Come What May ... and LOVE IT!

My sister Katie, Sarah, Will and I had quite the adventure traveling from San Francisco to St. George yesterday. It only took 11 1/2 hours. Now, that's a typical amount of time if you are DRIVING but we weren't...

We rushed out of our apartment around 9:30 am and drove to the airport in Cyndi's luxurious car. (She was nice enough to let us borrow it so we had enough room for our luggage and the 5 of us.) We checked in curbside at SFO at 10 am (an hour and 15 minutes early) just to find out our plane was delayed a half-hour. Plenty of time. Even with checking in most of our luggage we still had two carry-on bags each, along with the car seat and stroller (snap and go) with us. But, we made it through security seamlessly and made our way to our gate.

Since we had extra time, we chose to settle in where we could see the airplanes come in and go out (Sarah LOVES "eh-manes"). After a while, Sarah got restless so Katie took her on a walk. When they got back Katie let me know people were in line at our gate and ready to board. The plane ended up not being as delayed as much as we initially were told. I hurried and grabbed the stroller, coat and bags. Will needed a diaper change so when we got to our gate I changed him and we barely made it when they called for family boarding.

Even though we were told it was a "completely full flight" there ended up being one extra seat and Sarah got it! Bliss. Sarah did a great job on the plane. She ate her "booty" and watched her Care Bear Moo-ie. The only tragedy on the flight was when we had to turn off the movie and then were stuck up in the air an extra 20 minutes due to a dust storm in Vegas. Katie kept Sarah entertained with the Christmas sticker book Cyndi gave Sarah for Christmas. (Thanks again Cyndi!) We finally landed after a roller-coaster descent. When we were gathering our belongings Katie couldn't find her purse. We looked through each bag and realized her purse - complete with her wallet and keys for her car parked at the airport - were hanging out at the San Francisco Airport. In our rush it didn't get picked up. AWESOME.

Now the true adventure began. We called the Southwest Baggage Claim and found out that some great, honest person turned in her purse. We also got authorization to have Roger pick it up later that afternoon. In the midst of everything, I accidentally smashed Sarah's fingers in the water fountain push bar. There was a really kind Southwest employee that ran and got her some ice. We called my mom to have her send down the keys on the St. George shuttle, which runs regularly to the airport throughout the day. She sent my Dad with a tip for the really nice driver. We got lunch (it was now after 1:30 pm) and called my aunt and uncle to have a place for the kids and me to stay (and sleep) for the afternoon while Katie waited for her keys. We picked up our luggage down in the baggage claim area, walked over to passenger pickup and waited for my Uncle Kay to pick us up. I left Katie with my own phone and wallet so she could have the means to get back to us and off we went. My uncle and aunt were fantastic. They set us up in a room with a crib for Sarah. It took a little while for my very over-tired Sarah to fall asleep, but once she did I was also able to take a nap. Aunt Lynn took Will for me and I fell asleep immediately. I got only four hours of sleep the night before. The next thing I knew it was 5:30 and Katie was at Kay & Lynn's house to pick us up. My aunt and uncle made us sandwiches and popcorn and gave us water and oranges to take with us. And we were off.

We had to make a quick stop at the grocery store and gas station on our way out. Somehow in the process we got turned around while looking for I-15 North. We got on the 515 North instead. Since we didn't know where that freeway ended up, when we saw a sign for the airport we got off at that exit - Tropicana. That's a familiar road! We took Tropicana towards the Strip and counted our blessings that there wasn't bad traffic on Saturday night. It took almost an hour (most of the care bear movie) to get to I-15 but that's OK, we were excited to see our freeway and be on our way.

When we got to the Littlefield/Beaver Dam exit there was a sign that said "Accident in Utah. Road closed." By this time, Katie and I had dubbed our trip, "Come What May and LOVE IT!" This comes from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin's talk from October General Conference. I think the title speaks for itself. We got off at Littlefield to take the old route over Utah Hill on Highway 91. I called my parents to tell them our route and to come looking for us if we didn't make it home in 45 minutes to an hour. (Cell phone reception is spotty at best on this route.) William had fallen asleep and Sarah was entertained by the portable DVD player. We watched "Frosty Returns" and were part-way through "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" before the battery started to wane. We hit a little snow going over the mountain, which slowed us down, but overall it was uneventful the rest of the way home. When we drove into my parent's driveway we just grabbed the children and RAN into the house. It was soooo nice to be done with our marathon day.

Things to be grateful for:
* A mindful Heavenly Father - it may have taken all day, but we got home safely.
* Prayers - by family and us
* Honest people - all Katie's contents were still in her purse!
* Airplane
* Portable DVD player
* Care Bear movie
* Cell phone
* Fabulous husband who was passing through the Presidio on his much anticipated cross the Golden Gate Bridge mountain bike ride that he has been dreaming about for years, when he received a call from his beautiful wife informing him to pretty please return to SFO to pick up Katie’s abandoned purse, consequently postponing the historic ride to some unknown day in the future.
* Sleeping babies
* Amazing relatives
* Great company - if I had to have a marathon day, it was nice to have such a great sister and children to be with.
* Laughter - you either have to laugh or cry. Laughing was so much fun!