NC: Up and Away

Brandon was invited to speak to several elementary schools in North Carolina. To sweeten the deal, Shauna the librarian and our wonderful host, put us up at The Big Kahuna in the Outer Beaches. Seemed like a waste of a 7 bedroom house on just our little family. We were so lucky and excited to have our friends, the Gehrings join us and make it a party. 

.....

Initially a 6:30 am flight doesn't sound so bad. Until you realize how long it will take to get through security with three children and all their paraphernalia and tack almost another hour to get to the airport. I really questioned whether or not to go to bed take the hour nap. I was terrified that I wouldn't hear the alarm clock (because I usually don't) and we would miss our flight. But we were up and out the door by 3:45 as planned. 

The boys were all really good sports throughout the craziness of the airport. The anticipation of flying on an airplane was obvious on their faces. Armed with a backpack full of snacks, entertainment and brown paper bagged surprises the boys did great on the first leg of the trip. Eventually the early morning caught up to us and everyone was zonked. 

sam and jackson : molly, greta and lana

The landing was on the bumpy side and while that might scare some kids, mine squealed with delight. "That was totally wicked!" was repetitively heard throughout the cabin. I didn't think to record it until after the fact, so here is a taste of what it was like while we were taxiing to the gate.

The four hour layover in Chicago was quite brutal as we tried to entertain and fed everyone in a small corner of a very busy boarding gate. Max just wanted to crawl on the dirty floor. While the older kids would have loved to spend the entire time on the moving sidewalks. Unfortunately for them, their parents were all exhausted and confined them to within arms reach. Jackson is easy entertained and pretended to be the drive through attendant of McD's. 

Four hours of stretching and we were up in the air again. 

Jackson was so excited about the first take off that I thought he would have the same reaction the second time around. But he {and Max} fell asleep before the plane was moving and nothing I could do was going wake him up. They looked exactly like this the entire flight. 

We made it to Norfolk, VA, got our rental minivan and headed to the hotel for pizza and swimming with 9 exhausted Washingtonians. The first travel day went better than expected with five kids under the age of six.