texas trip - day 1

Scott's younger sister, Laura, and her husband Dave, had her first child in the middle of January, and we were all so excited for her.  Camryn Brooke Beussman was born on January 16th to tired but ecstatic parents!  Laura's maternity leave ended after 12 weeks, and Dave gets off of work in the summer (high school choir director) but not until school lets out.  So to bridge the gap between the two, Scott's mom went out for a few weeks to watch Camryn during the day, and after she went back to Utah, Jed and I arrived to fill in for the final 3 weeks.

Scott took us to the airport first thing Sunday morning the 18th, and was able to return to church in plenty of time to fulfill his duties as financial clerk.  The security line was insanely long!  We got about halfway through it and were allowed to cut over to the TSA pre-check lane, which expedited the process.  I've never been through the pre-check lane, but apparently you don't have to take anything out of your bags, and don't have to take off hats, shoes, jackets, etc...just throw your bags on the belt and walk through fully dressed!  So weird.  It's kind of frustrating to know that "regular" people have to go through all kinds of nonsense to get on an airplane but others don't.  Especially since they often just let random people through there if the regular line is long...what kind of security is that?  I guess they figure that you can't count on being let into that lane, so you won't bring things you shouldn't because you can't assume you won't be checked.  But still.

This is what I had in my bag

For the record, I had a large box cutter in the bottom of my computer bag that I completely forgot was in there, and didn't realize I had until I was ON THE PLANE.  I started to pull it out, realized what it was, and quickly shoved it back in before it caused a scene.  Clearly, my bags were thoroughly checked for dangerous items.  

After getting through security, Jed and I stopped at Jamba Juice to get smoothies, and sat down to watch the planes take off while we waited for our plane to board.

My biggest adventure getting on the plane was leaving my phone in the stroller, which I had gate checked.  I realized it when I was getting Jed settled in his seat, and I started panicking - I wasn't sure if the stroller had been stowed already or not, and if it had I was pretty sure the phone would have fallen out and I would never see it again.  People were still boarding the plane, so I couldn't go back out to check.  I was able to flag down a stewardess to call the front, and she told me the stroller was still out there and when everyone was boarded I could go and check it for my phone.  It was there, much to my relief!   This trip was the first time that we had to get Jed a plane ticket (now that he's 2), and Jed and I were both excited that he had his own seat.  He was a little nervous when the plane took off though, so he insisted on holding my hand.  It was the cutest thing in the world.

The trip was only 4 hours long, so it wasn't too bad.  I had made a great effort to bring things to keep Jed occupied - we took a special trip to Target to buy new activity books, stickers, etc...which he begged me to play with for 2 days (I kept telling him we were saving them for the airplane, because I didn't want the novelty to wear off too soon).  But of course once we were on the plane, he was completely uninterested in all of them.  He just wanted to "come out" of his seat and run around.  But overall he was fine, and we made it through the flight without too much trouble.

Laura picked us up from the airport, and Jed was disappointed that Camryn wasn't in the car to meet us.  When we arrived at the house I tried to put Jed down for a nap, but he would have none of it - so I figured he would just go down early.  We took a lovely stroll around the neighborhood with Dave, Laura, Camryn, Micaela, and Amara (M&A are Dave's daughters from a previous marriage) before dinner.   Jed was a little slow, as he kept wanting to stop and play in the leaves, of course!