frequent flyers.

A few days ago my friend Stacey blogged about a rough trip she had on the way to visit family in Texas. Upon reading her story, I thought "wow, I'm glad we have always had perfectly smooth trips, especially with Carly!" This is when I should have said "Knock on wood" and knocked on the cabinet next to me. But I didn't . . .

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Yesterday morning, it was time for our Idaho vacay to come to an end. We were late on our way to the airport in Salt Lake. My parents were dropping us off, then heading down to Provo to take my brother to the MTC. Was that nuts? Possibly, but that's what we did and we were late. So upon our arrival to the airport we bid quick goodbyes and ran to our gate, making it just in time to board. Ok, we made it . . . smooth sailing from there, right?

[Carly loved looking out the window at the other airplanes.]

In the air on the way to Chicago, the captain came over the speaker repeatedly telling us about being rerouted. Over and over again. Then we were in a holding pattern outside of Chicago. Apparently, severe thunderstorms meant nobody was getting to O'Hare. And apparently all our rerouting and holding used up all our fuel, because we were headed to Rockford, IL to refuel. Things were looking good [this post will be heavy with sarcasm]. We landed, but so did a bunch of other planes. We had about an hour until we could even find out when we could leave Rockford. And we weren't allowed off the plane because the airport didn't have security. So for . . . oh, 2 1/2 to 3 hours we sat in the tiny plane in Rockford. With lots of unhappy people and a really unhappy baby. But when Carly is unhappy she doesn't cry, per se. She gets hyper. She is everywhere and needs to be moving constantly and get into everything. Like she is just beside herself. Makes for some fun times while trapped on a small un-moving airplane.

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But finally, FINALLY we landed in Chicago. Of course, the time for our connecting flight to Nashville had come and gone, but if we couldn't get in, then maybe that flight couldn't get out? Ummmm . . . O'Hare is massive. And it was packed with people thanks to the missed/delayed/cancelled flights. And our flight? Cancelled. We got on the standby list for the next flight to Nashville, which was 3 hours away. Aww, yes. More waiting. Oh, and I packed just enough food/formula to last the length of the planned trip. So our exhausted baby was also receiving rations of sustenance. Anyway, we were numbers 10 and 11 the the standby list, and the screen showed 4-6 available seats at any given time. Our chances were not looking good. I began wondering how we would spend the night in Chicago. The cost of shuttles and hotels started to tick through my mind. Could we spend the night in the airport? Maybe it would be worth it. The panic began to rise in my chest. Luckily, Carly had passed out by this time, and I was left to worry without any distractions.

[But isn't she yummy? Could have eaten her here. I was starving.]

What we were praying would be our flight to Nashville got delayed . . . twice. Two hours after its original departure time, and five hours after our arrival in Chicago, they called for boarding for the Nashville flight and started calling out names of standby passengers. I heard some names being called repeatedly. The people weren't showing up! "Chen. Passenger Chen!" they called over and over. Please, don't show up, Passenger Chen! I thought. Just then Carly woke up and I lifted her to find . . .

Yes, I kid you not, the child had peed on me. At exactly the perfect time. I ran to the bathroom to change (luckily Chris had gym shorts in his carry-on), praying they would call our name, but not right then. Because if we didn't show up right away, we were out of luck. I got back to Chris just as I heard a miracle in my ears: our name called over the loudspeaker. I grabbed Carly and told Chris to run to the front. I grabbed our things and our still soaked-in-pee baby and ran. We went out on to the tarmac and Chris hollered in victory and tears sprung to my eyes. I have no idea how we got on. We were the very last two seats on the plane, and it took off minutes after we boarded.

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The plane, however, turned out to be the smallest plane I've ever been on. And it was also about 8 million degrees. I changed Carly and didn't bother finding new clothes for her. It was too hot. The guy across from us said "I wish I was wearing what she is wearing!" I wished I was too.

[Not gonna lie, we sure looked classy.] 

As our plane took off and beads of sweat rolled down my stomach, I said a small prayer of thanks for our little miracle. What a blessing it was to be on our way to Nashville. Our trip had been extended nearly 8 hours. But we were on our way.

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Rather than drive the remaining distance to Knoxville in the middle of the night, we got a hotel in Nashville. We stumbled into our room with a bag of Wendy's, covered in sweat and grime and more than a little Carly pee. But we were in the right state, and after a good meal and some Sportscenter and showers for all, we settled in for some quality sleep. And woke up just in time for check-out.

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Did I mention we had a wonderful trip? Because we really, really did. But more than ever, I am grateful to be home.