A Day to Remember

"go. there's nothing stopping you" Really...how about being stuck in the Dayton Airport for 13 hours. That doesn't really seem like we can "go", now does it?

I hesitate to relay this situation because of embarrassment for my dear husband. However, it was such a victory for me that I feel like I should share.

Andrew, Toby and myself flew from Atlanta into the Dayton Ohio Airport on Saturday morning to attend a few Pieracini festivities. We rented a car from Avis and drove straight to Carey, Ohio to meet Kathy and Steve at Aunt Denise's 50th birthday party. We then drove to Liberty Center to play games (Would you Rather?) and spend the night. We woke up, drove to Wauseon for church...drove home...then drove BACK to Carey for the reunion. We had so much fun being with everyone and I realized how hard it is being away from family. It was sure great to see Toby interact with all of his cousins and they were all SO happy to see him! (It seems as though I am complaining about the driving. But in fact, I am simply explaining that the weekend went by extremely quickly and progressed with little sleep.) After the reunion, we drove back to Liberty and stayed up until midnight and woke up at 3am to drive to Dayton to return our rental car and catch a 7am flight.

Ok, so the stage is set and here is where it gets interesting.

After dropping the car off, we waited in the Air Tran line to check our bags. I noticed on the daily itineraries posted by Air Tran, that there was no 7am flight to Atlanta. In fact, I relayed this observation to Andrew which he shrugged off. When it was our turn, we handed our boarding passes to the employee who kindly informed us that we were booked on the 7pm flight.

7 PPPPPPPPPMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Keep in mind that Toby, at 14 months, got his first teeth this weekend and there were more forthcoming. You can imagine his restlessness.) Now, here is where my MAJOR victory occurred. Andrew was the one who booked these flights online and I must say that a few years ago, I would have made him pay for this BIG TIME. He was so upset and I knew that this situation/day was going to happen whether I was in a good mood or bad. So, I told him that I was with my 2 favorite people in the entire world and that we would figure something out! (Is there some kind of "wife award" to be won for something like this?")

The next flight was leaving at 10:10am and we decided to try and fly standby. So, 4 hours later we were waiting at gate C22 and were told that the flight was full. The next flight was leaving at 2:30pm but was already overbooked. Could we really expect Toby to hold out another 8 hours at the airport when we had already been there for 5 hours? We decided to take a shuttle to a local Motel 8 to let Toby rest for a few hours and we followed suite.

We woke up, jumped back on the shuttle, caught our 7pm flight to Atlanta and dealt with a not-so-pleasant Toby on the plane. After arriving, there was a problem with the luggage getting to the Baggage Claim area. It took an hour for the conveyor to start moving, so in the interim, I decided to search for our other bag that Air Tran lost. I found it in an overflow room. Luckily, Andrew and I recently purchased bright orange luggage for this very reason! All the while, I kept the same smile on my face. (Where's the award?)

As we were driving home from our long day, Andrew posed a question. He asked, "Honey, would you rather have spent this day at home, catching up on sleep or having this experience all over again?" With eyes barely open, I answered "sleeping, of course." But if I may change my answer now, I would choose to spend the day with my boys all over again! But next time, Andrew, I will book our flights.