Welcome To The AZ
Well, its been forever and a day since I posted last. Where have we been? Nice of you to ask. We recently got back from a vacation in the great state of Arizona. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I didn't want to put anything on the blog about us not being home. Kind of like how you're not supposed to leave a message on your answering machine like, "We're gone for the next two weeks, so feel free to rob our house." Anywho, let's get this vacation blogging started.
Getting There
We flew out on a Saturday afternoon, so we had that morning to finish packing and get things tidy around the house in case we had any showings. We were going to be gone for 10 days and you could fit a lot of showings in in that time. Go figure, we got a call late that morning that we were going to have a showing the next day. Don't leave the lights on!
We got to the airport a couple of hours before our flight was scheduled to take off. I had had a bright idea that we shouldn't let Ava nap at all on Saturday before getting on the plane. My theory was that she would sleep on the plane and make the flight that much easier. This is why theories aren't facts... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Since we were going to be on the plane during dinnertime in our time zone, we went to an airport restaurant called Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Two quirky things happened there. First, we found out that they don't serve shakes even though they are pictured on the menu. Secondly, a traveler was using a toolbox as his carry-on. Crazy things happen at American Bandstand.
We had bought an umbrella stroller for the trip. (Note: I had no clue they were called an "umbrella stroller". I always thought they were called a "cheap stroller".) Rather than be pushed around in it, Ava went up and down the terminal pushing around the empty stroller. As you might expect, she wasn't the best driver, but she wouldn't accept any help steering. I had my hand slapped a couple times.
Traveling with a kid is at least 5-6 times harder than two adults traveling by themselves. We had: 2 checked bags, a diaper bag, a car seat, a stroller, my carry-on, Doni's purse, and a portable DVD player in a travel case. We boarded with our arm loads of gear and found our seats. I buckled in Ava's car seat into the airplane seat (like the airline's website recommended) and we got settled. A friendly flight attendant came up to us as the rest of the passengers were boarding and said that we would have to move because a car seat can't be in the row in front of the emergency exit row. Um, ok. He found some people that would switch with us a few rows up so we grabbed our stuff and Ava, moved her car seat, and situated ourselves in our new locale. We think the flight attendant was afraid that I was going to go off on him because he kept being overly nice the rest of the flight. I didn't think I was giving him that impression, but it did get us some nice service.
I expected Ava to freak out during take off. Instead, she acted like nothing was happening. The rest of the flight wasn't so uneventful. She watched some Backyardigans episodes until the DVD player's battery ran out. Doni was sitting next to Ava (who had the window) so she had the lead role in calming and soothing. She ended up having her work cut out for her as Ava, being tired since she didn't have a nap, needed quite a bit of calming and soothing. Who's idea was that? Oh yeah... Let's not talk about that.
Four hours after taking off we landed in Phoenix. We got our bags and make our way to the rental counter. We had a reservation for a compact car. As it was a Saturday night they happened to be all out of compacts. We ended up getting a Ford Mustang for the compact price. Cha-ching!
Ava slept most of the 2 1/2 hour drive to our friends' house in Tucson. By the time we got there it was already past 1 o'clock in the morning in our home time zone, so we went to bed after chatting with them for a little while. It's great to see good friends that you haven't seen in a few months, but there's a lot to be said about going to bed when jet-lagged.
Getting There
We flew out on a Saturday afternoon, so we had that morning to finish packing and get things tidy around the house in case we had any showings. We were going to be gone for 10 days and you could fit a lot of showings in in that time. Go figure, we got a call late that morning that we were going to have a showing the next day. Don't leave the lights on!
We got to the airport a couple of hours before our flight was scheduled to take off. I had had a bright idea that we shouldn't let Ava nap at all on Saturday before getting on the plane. My theory was that she would sleep on the plane and make the flight that much easier. This is why theories aren't facts... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Since we were going to be on the plane during dinnertime in our time zone, we went to an airport restaurant called Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Two quirky things happened there. First, we found out that they don't serve shakes even though they are pictured on the menu. Secondly, a traveler was using a toolbox as his carry-on. Crazy things happen at American Bandstand.
We had bought an umbrella stroller for the trip. (Note: I had no clue they were called an "umbrella stroller". I always thought they were called a "cheap stroller".) Rather than be pushed around in it, Ava went up and down the terminal pushing around the empty stroller. As you might expect, she wasn't the best driver, but she wouldn't accept any help steering. I had my hand slapped a couple times.
Traveling with a kid is at least 5-6 times harder than two adults traveling by themselves. We had: 2 checked bags, a diaper bag, a car seat, a stroller, my carry-on, Doni's purse, and a portable DVD player in a travel case. We boarded with our arm loads of gear and found our seats. I buckled in Ava's car seat into the airplane seat (like the airline's website recommended) and we got settled. A friendly flight attendant came up to us as the rest of the passengers were boarding and said that we would have to move because a car seat can't be in the row in front of the emergency exit row. Um, ok. He found some people that would switch with us a few rows up so we grabbed our stuff and Ava, moved her car seat, and situated ourselves in our new locale. We think the flight attendant was afraid that I was going to go off on him because he kept being overly nice the rest of the flight. I didn't think I was giving him that impression, but it did get us some nice service.
I expected Ava to freak out during take off. Instead, she acted like nothing was happening. The rest of the flight wasn't so uneventful. She watched some Backyardigans episodes until the DVD player's battery ran out. Doni was sitting next to Ava (who had the window) so she had the lead role in calming and soothing. She ended up having her work cut out for her as Ava, being tired since she didn't have a nap, needed quite a bit of calming and soothing. Who's idea was that? Oh yeah... Let's not talk about that.
Four hours after taking off we landed in Phoenix. We got our bags and make our way to the rental counter. We had a reservation for a compact car. As it was a Saturday night they happened to be all out of compacts. We ended up getting a Ford Mustang for the compact price. Cha-ching!
Ava slept most of the 2 1/2 hour drive to our friends' house in Tucson. By the time we got there it was already past 1 o'clock in the morning in our home time zone, so we went to bed after chatting with them for a little while. It's great to see good friends that you haven't seen in a few months, but there's a lot to be said about going to bed when jet-lagged.
posted by Jeremy @ 9:41 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
At 1:27 PM,
Jessica said…
We had a similarly brilliant idea when we flew to FL last spring. We kept Lucas awake so he would sleep on the plane. Yup! He cried all the way there. Good times.
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