Our Christmas Travels

On the morning of December 23rd we set out for AL to share and celebrate Christmas with some of our family out of state. My grandmother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and I wanted to see her before treatment started. Her mother, my great grandmother (the girls' great great grandmother), was also traveling to AL with my Great Aunt Patty. I wanted to take this opportunity to see her. I wanted Ella to meet her. (McKenna met her once before.)

We flew American Airlines and changed planes in Chicago's O'Hare Airport. When we left MPLS in the morning there was a lot of fresh snow on the ground, a lot! We were delayed leaving MPLS about an hour waiting on deicing and so forth.

We landed in O' Hare around 11:00am. It didn't take long for us to find out that our flight was delayed. Then our flight was canceled. After a lot of hurry up and wait and a lot of talking to multiple agents, we went standby for a flight to Nashville (about 2 hours north of HSV). That flight was delayed, then canceled. So, more hurry up and wait and then more agents. We went standby for a flight to Chattanooga. That flight was delayed, then canceled. The majority of O'Hare was then grounded. Just about every flight was canceled! Ug.

Thankfully, we were able to get a hotel-at a discount, not free. A shuttle picked us up and brought us to the hotel around 8:45 pm. From the hotel, I called and re booked the soonest flight to HSV.....December 25th in the afternoon. What? Two days in the hotel? What about our bags? Come on, I am with 2 young kids....I need my bags. My toothbrush, makeup, his deodorant. AHHH! The airport and airline agents assured me that we would get our bags in HSV on the 25th. Not now, in the hotel.

In the meantime our cell phones had lost all charge. No problem, right? Wrong! Our chargers were in the checked bags. Double Ug!

No bags, no phones, only costly restaurants around us. I begged the shuttle driver to drop us at the Target down the road on his airport runs. He said no.

Well, let's make some lemonade with these lemons. So, we paid a taxi to bring us to Target to pick up a few essentials to get us through the next day and half. The hotel also had a general store and a restaurant. There was no continental breakfast however, there was a McD's across the snowy highway.

What did we do, you ask? Well, we jumped on the beds, ran down the hallways, watched a lot of TV (specifically the Ice Age marathon that was on one of the channels), we played a lot of Leapster (the girls' hand held electronic game systems). We visited the general store in the main lobby a bunch. By the way, the front desk people loaned us a charger for our phones! Wahoo!


Here's the view from our floor. Those are tables and chairs that you see.

The girls are posing in front of the few toys we had in our carry on and our shoes.

When we got off of the plane, my grandfather AND our luggage were waiting. We went straight to my grandparents house and showered and prepared for the giant Christmas party that started about 90 minutes after we got there.

My mom and the girls in their new pajamas.

Kyle opening his stocking (which by the way is officially retired now that he is soon to graduate school and become a college student).
Santa Nana