Our family trip...minus pictures :(

So, let me start out by saying that although I charged my camera battery the day before we left for Fort Mills, SC it died on me during our first outing with all the kids. What the?? Must need a new battery or something. At any rate, Lisa kindly offered me her pictures and said she'd load them on our computer before we left. And they are on our computer! Unfortunately, they're on Todd's computer which has finally decided it will NOT charge when plugged in anymore. No problem, right? The computer repair place nearby said they could replace the part in just a few hours! Horray!! Oh, except they'll have to order the part from China, so it could be a week. (insert sad face here)

Well, let me narrate the trip for you and add pictures later, ok?

Our flight out East left Seattle at 6:05 am. Yep...we had to be at the airport just after 4:00 am which meant getting up to get out the door at 3! I almost just stayed up, but knew it'd be a long day. We flew to Detroit and then had a 40 minute layover!! I'm talking we scrambled off one plane and RAN to the other gate and literally walked directly onto our next plane. The timing was perfect because my sqirmy-wormy son was TOTALLY ready to sleep as soon as the plane started moving. Wait...why isn't the plane moving yet. Oh, right. Because the pilot's seatbelt was broken and it needed to be fixed before we could get moving. How important can his seatbelt really be, people?? It's HOT in the back of a parked plane and my kid is beside himself. (because again, he woke up before 4!!!) Finally we got moving and he slept the whole flight. Perfect.

We got to Aaron and Lisa's BEAUTIFUL new house in Fort Mills and the kids were in heaven playing together. I'll save that commentary for the post with pictures. I was pleasantly surprised at how well Owen went to bed at a normal time (which was, of course, 3 hours earlier than usual). Then it came to Hailey. She was SOOO tired, but playing her usual bedtime games. And continued playing her games every night we were there. She screamed and cried and came downstairs and brought Todd and I to the end of ourselves. We survived, though, and loved every other minute of our trip.

Some highlights:

*playing at this indoor play structure that was basically a McDonald's playland on steroids...that gets disinfected several times a day. :) We so need one in rainy Seattle.

*Hold 'Em...mostly because Lisa and I took all of Todd and Aaron's "money".

*Baking Halloween sugar cookies...that I crowded all onto one pan, only to make one very large Halloween sugar cookie. :)

*Carving pumpkins. Two princesses (one that looked a little like Lord Farquaad from Shrek...sorry Hails :/) and a dog. With his whiskers cut out! The pictures will prove it...they were seriously amazing pumpkins.

*Visiting Aaron & Lisa's church. We visited on a day where the fill-in music leader put a VERY "Southern" twist on the music...and it was fun. :)

*Trick-or-treating with the kids. So cute. And Aaron and Todd came back with full buckets of candy AND some overflow that ended up in an old pillow case. Then we all "inspected" the candy. You know the drill...safety first! Sugar headache later. :/

Our trip back was quite the challenge with Owen. That poor kid did NOT like being cooped up in two different planes for such a long time. And the lady in front of us on our second flight did not like him. And said to me at the end of the flight (after MANY huffs and puffs of frustration and head-shakes throughout) that "at least I knew I couldn't travel with him." To which I replied, "How can I not travel with him? He's my SON!!" Rude. Let's just say I was rather thankful that it took us forever to get to baggage claim after we landed so I didn't have to endure anymore of her mean-mugging.

All in all, it was a great trip and we loved having so much wonderful time with our family. We miss them already and have vowed to do more skyping.

We love you Gabby, Mason, Lisa and Aaron and can't wait to meet baby Fry #3 soon! Thanks for hosting our craziness for the week. :)