First Flight

Please forgive my long windedness...I have never been known to tell a short story.  Bear with me because it is a pretty fun story. 

We had the wonderful opportunity to fly to my sister's place in Texas last weekend for under $100 round trip for all three of us.  (Thank you, Southwest Airlines!)  Tanner of course flew for free and it was his very first flying experience...and what an experience it was!!!  I have to blog about it because it was CUH!!! RAY!!! ZEE!!!!  Read on....

The flight to El Paso from Phoenix is really short...less than an hour.  And it seemed even shorter on the way over because Tanner kept us busy.  I made sure to change his diaper right before we boarded the plane but of course he had a huge MESSY blowout diaper just as soon as we took off.  The flight attendant told us we could get up and change him when the plane leveled off at cruising altitude.  So we waited patiently for 15 minutes or so.  Then we got up to change the diaper and it seriously took about 20 minutes.  I know that sounds pathetic but it seriously was up to his shoulder blades!  It was yucky! I had to change his entire outfit not to mention practically BATHE him with wipes!  Plus I was standing in a tiny little 1 1/2 foot square room.  I could tell the stewardess really loved us. 

We hadn't even left the bathroom when the pilot came on and said we were starting to descend into El Paso.  Um, what?  We've been in this bathroom the whole flight???  Granted we still had to descend for about 15 more minutes but it seemed so short.  Oh and guess what...as soon as we sat down and buckled up Tanner pooped again.  Yep!  Thanks, little man!  :)

The time we spent at my sister's was 98% perfect.  We had a really good time!  The 2% is for Sunday when Tanner threw up on me right after drinking a bottle of milk.  Then a little later we attempted to feed him again and we thought he was going to keep it down so we put him down for a nap only to find him covered in barf when he woke up.  Poor kid!  Nate was awesome and took care of him so I could still do all the fun stuff with my sister since I don't get to see her that often.  Nate is wonderful like that and he totally took one for the team.   

Now comes part two of the flying story...the best part!  We arrived at the airport to find out that our flight had been delayed two hours.  We were originally supposed to land in Phoenix around 9 PM but our flight wasn't even going to take off until 9:30!  Keep in mind Nate was scheduled to work early the next morning.  We were kinda bummed but it was still okay.  Once our plane finally arrived we boarded and flew all the way to Phoenix.

Tanner was pretty good on the flight home and didn't cry too much until we got close to Phoenix and that's when it started.  All of you who live in the greater Phoenix area, remember that super windy storm that blew through town Monday night? Imagine being in the air during that. It was so scary!  Every time a gust of wind came we would bounce so high and Tanner would just start crying and crying!  Nate was sitting in the window seat and told me when he could see the Dbacks stadium and other landmarks.  I just kept telling myself that we were almost there and singing songs in Tanner's ear to soothe him.

Next thing I know, Nathan told me that we had passed Phoenix.  About that time the pilot came on the speaker and told us that we had to circle around for a while because the winds were too strong to land right now and if it didn't clear up we'd possibly have to divert to Tucson.  We thought this was bad news but we didn't know ANYTHING yet.  So we just flew around for about 5-10 minutes and then we started going faster and climbing higher again so we assumed that meant we were going to Tucson after all.  But we were so wrong.  The pilot came on and told us that we were going to...guess where....EL PASO!!!  Where we had just left!  UGH!!  This was so frustrating.  Tanner was SO tired and I felt so bad for the poor little guy.  Not to mention Nate who had to work the next morning. 

We landed in El Paso about an hour later and a customer service rep. came on the plane and told those of us who were just going to Phoenix (it was just a layover for some) to stay on the plane because the storm had blown over and we could fly back to Phoenix.  We still had to wait a while for a new pilot because ours had timed out.  Nate and I debated just staying the night so Tanner could get some sleep but we trudged on.  Luckily our SECOND flight back to Phoenix was a LOT nicer.  Tanner fell asleep almost instantly and we were able to land with no trouble.

So, as I said before, we were originally supposed to land in Phoenix at 9 PM and we ended up getting home around 3:30 AM.  Nate was able to call in and get the day off so we all slept half the day to recover a little bit.  It ended up being a nice relaxing day as a family but we sure had to go through a lot to get it!  Anyway, thanks for reading my story.  It was fun for me to write about it and if nothing else I'll always have the memory of Tanner's first flight!