We left.

The boys are seasoned fliers, but this was Camryn’s first flight. Because we left at 7:30 pm, I assumed little miss would sleep the entire flight. A false assumption made only by first-time parents. And me. Luckily our flight was not full, so we were able to spread out. And by spread out, I mean that everyone wanted to sit with me, and no one wanted to sit with Caleb. But through a little coercion  sweet talk, we were able to convince Jacob to sit with Caleb so that he could keep his window seat view.

Mason LOVES airplanes, and was over the moon to be riding in Dusty Crophopper’s “tummy.” He spent a lot of time looking out the window and not-so-quietly asking when we were going to crash. TSA will be following up with us, I am sure. Camryn was busy. Busy. Busy. She was my lap child, but spent most of the time riding on Mason’s lap—much to Mason’s disappointment. And just as we were about to land, that girl finally passed out. Hard. I was able to toss her dead-weight body straight into the stroller right off the airplane and catch my second wind before we began our 90 minute car ride to my parents’ place.

But before that happened, this happened:

As we were de-planing, the pilot asked the boys if they wanted to sit in the cockpit. Yeah they do! I don’t think they realized how cool and special that experience was. But, holy smokes, that was AWESOME!

Luggage was collected, kids were in pajamas, and we were heading out of the airport. Five minutes in to our car trip we found the country radio station, 10 minutes later the kids were all asleep, and 5 minutes after that traffic stopped. All lanes of the interstate shut down. Crews were fixing power lines and no one was getting past. Exactly how you want to spend your midnight hour, said no one ever! A 15 minute standby and we were back en route. Arrival happened as expected: the boys sleep walked straight to their bed, Caleb hunkered down, and Camryn and I spent the better part of the remainder of our first night in Florida sharing a twin bed while she pointed at and said all of the body parts on my head: eyes, ears, hair, nose, mouth, cheeks. So glad she was able to get that off her chest! No bother, we were in Florida!