GeorgiaMigs

we woke up and began our trip on thursday July 31st at 4:30am. our flight was to leave from atl at 8:50am. as we made our way to the airport we boasted in how proud we were that we made it out of the house ON TIME. haha. yeah…

10 minutes from the airport we started hearing this funny noise. tyler was intensely analyzing the situation in his side mirrors and i said (like a big dork) “what are you DOING!?” he said, “that’s the sound a car makes with a flat tire.” yup. thats’ us. 10 minutes from the airport, with no spare.

now, for those of you who know my husband, you know that I have to mentally prepare (a week in advance) to go on trips with tyler. he has a horrid case of travelers anxiety and even when things go PERFECTLY he acts as if things couldn’t go any worse. aha hahah. little did he know what was coming.

so we called american airlines (those who sold the cheapest fare tickets) and told them of our woes and that we would miss our flight and needed to change departure times. not awful for $50 a ticket. then add on another $100 for our new tire and fix. i told ty to brush it off… laugh about it b/c our traveling problems had come and gone.

our new departure time was 4pm so we waited at my dad’s work (in atl) and made our way to the airport at 2pm. we arrive, park, make our way to check-in and the gate. at around 3:30pm storms throughout the metro area force the flight to be delayed til 5:30pm… then delayed again at 5:00 til 7:00pm. keep in mind we have an 8 month old with us – ugh.

so we wait. and decide to make our way to another gate with less travelers so riott can crawl around worry-free. at 6:30 we make our way back to our gate to board and as we arrive, tyler says “why aren’t there very many people around?” we start running just as what seems to be the LAST person walks through the door and they close it shut. we are both yelling as we get to the counter saying wait! wait! that’s our flight. it’s supposed to leave at 7! we’ve been here! etc. to make a loooong section of the story short… they changed the time of the flight to 6:30pm so that it could make a connection and they “called our names” but after we didn’t respond they gave our seats away to people on stand-by. this is where ty said a dirty word and i started crying – but only for a minute.

they searched the computer for other carriers also going to salt lake and after oh, 15 mins of torture and finally found a delta non-stop flight at 8:55. we made our way clear across the airport to the delta counter give them our little confirmation number and she says, “i’m sorry. this isn’t going to work. i need you to go back to the american airlines counter and get paper tickets.” to make it brief, tyler spends the next 2 hours running ACROSS the airport between delta and american airlines b/c no one could get their act together.

finally we made it on the delta flight and arrived at salt lake at 12:30am (2 hours behind us). we had been awake for a grand total of 22 HOURS! ha. sure we missed meeting with tyler’s dad and stepmom (riott’s GRANDMA AND GRANDPA UTAH) and having a casual day with the family but hey, we got to… sit in the airport. wooohoo. feel the excitement. we weren’t very happy.

the family reunion was great. we had so much fun with the family.

now for the flight home…

we decide to try and squeeze in a lunch with GRANDPA UTAH! so we leave the reunion – say our goodbyes and head out. we get to salt lake again and meet up with tyler’s dad and sister, eat lunch, say goodbye to devin, angie, clark-y and split to head to the airport. oh wait. lindsey can’t find her phone. so let’s spend a good 15 minutes looking for it. find it. head to the airport LATE with only an hour and 5 minutes before the flight… and GRANDPA UTAH goes the wrong way by accident and we get turned around making us a little later.

we get to the airport with more goodbyes, run in to the american airlines counter, and with NINE people in front of us, wait for 45 minutes knowing we have less than an hour before our plane leaves. when we finally reach the front the lady says, “oh you’re on the flight that’s been delayed ’til 6pm… you’ll miss you’re layover in dallas.”

we had the choice of flying to dallas and staying the night or just staying in utah and catching the next flight at 6am. we chose to stay in utah and spent a little more time with riott’s auntie katie.

we woke up at 3am to catch our 6am flight… make that flight with few delays… get into dallas for our connector – which was delayed for and hour and a half due to maintenance issues… and FINALLY make it in to georgia at 3pm.

let’s just say this trip can go down in the books as the worst ever… next to a crash landing of course.