The Adventure Begins

Here I begin the daunting task of blogging and scrapbooking our trip to Pennsylvania. Let me say up front that it was a wonderful vacation. Yes, Kathryn Thomas, I can say it was a "vacation". :) The kids and I flew out late Monday night. And by "late" I mean late! The plane took off a little after eleven at night. Here's a picture of my super-big girl sitting by herself on the other side of the aisle. 

On the other side of the aisle we tried to make the best of very small stiff seats. I tried to get Nathan and Alynna to cuddle on the bench so they could get a good night's sleep. That didn't quite work for Nathan. I dozed off only once that night and when I woke up I found Nathan sitting cross-legged on the floor thinking that might be more comfortable. It was a wee bit pathetic.

The good thing about the red-eye flights was that the baby slept on three of the four flights. The bad thing was the inability to sleep myself. It was impossible to get comfortable. I think that first night we flew to Detroit and then Pennsylvania I slept for an hour. It was exhausting. I still think that might be more compassionate for a very active little explorer like Simon.

After trying our best at the whole sleep thing we gave up and started fiddling with the screens in front of us. It turns out we were flying on a 777, which offered dozens of free movies. The kids happily ate snacks while they feasted deeply on the fun entertainment. Nathan was very excited about the "free" peanuts. I was excited for him, but I really wanted to say, "Free!?! Do you know how much I paid for that little bag of peanuts?" Free indeed.

After three and a half hours we arrived in Detroit. I haven't flown in a very long time. When I saw that the flight left from LAX at 11:05pm and arrived in Detroit at 6:30am I thought nothing of the time change. I actually thought, "Perfect! We'll get almost a full night's sleep and be good to go!" I know. I know. I feel stupid even saying it. Like I said, I don't fly much. I was really thrown when the pilot said we would be landing in approximately three and a half hours! I even questioned whether I was on the right plane! What had happened to my full night of sleep for the kids?
Detroit was rumored to be a large airport that might be stressful to maneuver with four children, so I purposefully found a long layover so we could take our time. Yeah... three hours was a very long time. We tried to make the most of it by riding the tram. Turns out that wasn't too interesting after the third ride. Okay. On to the next... what? 

After a little bit of walking just for the sake of walking the effects of the teeny weeny amount of sleep started setting in. Attitudes began to set in hard. We sat down to eat our picnic breakfast... even though it wasn't really breakfast time. hahahahahaha Can I remind you I don't fly much?

Thankfully the flight from Detroit to Elmira was a mere hour. It was a lovely little jaunt that was over before you could say, "I'm so tired I could cry!"

This picture was taken before we said good-bye to the supportive husband and walked through security.  Apparently Alynna is growling like a tiger at the camera. I, however, think it just screams, "Arr, matey!"