Our trip begins!

This is Jeff and I three hours before our flight leaves on Tuesday morning.  We are the only ones at the gate.  We flew through security (which if I remember correctly Jeff got his first of several extra screenings on this trip) and breezed through to the gate to sit and wait for 2 and a half hours.  We were a little tired (we got up at 4:30 am) and just enjoyed the opportunity to read and relax.  We are unaccustomed to such activities and have decided that must be what R & R(read and relax) stand for.  This was such an unusual thing for us we actually found waiting enjoyable.  I could not help be reflect on our previous trip with the 6 kids on a discount airline (where we had to pay $40 for checked luggage) so we had each of the kids take a rolling suitcase and carry-on.  Did I mention that the twins were 6 months old at the time?  Did I mention that the oldest was 8?  Did I mention we had 6 kids?  I did not think to take a stroller, so Jeff and I were carrying the kids in addition to pulling our own rolling suitcase and carry-on and helping younger kids with their stuff.  Just for the record MaggieMae's bag was not as heavy as the rest of us...come on the kid was three.  Then there was the occasional nauseous kid, plane turbulence (did I mention we flew into a hurricane?  Seriously, we were the last flight out of both airports, they had closed down all airlines and we only got to land cause we were so close.  When we left the airport the rain was literally flying sideways).  Oh, that was an eventful trip.

So memories of other trips made this one delightful, although I felt compelled to ask anyone who had small children if they needed help.  They all turned me down.  Let me warn you, if I am in the airport with lots of kids, and you ask me if I'd like help, I WILL say yes.  I am not an idiot.  I have never received an award for wrestling a stroller down a flight of stairs.  Actually, I have never received an award for any of the labor intensive things I have undertaken so that my unusually large family can do the same things that many smaller families do without thought.  And I am OK with that.  I know what I do is because I want my family to enjoy life, not wait for it to happen.  Which is just the reason why I found myself in the airport waiting for 2 and a half hours, because when given the chance, I am going to enjoy the world around me, with or without my kids.