It all goes down better with a Bloody Mary.

It's 2:38 PM in Dallas.  By now we should have started our descent into Philly and be taking off for Europe in an hour and a half.  Instead, we are still here in Dallas.  We have been re-booked on a 5 PM flight to Philly tonight.  That will put us in at 10 which will be late and rough w the kids. But then again, it's only 8 NM time, so... We will have all day tomorrow in Philly and will be re-booked on the same 6 pm flight to Belgium.  I'm assuming we won't do anything in Philadelphia because the kids will need to sleep in and also have good afternoon naps before we return back to the airport at 3 or 4 tomorrow afternoon. We just found out we will get our bags.  So that's good.  This is certainly disappointing but maybe it's for the best. All of our connections were about an hour, so maybe this gives the kids more time to rest and stretch their legs. Because of course, after you land, you still have hours to get your bags, go through customs, find transportation, and travel to your place.  This trip would have been 24 hours door to door.

Since it was mechanical, American Airlines is covering our hotel tonight and just gave us dinner vouchers. They will tell us where we have to stay.   G says we'll get more food vouchers in Philly.  

God Bless the Admirals Club where we've spent the last 3 hours figuring this out! 

On a fun note, M is doing some one-handed walking today.  

And L took his first escalator ride today.  It was so cute. He did great going up. We rode skylink and we had to come right back down a few minutes later. As we're going down, he's like, "Mommy, do I step off?"

I'm like, "Oh? yeah! Or I can lift you off! What do you want?" 

Oops! Never have had to teach someone how to get off an escalator before.  So glad he asked!

L actually almost cried when we had to get off the DFW skylink train.  It's like a little boy fantasy- a train that gives you a view of airplanes taking off and landing. What more could a little boy want out of life? Both times, we got off, he was whining, "But I didn't want to get off!"

When I rode it with him, I felt like we were on an episode of Sesame Street. "Now we have to get on the train at letter D to go to letter E to try to get our flight. Now we missed our flight and we have to take the train to letter C to meet Daddy." 

When we *finally* took off in El Paso, L kept yelling, "We're almost to Dallas."   Everyone around us was dying laughing because El Paso was still very clearly visible, to the point that I could still identify the roads and buildings.

L was also relaying the pilot's announcements. The pilot would say, "we're just waiting on a few more bags." And the L would repeat it to us. He has everyone in stitches. The boy LOVES to fly. 

I am so, so glad we: 

- carried on 1 diaper per hour for M 

- carried on 2-3 squeeze packs of food per meal with 2 extra meals for M 

- all carried on a change of clothes for the 4 of us

- built in an extra day for travel ( we were to arrive Sunday and G's business starts Tuesday. Now we arrive Monday.)

- didn't overpack toys for the kids because you can pick up plastic spoons, cups, and straws anywhere, and they can entertain themselves. 

I told G, I'm glad AA is responsible for the stressors of this trip. We were prepared. We did everything right. This morning before our flight was the least rushed, smoothest departure from the house we've ever had flying. It made all the tough pills of delays and misconnections easier to swallow because I knew we had everything we needed. 

And, yes, I did enjoy a Bloody Mary on my first flight at 10 this morning.