The plane ride home

Our kids got to fly on an airplane for the first time on our trip home. They were so excited. We made it through security with little problems, Chad's bag got checked and he lost a pair of nail clippers. When we got to our gate we had about an hour to kill. So I took the kids to the game room. They didn't use any money, but had fun pushing buttons. Then we watched as our plane pulled up to the gate. Everyone hit the restroom, I paid $5.50 for 2 sodas and we got in line to board the plane.

Andy and I sat on one side of the aisle and Chad, Gabi and Evan on the other. We had Andy in his five point harness car seat to ensure he would sit still. Gabi and Evan took turns sitting by the window. Their faces of amazement and wonder as we took off were fun to watch. Andy acted as if he flew all the time. "Here we go!" And then he wasn't even watching anymore. Our itinerary had us flying from Boise to Chicago and taking 4 hours. We had kept Andy awake and he soon settled in for his nap. Perfect, I thought he will sleep for two hours and we will only have one left to entertain him. Just as he got good and asleep the plane start to descend. Unknown to us we were stopping in Salt Lake City. We didn't change planes, but people got off and more people got on. Landing didn't wake him up, but all the people moving around did. So much for the best made plans!
This time the plane was full and I had to scoot over and allow someone to sit in our row. She was a nice woman but made it hard with Andy because now I didn't have a place to put drinks that was out of his reach. Luckily there was a child sitting in front of Andy during our whole trip. Because flying with Andy awake went something like this: Open window, close window, put down tray, put up tray, kick tray with your feet, play with your toys, drop your toys, kick mommy's tray with your feet, get up and go potty, repeat 800 times!
We were early getting to Chicago but had to circle a few times because of storms. When we got off the plane we had 35 minutes until our next flight took off and we were at the end of the wrong terminal. So we took off running. Chad with his bag, the computer and two booster seats, me with my bag, andy's back pack and his giant car seat, Gabi with her rolling suitcase, Evan with his back pack and Andy with his lunch box. We got on and off about 8 of those moving walkways. Evan only wiped out once getting off. We got the the right terminal and had to go all the was to the other end. Once there realized our departure time was delayed for an hour. So we had about 20 minutes before we boarded. We all went to the bathroom and then I paid way too much for some Mcdonald's. When I got back the plane was boarding so we took our food on with us.
It was a two hour flight to Philly and the first hour I was ready to be done with Andy. Thankfully he fell asleep for the last hour. After landing, collecting our luggage, boarding the shuttle and getting in our car it was 12:15. We made it home at 1:00. The next morning was the last day of our church kids camp. I woke the kids up at 8:00 so they could go and I could help out if needed. We were all waaay adjusted to pacific time. SO the big kids were crying as I dragged them to the car. They were happy they went though! Andy would NOT wake up. I tried everything. Chad had a Dr. appt. at noon so I told him to just bring Andy to me on the way. He had to wake him up at 11:00 so they could go. It took us about a week to get them to Eastern time again.