I spent a solid week organizing for our trip to South Carolina. Eventually I ran out of time and started throwing stuff into suitcases. My kids spent a lot of time at Shay’s house until she decided to buy the house two doors down and put hers on the market. Then I got to watch her kids for a morning. We did a good job lining up our eight kids almost exactly.
Saturday morning was our plane trip, so of course Ben woke up at four a.m. and Logan woke up with pink eye. Delta changed our flight without letting us know so we left 90 minutes earlier than usual. Thankfully I checked so we left early, but by the time we got through Delta and security, the plane was already boarding. Which was fine with me because Delta wouldn’t issue Christopher a pass to go through security with us.
The flight from Seattle to Atlanta was about five hours and thankfully, there were TVs at every seat. The three big kids sat in front and Logan and I sat behind them. The arrangement worked well because I didn’t have to worry about Logan kicking the seat in front of him. Gavin didn’t seem to even notice. A nice army officer and father of boys sat next to Logan and I.
Logan was done after about two hours and kept saying, “I’m so tired!” but he wouldn’t take a nap. Ben was done after about three hours. We took multiple potty breaks and soldiered on. In Atlanta we found a Chick-fil-a and found our gate, which was thankfully in a quiet terminal. The little ran around and generally caused a ruckus until I wrangled them with a phone app. Our flight was delayed but the trip was only about half an hour and we arrived in Columbia to Grammy, Poppy, and Allison.
PS – Ben’s mouth is the scariest thing we had to deal with on the trip. In one elevator he exclaimed “What’s your problem, man?” to a rather scary-looking fellow who accidentally leaned against him. To the eight year old girl who kicked his seat on the second flight he yelled, “Do I need to come back there?” All seemed forgiven though, when the short flight ended and he struck up a conversation. After talking for about thirty seconds he looked her up and down and said, “Wanna marry?”
I HAVE to meet Ben. I’m so glad you are writing these things down.