Summer Trip to New Jersey

Summer has arrived, so that means our summer trip to New Jersey is finally here!!  The kids absolutely love traveling to see all of our New Jersey family each summer, so they have been talking about this forever.  Our day started early - we left at 5am for the airport.  We parked the car and took a bus to the terminal.  Peter asked how much the bus cost.  Then he said that if we had lots of kids in our family, we would need to buy a bus.

When we arrived at our gate, we saw Aunt Mary and Uncle David at a nearby gate.  They were flying to Boston for a vacation with friends.  Peter was a bit confused why we were seeing people we knew at the airport.  We were only there for a few minutes before it was time to board.

The kids did GREAT on the plane!  They have been flying since they were little bity, so they are seasoned flyers.  Peter got the window seat, and Danielle was a little sad.  I told her that she could have the window seat on our way home to Texas.

Our first flight was a quick trip to Houston.  The flight itself was fine, but the problem was in the timing.  When we first booked the flight, we had a layover of almost an hour.  That would have been totally fine.  However, somewhere along the way, the airline changed the time of the first flight and pushed it back.  That took our layover down to about 30 minutes.  Well, that could have been doable as well, but leaving late from Austin put a kink in that plan.  We left about 10 minutes late from Austin.  We landed in Houston after boarding started for our next flight.  We were in the last row of the airplane, so we were the last ones off.  Andrew grabbed our two carry-on suitcases and took off running.  I grabbed 3 backpacks, 2 pillow pets, my purse, and 2 kids, and we took off as fast as we could.  I wasn't able to hold Peter's hand, so I had to keep looking to make sure he was next to me.  I had Danielle's hand, but she kept tripping because I was pulling her faster than her little legs wanted to run.  To make the situation worse, we had to go to a completely different terminal!!!

The kids loved the little train that took us from Terminal E to Terminal C.  Andrew called while were were getting off the train to tell us that they said that had to close the door to the plane.  I told him we were in the terminal and on the way.  We were about 5 or 6 gates away, so I scooped Danielle up, told Peter to run to Daddy, and started running as quickly as I could with everything I was carrying.  As we go to the gate, there were 4 people standing there ready to take our seats from the standby list.  It was CRAZY!!!  We were the absolute last ones on the plane.  As we sat down, the captain announced that they had closed the door.  Peter kept saying, "Phew - I'm so glad we made our flight."  Me too, buddy, me too.

The flight from Houston to Newark was uneventful.  The kids stayed entertained with their LeapPads and Pez.  I downloaded a couple of new games as well as some episodes of Daniel Tiger.  Peter asked how much the plane cost and who owned it.  They he said if we had 60 kids in our family we would need an airplane.  Yes, Peter, we would....

Danielle was a little upset at the beginning of the flight because the sun was in her eyes, but she was content to wear some new princess sunglasses until we were above the clouds.

She fell asleep fairly quickly after an episode of Daniel Tiger and slept until just before we landed.

3 hours later, we landed in New Jersey.  Yay for 2.5 weeks of vacation!!! :)