be a problem when the driver can’t fit all of your luggage into a limo’s trunk!!! Here is Rebekah climbing in just like she does for the bus:


We got to the airport between 6 and 7am. Getting checked in out front and our luggage over to TSA was not a problem. Beth from Make-A-Wish met us as the limo pulled up and helped us get inside. Here is Beth with the girls:


Security getting into the concourse was a whole other issue. Even after checking our luggage we had 3 rolling carry ons, 2 backpacks (carried by the girls), and a car seat. That and 2 kids… Shoe’s off, HUGE bag of medicines out, anything electronic out and, well, we took up 8-10 of the trays that you are supposed to put your stuff into. Good thing that we had lots of time.

The first flight was relatively uneventful. We had some really nice flight attendants, one named Christin and one named Kristine (I hope I have those right). When we got to Phoenix there were a few “issues” with the passengers behind us being upset at how fast the girls were walking up the jet-way. There was some “move, we have to get to a flight” going on. Daddy actually had to step in front of one “gentleman” to keep him from running Sarah over. And the thing was that the girls were moving quite briskly, in fact Sarah was running a couple of times.

The lay over in Phoenix was just about right with enough time to get changes and burn off a little energy. As we were about to load the pilot (Captain Steve I think) came out and introduced himself and spent some time talking with Rebekah (mommy and Sarah were in the bathroom). He told Rebekah that there was something waiting for her down in the plane and as we boarded there were attendants with small bears for the girls. On the Phoenix-Columbus flight all of the attendants (especially Rae) were treating us like royalty making sure that we had extra juices, snacks, etc. One of the first class attendants (Joe) even brought back an extra desert that they had up there – on china and everything.

We did have our share of screaming fits and little temper tantrums, much to our surprise the majority of them were with Sarah – that is a change of personalities. Sarah is just not happy being in the car seat the whole time. Then Rebekah had a bit of a soak through, well, okay a bit is a bit of an understatement. She is now sitting on a waterproof diaper changing pad and the airline will likely have to change that seat cushion cover before the next flight.

We got to Columbus and down to baggage check okay but it kind of went downhill from there. Imagine all those bags, the girls, a strange airport...well, you get the picture. After several elevators, parking lots etc, we finally got to the Avis counter. While the girls (including mommy) all had a melt down over in the corner daddy stood in line and registered for the car. We were supposed to have a "full size" which is "Ford Taurus or equivalent." We were really sweating getting the bags into the car. How awesome when we went out in the lot and found the one with the plate he had given me and it was a Mercury Mountaineer mid-large size SUV. Everything fit awesome.

We left Columbus and headed south towards Cincinnati. We made a stop at Cracker Barrel (miss that kind of food!) and had some "down home" dinners. Funny thing, the girls would not eat fried okra, but daddy was delighted. Bet we stop there again before we head home.

90 minutes down the road and we pulled into the Towne Place Suites. THIS IS AWESOME. Full kitchen, two bedrooms, a living room, high speed internet, three TVs (like we'll use them) and a parking spot out front. When we opened the room there were a pile of bags, boxes, gifts and a large Dora doll waiting. We have some pictures of the girl with the goodies but will have to wait to pull them off the card. For now, its midnight, the girls are still fussy, and we are tired after a long day. But we are excited too - giddy with excitement. Update: Found a way to transfer the pictures off the camera:



The week is just beginning for us, but we really want to take the opportunity to thank Make-A-Wish for this. We NEVER would have gotten to do this on our own and it is already an adventure that we are grateful for.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, check back...