MO travels

For spring break, the kids and I flew to Missouri to visit my sister Em and her family. We didn't think we were going to be able to get together this spring because I was not up for a 4,000 mile round trip drive alone with the kids (my sense of adventure seems to be waning as I progress through my 30's), and airplanes are so expensive. One day at the end of January, Em and I were talking/plotting on the phone and we hatched the plan to split the airfare between the two of us. I checked flight prices and ended up finding a smoking deal out of Pasco (only one hour from our house as opposed to the three hour drive to Seattle). We quickly made sure both of our husbands were on board with the arrangement, and then I booked four tickets. Em and I each paid $550. WORTH IT.


These cousins are beloved to Jay and Rose. They talk about our springtime cousin visit year round--we've visited them every year for nearly their entire lives (except 2015 when Amber was a newborn). For weeks before our departure, Jay reported having trouble sleeping at night due to excitement for this trip. At last the day came: Tuesday, March 26th.

Excerpts from my journal, edited to make sense:

Tuesday, March 26, 2019. I am not on an airplane right now. I was supposed to be on an airplane right now, landing in St. Louis in a little over an hour. Our 5pm flight was delayed so long that we would have missed our connecting flight in Salt Lake City by over three hours, so Delta had us reschedule. Our new flight is at 7am tomorrow morning. Yay for a 4am wakeup. Waaaah. I spent all day today getting ready for the trip, and then we didn't get to go! I still picked up the kids an hour early from school and Jeff still met us as planned. Jeff already had people covering his track duties, so we took the afternoon to spend time together! We stopped at lame-mart--I mean Walmart--on the way home to pick up a take and bake pizza. The kids played for 90 minutes or so in the gorgeous weather when we got home, then we baked our pizza and watched Solo (the Star Wars movie). A Tuesday night family movie night! It was a great way to ease the pain of not leaving on our trip right away.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019. We made it to Missouri today! We got up at 4:15am Pacific time and left for the airport at 5am. On the way to the airport, I checked my phone and found out that our flight had been delayed again. Thankfully this time it was only delayed by half an hour, so we kept driving. Jeff dropped us off at the Pasco airport just before 6am. Our flight to Minneapolis left at 7:30am and arrived at noon two time zones eastward.

The information I received with our original tickets said our flight to St. Louis departed at 12:33pm. After landing in Minneapolis at noon, we waited anxiously by the plane for our gate checked luggage, me checking my watch every five seconds and tapping my foot. We grabbed our bags, walked up the ramp, and found ourselves in a skinny crowded terminal with no flight information boards in sight. The clock was ticking. I chose a likely looking direction and started walking, alternately herding the kids along and being orbited by them and their wheely bags. It was chaotic in the crowded terminal. I called Em and asked her if she could look up our flight gate online because we did not have a second to spare for me to find on my own. She found the gate number and informed us that the flight didn't leave till 12:55pm--extra time! Thankfully we had been walking in the right direction, so we continued power walking thataway (Amber alternately sprinted ahead of my comfort zone or walked like a turtle, cutting me off). Several moving walkways later, we arrived at gate C24 and checked in for our seat assignments. The nice attendant at the desk switched us around so we all got to sit on the same row, two by two--much to Jay's relief. We had time for a very brief 8-10 minute rest and then we boarded our second plane.

Forty minutes after we landed in one plane, we were buckled into another one, ready to fly to St. Louis at last! Whew! The kids were troopers. It was stressful at times, keeping track of their wandering walking through crowds (why don't kids just walk straight? They weave.) At one point I stepped away from the gate desk and walked over to wait in line and Amber didn't see me leave so she stood across the room by the desk all alone until I looked back and saw that she was still way over there. I went back to retrieve her, leaving Jay and Rose at our place in line. There's nothing more fun than traveling alone with several kids and being skewered by the gazes of several shocked, disapproving, or amused adults.

After a short second flight, (61 minutes), we walked into the St. Louis airport and headed straight for the bathroom. After Amber finished with the potty, I told her to go out and start washing her hands while I used our stall alone. Amber has a habit of opening the stall before I'm fully clothed and usually washing hands is a good way to keep her occupied and nearby. Well, she finished washing her hands faster than usual and then dashed out of the bathroom before I was finished. I heard Jay and Rose's voices distantly calling "Amber no! Amber come back! Don't run away!" I quickly washed up and went to find the Amb child. Thankfully she wasn't feeling too facetious because she came back relatively willingly and we went to meet the Broadbents at the curb. All three kids stressed me out for the ten minute wait time by running around, screaming, and climbing the railing. A security guard had to tell them to stop climbing.

At last Em's van pulled up. It was a joyful reunion. We loaded the car and then drove to Chick-Fil-A, which we ate at a nearby park. It was a glorious spring day and I love lemonade. I also love watching these cute cousins play happily together. They played played played back at chez Broadbent all evening with only an hour of Minecraft tossed in. After a quick frozen corndog dinner, they went back to playing outside. They stayed outside in the yard and played until after dark, returning to the house after 8pm. Em and I put Amber and AJ together to share a room at bedtime and they giggled and talked for a good 90 minutes before falling asleep, each primly on her side of the queen sized bed. CUTENESS. I hope they can be friends this time.

5:55am in Pasco, WA

 The good thing about flying out of the tiny Pasco airport is that the security line is usually very short. The bad thing about a short security line is there's more waiting time at the gate. We were all feeling a little dazed.

Amber and Rose played with Cinderella and Bunny and happily munched on the snacks I packed them. 

We were given seats in the Comfort Plus section right behind first class, and I luxuriated in the solid 2-3 extra inches of legroom. I chuckled at my kids brown bagging it in our fancy seats. 

Minneapolis stressful walk. The kids would RUN ahead then slow down to snail pace then sprint ahead again. That constant yo-yo of my parental tether nearly gave me a twitch. 

All ready to fly Minnie to St. Louis. The flight attendants called Minneapolis Minnie. I liked it. 

 Amber endeared herself to the flight attendants by carefully studying the safety card for the first 10 minutes of each flight. 

Chick-Fil-A and its ambrosia-esque lemonade! We were so excited to FINALLY be together after all of the annoying delays.

Picnic 

First of many seven-cousin photos of the week. This group is quite the fun crazy circus. 

AJ and Amber, reading books in bed before their sleepover. The felt so special sharing a room together for the whole week. Usually we make them sleep separately to preserve good moods and sleep times, but they are nearly 4.5 years old and it was time to advance the youngest to sleepover status. We still put them to bed nice and early at 7pm, but they lived it up together.

THE RETURN JOURNEY. I like to get all of the travel stories out of the way up front when I can. As usual, the more tired I got, the less detailed my journal entries became. For our trip home, we were routed through four airports on three different airplanes. It was a long day shepherding kids/battling Amber through crowded terminals and I was so worn out from it that my journal entry that night consisted of copied and pasted text messages and social media captions:

Thursday, April 4, 2019. Texts I sent to various friends and family throughout our journey home today:

Instagram: Going is so fun, leaving is so SAD! St. Louis was crying thick fast raindrops when we left this morning. My sister and I are so different, it makes no sense that we're such good friends, but we are and I love her and living 2,000 miles apart is far.

Text message: Airport #1 of 4: St. Louis. Nothing to see here but goldfish crumbs and a flying monkey (Amber just threw hers across the airplane). [explanation not included in the text: thankfully the monkey didn't go as far as I initially feared. It landed just one row up, where Jay and Rose were sitting--WHEW. Amber loves her Wub monkey so much that the thing is limp, smelly, and not something an innocent plane passenger would want to land on his head.]

Text message: Oh man, we barely made it onto our flight to Pasco (plane #3 today). Amber escaped into an airport play area and took off her shoes there before I grabbed her. We had to take a train from A to S Gates and showed up as the last few people were boarding. I'm ready to be done. Thank goodness this last flight is only 37 minutes! [explanation not included in the message: I did not find out that Amber was not wearing socks until she sat down and removed her boots in the middle of the crowded play area. Her bare feet with dirty toenails had been steaming and sweating in her rubber boots throughout our entire long long day of travel. YUCK. Thankfully I managed to shove her sticky stinky feet back into the boots relatively quickly, but dragging her flailing unhappy body out of the play area was much harder. We were able to check our bags for free back in St. Louis so I did not have my big backpack on my back during these difficult chase scenes. That made it a little easier.]

Text message: We just landed! Soooo excited to only have 50% of the parenting burden again.

Instagram summary: Three kids/one mom; four airports/one day: St. Louis to Minneapolis to Seattle to Pasco/Tri Cities. It was exhausting but flying cheap comes with a price! It's so good to be home.

Journal, 8:46pm Pacific time. I have at least a dozen juicy stressful amusing impossible little stories to tell about our journey home today... but I'm so tired I don't feel like writing them down! It was a long long day. Em drove us to the airport this morning, we left her house at 8:15am central time. We walked into our house in Sunnyside 13 hours later. Amber got less and less manageable as the day progressed. Jay and Rose were good, but they walked so slowly when we were rushing to our connecting flights! It was so good to see Jeff again, but he grew a prickly red mustache and our kiss of reunion was hampered by my finger covering his awful sharp nasty hairy upper lip. He has already shaved it off, thankfully.

[end journal entry]

Highlight of the trip home: there was a Chick-Fil-A a few gates down from ours in the Minneapolis airport.

Injustice of the trip home: We had a 2.5 hour layover in Minneapolis and our departing gate was right next to the gate we arrived through. We had a 30 minute layover in Seattle and our departing gate was a long walk, two train stops, and lots of stairs away from our arrival gate. Yay for another stressful power walk on a time crunch. It was not easier the second time through.

Amusement of the trip home: The flight attendant on our third and final plane was so nice, she gave the kids (and me) snacks before takeoff. We all politely accepted her kindness, but we were all feeling a little sick of Cheezits by that point after our two previous flights with the same snack.

Interesting detail of the trip home: Our fight from Seattle to Pasco was only 37 minutes. We were at cruising altitude for less than ten minutes before starting the descent.

Sad to leave. It was pouring so hard we stood under the open trunk of Em's van to take our tragic departure selfie.

Kids don't care about isles or giving other people space to move. They just spread their stuff out, laid down on the floor, and did their thing. 

Everyone was happy in Minnie: I let Jay and Rose share a massive chocolate milkshake, while Amber and I shared a heavenly lemonade. 

We took a selfie in all four airports. We didn't manage to get a St. Louis sign in the background of our first picture, but we did squeeze Twin Cities into photo #2, Seattle into #3, and Tri Cities into #4. I still can't believe we managed to pause for a selfie during our RUSH through the Seattle airport. We had one minute to wait for the train and we used it wisely. 

I was so excited to see Jeff but then he sprung his prickly caterpillar upper lip on me and I was too tired to be amused in the moment, haha. 

The last leg of the journey.

{stay tuned for MO fun!}