Spring Break

WARNING: LONG and LOTS of PICTURES!!!!

Ok, now I finally have time to sit down and record the details of our fun trip. We left on Sunday, the 15th for Dallas via plane. It was to be Anna's first plane ride, so I of course kept the camera handy. She was a little nervous, but did fine. Here is a picture of her waiting for the plane: (watching the Smurfs in a little kiddie area...Thank you Lubbock!)

And now another picture of her waiting to take off:

She was a little nervous and as we were leaving the ground she went "WOE, WOOOOE!" LOL! The other passengers around us were tickled by it. It was kind of cute and it wasn't too loud, just loud enough for a few rows of passengers to hear.

She asked me why her ears had to pop a few times, and we read a book of hers to distract and other than that, she watched out the window. It was a good flight and the landing was perfect into Dallas. She also went "WOE, WOOOE" on the landing and again tickled the passengers. It was a very good first flight for her and the flight attendant on the way out gave her a package of wings. YES, an entire package. (They are mostly still roaming the house somewhere too.)

Monday we went to the zoo. Anna's first trip to the Zoo. She had a great time and boy was she excited about it when we got there. She was flying off the zoo walls. LOL! It was VERY hot and humid on Monday, so I am glad we only went for half a day. She got to see everything she wanted except the lions. The lion exhibit was being repaired, so no lions. Exciting none-the-less and she loved it. She also couldn't believe how big the elephants really were. Now here's a few zoo pictures:

Tuesday was a little bit of shopping day and kill time. I got Anna some cute clothes for a dollar a piece at "Once Upon a Child." The one down from my sister is really good. We also got a bunch of books for school, which really weighed down my suitcase coming home. That was about it for the day as my sister had a root canal done Tuesday afternoon. OUCH!!

Wednesday we went shopping to Grapevine Mills mall. I absolutely love to shop at that mall. Their "Children's Place" is one of my favorite stores to shop for Anna. She has a bunch of their clothes, but they all look so good and wear so well. The best part is mostly they are cheap, usually under $3 an item!! You can't beat that for brand new clothes. I did splurge and buy Anna two super cute outfits at $7 a piece, but she looks so cute in them. I couldn't resist and my child needed the clothes. She wore one of them to church Sunday and got lots of compliments, so it was WELL worth it to me. Oh yeah, between the books and shopping, we filled our large suitcase to bring home with new stuff. :-) Glad I borrowed a second one for this trip. The girls also went on the carousel and Anna of course picked a black horse. My sister put Graciela on for her first ride, so here are a few pictures from that as well.

Anna loved the carousel and I am pretty sure Graciela did too.

Thursday we were to head home. Here's is where the real adventure began!! LOL!! Since we had an early flight out, we went ahead and went to the airport early enough to get checked through security and have some breakfast, which in turn would leave us about an hour to kill before our scheduled departure time. Airport arrival was about 7am. Not too bad. I was impressed. We got our luggage checked and got our tickets and proceeded through the mess called security screening and went to McDonald's for breakfast. Not too bad so far and all is well. After breakfast, we sit and play on the DS and I do crosswords. Nothing is ever said of our flight being delayed until after 9:30am. Our flight was supposed to leave at 9:25am, so I knew it was going to be late, but how late. At 9:30, we find out that there is zero visibility in Houston and our flight is going to Houston before coming to Dallas, so we will be delayed about 45 minutes. Okay, not so bad, so we just sit and color and I continue crosswords. About 15 minutes later they decided to go ahead and cancel the flight we should have been on. YES, CANCEL!!! AACK!! This isn't in the plans, but they plan to get us all on other planes, via standby throughout the day, so we are told to sit and wait. OK, sitting and waiting is easy when your old enough to not care, but my poor 7 years old was afraid we were never going home and that we had missed the plane and that was the end of it. Despite how many times I told her no. About 11am, they sent us all over to another gate to wait and see if we couldn't get on that plane via standby. When I got to that gate, they said that we would have to wait until 1pm at the earliest to even find out if we would make it. OK, so far from 7am to 11am is 4 hours in one airport for a very active 7 year old. UGH!! Starting to be a long wait, so we went to Chili's for lunch. I let Anna have french fries and tell her that if the wait is going to be more than an hour after lunch, that we will go by the Barbie she saw in the gift shop. A Southwest Authentic Barbie. UGH!! Lunch didn't take but about 45 minutes, so off we go to buy the very expensive Barbie, that has shoes that don't go on and her own rolling suitcase. Here's a picture:

About 45 minutes later I ask the lady at the counter if there are really any chances of us getting on the plane that about 75 other people are also waiting on and she says no, but that the next plane that was supposed to leave at 1:55pm, we could definitely get on it, but it too was delayed. She gave us new tickets for the 1:55pm plane and we make out way off the floor to the new gate. YES, we have been to three different gates now. At the new gate, there are a couple of pilots there by about 2pm, so I get the brilliant idea to ask if they would take a picture with Anna. Why not, we are still in a wait and see pattern. So, here is the said picture:

Steve (bald guy) and Danny, our actual pilots for our flight home from Dallas to Lubbock. They were both very nice and Steve told Anna that if she waited around when we got to Lubbock, that he would let her sit in the cockpit!! YES!! Of Course we will stick around!! You don't get that opportunity very often and we aren't flying again anytime soon. The flight home was uneventful. Anna did well and didn't "freak out" as she calls it. She was ready to be home and out of all airports, so it was a relatively easy flight. We left Dallas around 3:00pm ish (after being there since 7am-YES, almost 8 hours spent in an airport-it would have taken less time to drive home) and arrived home around 4:15pm. We did indeed get a picture from the cockpit once we returned to Lubbock!! It was great!

Anna had one more surprise when we returned home and that was a new pet bird. Here is a picture of that bird, who she named Tim.

Jeremy has all the details of the bird on his blog, so i will let you all read that if you want to. I guess that's it. You all are finally clued in to the details of my trip. Sorry so long and all, but I wanted to make sure it got posted. I hope you enjoyed and have a great week. We are back to school today, so it is time to get moving and ready. Take care and God bless.