Waking Up!

We were up at 7:30am and the first thing we did is take Ollie to Petopia. He would be there for 10 days so we grabbed a blanket, his grey bed thingy and food. Signed off on a bunch of treats while were gone and left him to fend for himself for a while. We would be able to see him on Snapchat on occasion.

Heather left her earbuds at work so we swung by there quick. We had received a fair amount of freezing rain and drizzle a few days before we left. The city quickly ran out of salt and to make matters worse, the neighbor behind us had a bum foot AND then slipped and fell and broke two ribs. So I wanted to put down salt for us and for him before we left so I dumped two bags of salt down trying to get rid of most of the ice in our driveway. The day we left the sun was out and chunks of ice were falling off the objects it clung to but there was still plenty of ice hanging on. The following photos are from the trees we saw as we headed out of town. There is more I’d like to write about but some things should not be public. Lets just say I got stopped and Kaitlyn saved me by saying “mom can’t find your razor”

We were shooting to leave by 10:30, after a quick stop at school to drop off calendars and money we were on the interstate by 11:20. As we left and talking about things that should be done Ella exclaimed “We ain’t gots to think”. So with that motto we took it in and also decided to write down as many quotes as we could during the trip.

We dropped Kaitlyn’s car off at Brian’s in Fargo. Google Maps got us lost and come to find out we had it set to walking instead of driving. After confusing Brian how her two remotes work for her car we went to Chipotle. I dropped the other 4 off and I went to fill gas as we saw the line was long. Honestly, I think I am over Chipotle. The lines are often way too long and lately the food hasn’t been what it once was. That makes me sad cause I used to love going there.

By this time it was 1:30pm. Heather was hoping to drop her ring off at Zales as she lost a stone from her wedding ring but ran out of time. We made good time to the Cities and Maps took us around the south loop. We stopped at the Holiday near Terminal 2 to wait for the Augers. They were coming with their 5, plus luggage plus Ally’s boyfriend Charlie and Charlie’s dad. This was planned so they could just drive our cars down to Auger’s house and wouldn’t have to pay for parking. They said their ETA at Terminal 1 was 5:41 so we met them there around that time. Would have loved to see them pile out of the car but they pulled ahead of us and we missed it.

FLYING

I get a little confused sometimes with how airlines do things now. We had our tickets on our Fly Delta app. We checked in at the self check-in screens using our phones. We checked one piece of luggage each and you had the option of printing boarding passes which we did but Augers did not. THEN you have to go to another line to physically hand the bags then the agent checks your Passports as well. I guess I question whether it would have been faster to just go directly to the agent but whatever. Lines were fairly short and we had 1.5 hours before the flight left. The TSA agent stopped Sophie and asked her a bunch of questions like what sports she plays and what position? It was all in good fun.

We were at gate F6 and there was food right there, Chic Fil A, Panda Express, Wendy’s so we all got something to eat. There was a bunch of Koreans at our gate all with some kind of basketball looking jerseys on. Chris being Chris, tried to talk to one of them asking them what they were doing and all he could get out of them was…Camp. Apparently they were going to a camp. We were in rows 45 and 46, way in the back pretty much again.

Linda and I may have wound up paying more by jumping the gun early for flights and going on Delta but the kids were very excited to have so many choices of things to watch on the flight that we decided we did a good job.

The flight was set to leave at 9:20 pm and get in close to midnight. The tug that pushed the airplane back broke. I am not exactly sure what happened but it was about 9:45 by the time we actually were taxiing to the runway which meant we got to Orlando around 12:15 am.

I tried watching Barbie movie and I just couldn’t do it so wound up watching Gran Tarismo which was good. Heather did watch Barbie but AFTER she would watch “Hey God, It’s Me, Margret” Heather would have a good laugh now and again about it to the point where Sophie wound up watching it later. I think Chris wound up watching the first season of Cheers.

Now during the flight Ella put me in the middle and a stranger at the window. She would do it to me again on the flight home. Why oh why do people who get the window seat NEVER LOOK OUT THE WINDOW? It gets me so angry cause I would be looking out the whole time. What’s more is this guy just took both arm rests as he fell asleep with his neck pillow on and started snoring. It actually was enough that Chris, who was in the row behind me, actually could hear him snore.

It felt cool when we came off the airplane and into the airport. There was a balloon left at the gate that I am guessing some poor kid couldn’t take with so it just hung there at the gate. Leighton was the about the tallest kid that could jump up and get it.

He walked with it for a while then decided to let it go to which a bunch of people including the Korean girls said, “awwww”. After we got on the tram to take us to the main center terminal Leighton realized he left his water bottle on the plane. So while the rest of us went to get our luggage and try to get our shuttle to pick us up Chris and Leighton went back to the gate. On the way Chris talked to some people in the terminal that just happened to be the people going to that gate to clean the plane so those people went in and found his water bottle.

They came back just as we all got our luggage and figured out where to meet the shuttle. The lady told us go down and go to either A4 or A 4 zero. Well we were near 4 so we went there to wait. There were shuttles coming and going consistently and it felt like a bit of a cluster. Our shuttle came but there were other people waiting so he grabbed them as said he’d be back in 12 minutes. Well it was closer to 20 but in the mean time we watched as others shuttles showed up. It seems like no matter what we do we are always the last group waiting to go somewhere or to finish up.

HOTEL SHUTTLES

There was one lady driving a shuttle that we dubbed as Cheryl and she came in hot. People asked if she was going to a particular hotel and “Cheryl” said “I got you” and those people jumped in. We joked how Cheryl would drift out as she took off from the parking space. Ella wanted to ride shotgun with Cheryl and it would be called “Shotgunnin with Cheryl”. We figured Cheryl had a disco ball in her van and alcohol and perhaps anything else you would need. One shuttle would come later and was upset because the people were no longer there. Well guess who took them? Cheryl. We figured that guy knew it was Cheryl’s fault as we figured she did this all the time. We had a good laugh over it all. Here is a picture of us in our shuttle. It was full with us and a few others in it. We stayed at the Hampton Inn and Suites Orlando Airport @ Gateway Village

So we were able to check in using an app. I had downloaded the wrong app as I needed the Hilton Honors app. Not sure which one I even had to start but it caused me all kinds of confusion. Finally I realized what I had done and we were able to check in before we even got there and used the app to unlock the door when we got there. We got to the hotel probably close to 2 am.

We would switch clothes for tomorrow as it would be one of our cooler sailaways, some showered, I got the right documents ready and we were in bed somewhere between 2:30 and 3am and our transport service was set to pick us up by 9:30am…Short sleep.

Tomorrow – Embarkation!