Here we go!

We had been prepping for several weeks and it was finally time to start our big summer trip.  Our itinerary was to fly to California and spend several days with Kelly's aunt and uncle, then drive up to Seattle see my Uncle Kendall and Angie's new house, and then fly home.  Oma and Grossmama would meet us in Seattle. We were all so excited and had done a lot of research on what to do each place, possible roadstops on the drive through Oregon, weather....The kids and I had read books about flying (Killian doesn't remember his only other flight from when he was 2 months old!) and talked about how the trip would go.  I had packed all the kids' carry on luggage with surprise snacks and activities.  We loaded up the tablet and computer with movies and games.  We were ready to go!  So the morning of the adventure we woke the kids up and gave them a snack to eat in the car.  We planned to grab a little breakfast at the airport after we got to our gate.

Keeley helping with the luggage to get us checked in.  Until we checked in we had all the kids, the two pieces of luggage we were checking, all the backpacks, AND all the carseats. It was a lot.

 Checking in proved to be our first problem.  We haven't checked bags in a long time on a flight and didn't realize that we could check in at the kiosk and then proceed to the counter to bag check.  After waiting in the very long line, we were told that we were about to miss check in and she made a call to expedite the process and get us all checked in.  Okay, so not ideal, but not the end of the world.  Waiting for our security screening we realized that both of us had remembered the flight time incorrectly - 8:45 and 8:25 are pretty different :(.  We got through screening very slowly because of the carseats, all the electronics, and they thought Killian's magnet game was a bunch of razors.  The kids and I sprinted as fast as we could to our gate that was very, very far away as Kelly finished up with the carseat.  We had to take two moving sidewalks and an escalator.  It was seriously far away.

We got to the gate as they were finishing up loading and turned to wait for Daddy...just seconds behind us.  Fortunately, we didn't need any overhead bins so we found our seats and got someone to switch seats with us (Killian was seated in a different section of the plane) and got buckled up.

The razor blades....

The first flight went pretty well except the kids were hungry.  I had packed snacks (and they were healthy snacks) but it isn't the same as breakfast.  When the cart came by, we got more snacks - almond m & ms and pringles...still not real breakfast.

We had a layover in Arizona and figured we could grab a bite to eat there.  Wrong again.  We sat waiting to get off the plane for a good bit and had to run to the next plane as well.  Another snack of pringles and almond m & ms

When we finally arrived in San Jose the kids were so happy to not have to be on a plane anymore!  We gathered our stuff and headed to the shuttle bus to get our car.

When we got off the shuttle the line was a pretty long so the kids and I waited while Daddy took care of the rental.

We then had to take an elevator to a parking garage and wait another 20 minutes or so for the van to be ready.  We were all SOOOOO happy to finally climb in the van and head to Uncle John and Aunt Pat's house!

She had lunch ready for us - real food, not just candy and chips like we'd had all morning!  As we ate I did some math in my head and realized it was 3pm our time and it was the first time the we had sat at a table and eaten real food all day.  Not a fantastic start to our trip.

John and Pat took us to a park to help us use some more of our energy

and we headed to a grocery store to grab something to make in our hotel.  We grabbed a pizza only to realize we didn't have an oven in our little kitchen.  While Kelly handled baths for our very, very dirty kids, I ordered some delivery service from a local restaurant and started unpacking the hotel.

We finally ate and collapsed into bed.  It was a crazy busy day and we were thankful to rest and have full tummies!