we made it and it better be worth it!

It's story time so get comfy, this is a long one.
So after 3 days of "oh, you'll fly tomorrow", I couldn't handle the stress anymore so we called Ryan's mom and had her book us on her buddy passes. I got sick of cleaning the house last minute because we never knew when the unexpected call would come. My stomach was in knots and I dry heaved quite a few times. Saturday I took the kids to the pool by our house so our lives could seem normal. All we did was stay at home to be prepared to leave at any minute. We swam for 4 hours and it was exactly what we needed. Ryan's mom called us after checking the flights and said Venice at 1:40 on Sunday would be best. After cleaning up from the pool I went into the city to buy train tickets. I got there and the self service wouldn't let me buy my tickets, so then I proceeded to the ticket booth to ask a human. I wanted the train that left Florence at 6:30 am, let me rephrase that, I didn't want, I needed because it is a 3 hour train ride and I had no other choice. Well he told me I couldn't buy them because the trains were going on strike that evening at 9 pm until 8 am on Sunday. Do you recall the trip to Cinque Terra with my aunt when the trains went on strike? In my mind "effin Italians and their damn strikes!" So I call Ryan to tell him and we were racking our brains and stressing about what the heck we are going to do. He just told me to come home to hurry and gather everything together and once again hurry and clean up the house just in case we left that night and got a hotel in Venice. In the meantime he called some friends to see if they could give us a ride, but let's be honest, would you drive 3 hours both ways to take someone to the airport? Our awesome friend Eliana saved our life! She is from church and is so good to our family. Her friends, friend, works at a car rental place and got us a sweet freakin fiat station wagon for 70 euros and we could drop it off at the Venice airport! So Ryan told me, that I had to go get the car, and I was going to drive us. Problem, I couldn't find my driver's licence because when do I ever need it in Italy? Then I told Ryan he needed to go and he couldn't find his either! This ended up being a blessing because we did find them but would have come to the states without them had we not rented the car. So on Sunday we got up and hit the road. The drive was great and got us there faster than the train. I wanted to keep the car.
No excitement at the airport but they did hook us up with good seats. Ryan had a row of 3 seats in the bulk head and I also had the same about 8 rows back. THE KIDS WERE PERFECT!!!! It was such a blessing, keep in mind this was a 10 hour flight and they were great the ENTIRE time! We flew into Atlanta and the whole airport/customs was annoying but again the kids were fine. The connecting flight to Salt Lake was too full ( we were flying stand-by) so Ryan' mom recommended we go to Albuquerque. That flight left at 9:50 so the kids slept the entire flight. We got to New Mexico at 11:30pm and were planning on catching the 6:10 am flight to salt lake. Therefore, we spent the night in the airport. We grabbed 3 blankets off the airplane and the kids lounged comfortably on the seats in the terminal. Another blessing to being in NM, the chairs weren't your standard airport seats that are pretty much single chairs, they were benches with arm rests in between, so the kids could lie down under the armrest and be comfy.
They slept a good 4 hours. Ryan and I on the other hand couldn't quite slip under the arm rests and the kind of sleep we got was when you lie in an awkward position and finally fall asleep and then your back starts killing you so you wake up and try to find a somewhat comfy position. So we pretty much talked and laughed at stupid stuff because we were so delirious.
Well, the 6 am flight was full. Do I have to tell you what I was thinking? We checked out the restaurants at the airport and had some breakfast. This was wonderful because my favorite dining food is breakfast and Italians don't do breakfast. Then we just hung out, I tried to catch up on all my Hollywood gossip in the magazine store and then to my surprise I spotted my friend Theressa from UT who had just moved to NM! That was a nice surprise and made the wait much more pleasant. And she had a newborn so Cloe and Abbey were busy, and at this point Brody was asleep. Ryan and I are now on 36 hours without sleep.


Our next flight to try was at 10:28 but was delayed until 11:30. I was the only one to make the fight and had no choice but to go. As I walked down the ramp I started crying mostly because I was exhausted but also because after all we've been through I was leaving Ryan and the kids behind. The flight was short and I got to UT at 1:10 and waited around for the next NM flight that left at 12:10. 1:45 rolled around and there's my cute little family walking off the ramp! Again, we were blessed, because there were only three seats left on that flight from Albuquerque to Salt Lake. Well with Ryan and the kids, that made 4 people, and you can't send any kid alone unless they're 8 years old. So randomly meeting my friend at the New Mexico airport saved us, because the nice Delta guy who was trying to help Ryan get on said Cloe could go if she sat by my friend. Then at the last minute he felt pitty on Ryan and gave him the last two seats on the plane, listing Abbey as a 23 month old (which means she could be a lap child and sit on Ryan's lap) and Brody could have the last seat on the plane. Awesome! We got into Salt Lake within minutes of each other after over 40 hours of travel time. SO this story has 2 morals, first, don't plan train trips with Courtney in Italy and second, when it rains it pours but the Lord always hands you an umbrella ;)