Jet Lag....

Warning: I think this might qualify as a novel!

It seems I am suffering from a sever case of jet lag. I am soooo tired. Lucas is cranky...I think he has jet lag, too. He got sick while we were in CA and I ended up taking him to the ER. I wouldn't normally do that, but it was Saturday and there wasn't anywhere open until Monday. He had a temp of 102+ with both motrin and tylenol in him. He was pulling on his ears and very lethargic. He barely ate or drank for a few days. So...off we go to the ER. I wasn't sure if his ears were bothering him from flying or if he had an ear infection. The ER was dead when we got there, so we were in and out in about 30 mintues....hey, that's better than most doctor's offices!! Turns out he just had a virus. By Tuesday he was pretty much back to his old self. Lucas is the type of baby that wants to be put in his bed when he is tired. Well, on the plane I had to hold him when he wanted to go to sleep and he wasn't happy about it. But, by the end of the week of doing this (sometimes I had to hold him while visiting family as there wasn't really a place to lay him down), he decided that having mom hold him when he was tired wasn't so bad. Needless to say, I am working on getting him back on a schedule and to sleep on his own. He does go to sleep on his own, but now he cries every time I lay him down when before he rarely ever cried.

Thursday morning Logan woke up with a cold. Just what we needed as we were headed home that day. Being congested and the pressure in his ears from flying didn't go well with him. He cried when we were landing in DC...which of course made it worse. How do you tell a 4 year old that crying only makes it worse? Okay, so I told him, but it didn't help.

As I stated previously, this trip was a nightmare as far as the airline goes. My sister and her family were still visiting and had planned on going into DC for the day. Well, hubby decided we were going to CA. I drove into DC to help my sister find parking and then picked hubby up from work. We had to get our luggage out of storage and pack. My sister and her family left a few minutes before we did on Thursday morning. We got to the airport and I told hubby to watch the signs (I was drving) to find out what terminal Northwest Airlines was in. Well, neither of us saw it listed and we parked. We entered the airport at terminal C and it ended up that NWA was in terminal A. We rushed there and when we finally made it to the front of the line to check in, it said we would have to speak to an agent. It was 27 mins. until our flight was due to depart. They told us that we could not get on the flight because we had to be checked in 30 minutes before the flight leaves. Needless to say, we were not happy. They put us on standby and we headed to the security check point. As we approached it, I realized that in our rush, we had forgotten Logan's car seat. I guess there was a reason we missed our flight. We made it onto the next flight. On our original flight, we had a 3 hour layover in Detroit. We were able to catch up with that flight. We arrived in San Francisco and got a rental car. We spent the night in Santa Rosa because we were super tired. When I calledd my inlaws to let them know we missed our flight, they informed me that g-pa had passed away. So, we continued our drive on Friday and arrived at dh's parents around 4:30. Hubby was driving and as we were pulling up in front of their house, Logan let out a cough. I knew what was about to happen and told him to quickly pull over because Logan was about to be sick. Well, instead of listening to me, he continues to slowly parallel park. Sure enough, Logan threw up and it was all over him. Did I mention that he had pizza sticks for lunch??

So....that was our interesting trip out there and coming home only got worse. We left his parent's house on Wed. because our flight on Thursday was at 12:30 and we wanted to be closer to San Fran. We spent the night with my mom and headed to the airport at 9:00. We arrived later than expected and when we got to the gate I was going to take Logan to the bathroom one last time. As we approached the gate, they informed us that it was the final boarding call (our flight wasn't scheduled to leave for another 25 minutes). We got on and made it to our seats. Once we got everything settled...bags stowed and car seat fastened in, I took him to the bathroom. I was rushing him along so that we could get back to our seats. We get seated and they make an annoucement that the plane was too heavy to take off and they needed 37 people to volunteer to get off the plane. We waited and waited and finally I realized that we were likely going to miss our connection in Minneapolis. I headed up to ask about volunteering and they made another announcement that they would prefer the volunteers be going to Minneapolis as their final destination. I sat back down. Almost an hour has gone by and now I know we missed our connection (we only had 50 minutes in Minneapolis). I went up to speak with them and they said we would not be able to get our luggage off the plane. I wanted to volunteer to get off, but Lucas' car seat was checked. They said they probably had a car seat that we could use. As I was waiting to find out, the ticketing agent closed the door and they announced they had enough volunteers. They were offering volunteers a $500 travel voucher and a hotel stay. So, we go back to our seats and get ready to depart. There was a line of planes needing to take off and that took us another 40 minutes. So, we arrived in Minneapolis almost 2 hours late. They had made an announcement to meet with an agent at gate G12 if you missed your connecting flight. So, we go to her and she gives us our new itenerary. We were to stay at a hotel and fly out the next morning. They gave us meal vouchers that could be used at the airport or at the hotel (from a pizza delivery place). She said we would be better off eating at the airport. So, we ate and then went to talk to someone about our luggage. They said we could get it if we really needed it. Well, I had only packed enough diapers and wipes for the flight. Not to mention we didn't have toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, or clean underwear!! So, we waited about 15 minutes for them to locate our luggage and went out to wait on the hotel shuttle. By the time we got to the hotel and in bed, we got about 4 hours of sleep. We rode in a 15 passenger van and all but 3 people (one being the driver) were Northwest Airlines customers that had missed their flights in Minneapolis. A couple of them were from our flight, but one couple and another lady were from different flights. So, that was 3 flights that we knew of that NWA had issues with. Oh...I almost forgot. When we picked up our hotel and meal vouchers, I noticed that we had a travel voucher, too. I was thinking it would be a good amount considering they were giving $500 in San Fran. Want to know how much it was for??????...............................$25!! Can you believe that? Sure, they paid for our hotel, but they did that for the people in San Fran (and let me tell you, their hotel was WAY more than the one we stayed at!). So....I don't plan on flying with NWA again!! I do plan on calling them and letting them know how unhappy I am with them.

The trip wasn't all bad, though. We enjoyed being able to see family. Lots of family had never met Lucas and some had never met Logan either. We decided that there needs to be a reunion so that we can see each other at happy times...not just when there is a death in the family. Logan really enjoyed playing with his cousins and that extra-special attention that only grandparents can give. So, as promised, here are some pictures from our trip....


These pictures were taken at Patrick's Point...