12/15/2011 - And We're Out!

Flight Time: 7am

Location: Mesa Gateway Airport

Time we left home: 4:30am

Mood:  Groggy, Grouchy, Anxious

As usual, Christmas travel involves WAY too much luggage.

One, in particular, was a duffle bag as big as me

and almost weighed the same.

I was very nervous as to how I was going to pull this all off.

As I was literally dragging luggage piled on luggage

 and crying children through the airport,

they announced over the speakers

"Today we are checking ALL bags for free"

Merry Freakin Christmas to Me!!

I was so excited I tried to check the kids too.

Somehow they caught that one.

Once we were checked in,

it was easy strolling from there.

Just my backpack full of snacks/games

and of course pillow pets.

Oh and lucky for all of us with small children,

the TSA finally relaxed on one rule.

Children no longer have to take off their shoes through security.

Wow, thanks for your generosity and common sense

that you now have realized for the past 10 years

that 1 yr olds weren't sporting bombs in their shoes.
(just a different bomb in their diapers instead).

And we were off! 

Taylee was an obedient passenger and thoroughly studied the safety rules.

Anden, not so much!

Thank you for DVD players and video games!

We finally made it

with my sanity in tact!

Later that night was Dad's Church Christmas Dinner Party.

He was in charge of the whole thing.

So we all went to support him.

After dinner was a program by all the Primary kids.

Anden and Taylee graciously crashed their performance! lol

20 minutes later when they were still stuck up there,

they might have rethought their choice.

But the biggest surprise of the day was Dad's Christmas Tree

Seriously?

This is taking Redneck to a whole new level.

Apparently now it's acceptable to have outdoor Christmas Lawn Ornaments

indoors as a focal point.

As I was cracking up laughing,

Dad explains

"Hey it goes up in 30 seconds,

no mess,

takes down in 30 seconds,

no mess,

and stores in a 1 inch thick box.

I was speechless.

This was actually a brilliant idea after all.

And we definitely won't have that age old problem

of the missing Christmas gift

hidden behind the back of the tree.

Ours is transparent.