Air travel

Well, our first airplane trip with two boys took place Friday July 3rd. It turned out well except for the fact that I went to sleep at 11 pm Thursday and thanks to J2 I got up at 1:45 and never went back to sleep. D picked us up at 3:30 am (yes, she is a peach) to drive us to the airport. The boys were a bit shell shocked being up so early so it was a pretty quiet ride. We got all our stuff onto the sidewalk and found, to our dismay, that it was so damned early the curbside check in wasn't even open! We had two very heavy car seats, three large suitcases, a port-a-crib and a rolling carry-on suitcase. Plus the backpack that J2 was in and J1's little backpack. Phew. Well, we managed to get everything weighed, checked in and then wheeled back over to TSA. Actually, this was the easier part of getting to the plane. Then we had to hit security - ugh! We had at least three things over the 3 oz limit - legitimate things as food for kids is allowed, but still, could have been an issue. So here we are at the security thing, J2 on my back and we had to put through the x-ray: coats and shoes from all of us, J1's backpack, both car seats, cell phones, the backpack, and the carry on suitcase. I had to tell a couple people to just go ahead of us! Anyway, I didn't realized until we were sitting at the gate that I hadn't taken out the cooler of food I had. I was supposed to and just forgot and they didn't ask. Guess I could have been a successful terrorist! :)



We left the mister at the gate and roamed around a bit before we had to get on the plane. We found the moving sidewalk and J1 had a blast riding it back and forth. The first flight was a short hop to Seattle on a prop plane. J2 thankfully slept and J1 was good and calm so that was a successful flight. We had a one hour layover in Seattle and we roamed again while leaving the mister watching the bags. We weren't able to have J2's car seat on that flight because we didn't pay for a seat and the plane was full but J1 had his and was asleep before we even took off. J2 was out soon after and both were asleep until just before we landed and then they both complained loudly (aka: cried) about the ear pain. We had a short stop over in Ketchikan and then back up for 24 minutes to Wrangell. Both boys were awake for that but it was pretty uneventful. All and all a nice flying experience. Going back probably won't be as smooth because we won't be getting up so early but maybe I will have a use for all the for-the-airplane toys I got for J1.




I was dead on my feet by about 4 and took a short nap which sort of helped but I gave up and headed to bed with J2 at about 9:30. I slept until 6 am so I am feeling back on schedule again. They boys are having fun here - so many people come and go and mom has a bunch of toys on a low shelf and a big open floor area for them to play. The only downsides are there is a shortage of seating for grown-ups and only mom's computer so I am unable to use it unless she is sleeping. Luckily she doesn't get up very early.