We made it!

Packing for six people for five and a half weeks is no small task. Two days ago we pulled the suit cases into the dining room and folded nine batches of laundry straight into the bags. Last night Chris drove us up to the airport, helped us check in and walked us over to the security. Then we said goodbye.

Task #1... getting through security. The kids were excited about the flight. They kept saying, "We haven't flown in forever!" (last August). The kids immediately started getting bins, taking their shoes off, placing their backpacks in the bins... Megan followed suit taking her shoes off. A second later Katie said, "Mom, Megan took her shirt off." Sure enough Megan had started with her shoes... and then her shirt... and was seconds from pulling down her skirt. We could see a few of the security guards point and chuckle as I grabbed her shirt from the bin to put it back on. Six bins, two carseats and one double stroller later, we were through.

Task #2... getting to the gate. "Ok, Ryan you hold Emily's hand. Katie, you hold Megans hand and let's have a contest of which team can be the quietest walking to the gate." I got a lot of looks... a lot of "are these all yours?" and a lot of "You are brave"'s. We took a 'train-ride' to our gate and then waited until they called for 'any families traveling with small children who need assistance' yes, that would most definitely be me. Small children... need assistance.

Task #3... the flight. As we left our stroller behind and entered the plane the flight attendant greeted us by saying... "It's the Von Trapp Family!" I'm quite sure we weren't singing but I could be wrong. Ryan, Katie and Emily buckled their seatbelts excitedly and pulled out their notebooks and started writing. Megan sat down and started asking a series of questions... "Why aren't we flying? When are we going to fly? Why is it dark? Why aren't we flying?" The lady next to her was quite amused. After five minutes of 'why' questions she was asleep. Luke drank a bottle and then he was out. The kids across the isle wrote and whispered for forty five minutes and then they were out. Luckily the 9:50 flight worked just like I hoped.

Task #4... getting off the plane. Usually this isn't the hard one. This time however, the airport didn't have a gate for us so we waited 30 minutes out on the cement. Just sitting. When we finally taxied to a gate it was midnight (3:00am georgia time) The kids woke up and followed me out. "Good bye Von Trapp Family!" they called after us.

So we made it. We are here, in Las Vegas. And getting here? ... not so bad.