Vacation Recap

Tweet

~I've been trying to come up with something to blog about...you know, just feeling that "blog-bug" but have NOTHING to write about...well, nothing interesting anyway...so with all that said, I will post a vacation recap about my trip to TX with E which includes his first plane ride!!

~We departed on 12.26 and after taking 10 minutes to get through security and being nearly naked, we proceeded onto the gate where I did NOT hear them call for "those with children" to board early, so we got on as quickly as possible. 1st dilemma: how do you fold up a stroller & valet check it, while maintaining your carry on bag and preventing a 22 month old from running off? Yeah, nearly impossible! Thank you to the man boarding behind me who made sure E didn't take off. Phew! Dilemma averted.

~The dinky-a$$ plane that goes from my stupid city to DFW has only 1 seat on one side and 2 on the other...yeah it's THAT small! So I was hoping for the one seat side but as my (shit) luck would have it, we were assigned to the 2 seat side. oh joy! Upon arrival to Row 14, I discovered that the wife was in the 2 seat side and her husband was in the 1 seat side. SCORE!! They agreed to switch with me and E and I got all settled in on the 1 seat side (he was a lap-child on the flight, which means he flies FREE...the only good thing about airlines these days). We begin reading about Mickey Mouses's Christmas and Diego's Rescue Adventures when the nastiest flight attendant to ever live came by to say that the little guy cannot be on the 1 seat side because there is only 1 mask on that side, while there are 3 masks on the 2 seat side. Shit! Who knew!?!? (learn something new everyday) So the musical chairs, bags, books and child begins again...phew, what a royal pain and bullets of sweat are nearly pouring off of me by this time. E and I are relocated to the window seat of Row 14 on the 2 seat side next to the wife...who was wonderful throughout the flight. Thankfully E wasn't too bad himself and I did NOT win the award for having the "worst child on the plane" Hooray!!

~After arriving in DFW and racing off the plane at lightning speed, we went promptly to the bathroom. More for me than E. Let me warn ALL moms or future moms...don't drink ANYTHING, not even a drop, for at least 2-3 hours before flying ALONE with your child, because there is NO way in hell you are using an airplane bathroom while tending to your toddler. It just ain't happening. Oh and I typically don't use them anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to find the most fantastic Family Restroom ever...they are the best. I peed. Ahhh! Then I changed E's diaper. Ahhh! We were both much happier now! On to the baggage claim where my bag promptly arrived and I happily greeted my aunt and my 17 yo cousin.

~Did I mention that E did NOT sleep a wink on the flight? Yep, the flight was EXACTLY during his nap time but there was WAY too much excitement for him so there was no way he was napping. He was OUT after only 5 minutes in the car. Hooray!! On we went to see my uncle at his work where they were having a smorgasbord of food to draw in customers (he works @ an Audi dealership)...we had free brunch!! Yay!! From there we proceeded to Target, Market Street and later to Fadi's for dinner, the best Middle Eastern food ever!! Yum!!

~The following days were filled with shopping trips with my aunt, which are ALWAYS fun, having lunch at Mi Cocina with 2 gals I worked with back in 1997-2000, a bloggy meet-up and lunch at Chipotle with Andie and a meet-up with another friend, that I can't tell you a thing about. :) In all, a great trip and I really could have used a few more days as there were other friends I wanted to meet up with but ran out of time. Having not rented a car made the logistics of such meet ups a bit of a challenge as I did not want my aunt to feel like a chauffeur for the week.

~I had not been back to DFW since March 2007 and well, being there this time just made me want to move back ASAP. There's just something about it...I love it there, even though every single day of my four years living there were not rosy or wonderful, many of them were and I simply love the area and the feelings that I have when I'm there. It just feels "right". Hopefully I'll get back in June for my cousin's high school graduation. :)

~We flew back on 12.31 and while I was hoping for an overbooked flight and the chance for a free ticket and to stay in DFW another day or so, it didn't happen. Also, when I remembered that once you check your bags, you can't get them back, that pretty much eliminated the opportunity for staying anyway. Boo! The flight was not full, we had an empty seat next to us....finally some good luck because I'm pretty sure it was just about the only empty seat on the plane. With E being such an experienced flyer by now, he eventually grew bored and decided to nap for the LAST 15 minutes of the flight...ARGH!!! That's my boy....couldn't have done that early in the flight so I could have maybe read a book or done something besides look at Mickey Mouse and Diego...but all in all, it was a good trip and a nice man even offered to get my stroller out for me once we arrived back in Knoxville since I had a sleeping babe on my shoulder. He didn't offer to open it up for me, which would have been quite helpful, but I managed. As a mother, you learn to do a lot of things one-handed that you would normally do with two.