Getting there is half the fun

So school let out and 3 days later we were leaving on a jet plane. No small task. Honestly I find it much easier to throw our crap in the back of the truck and drive cross-country for 2 days. Yes, the horrors of the airport will do that to me.

First off, do you have any idea how much luggage 5 females require? Especially when one of them is a compulsive over-packer. And I just so happen to be the one that packs for two of the others. And then the airline apparently has this rule that no item of luggage weigh over 50 pounds. And well, mine weighed 53. And I was required to shuffle things out of my suitcase and into someone else's in front of God and all other Southwest airline passengers and all of my unmentionables were packed on top.

Then you have to endure the hell that is known as security. Where you are standing in line for 30 minutes with 4 messenger bags, 3 purses, 1 backpack, 2 stuffed animals, 1 booster seat and 4 daughters whose arms are apparently broken. And when you finally get to the nice man who checks your ID and your boarding pass and notices that the names don't quite match up because your mother-in-law made the reservation and she knows that the "legal" name is never acknowledged. Well except for when I fly and cash child support checks. Which I do neither of often.

And so the security man almost didn't let me pass. You mean I might have to have a whole week to myself while my children fly off into the sunset with my husband for a week of fun, fun, fun and I can just have quiet, quiet, quiet but then I remembered that I had another piece of identification with the name that I prefer and there went that fantasy.

Then you have to locate your gate while stopping at least three times for bathroom breaks and to buy gum and magazines and danishes at the gift shop. And then you have to listen to the constant bickering about who gets to sit by Granny and who gets to sit by the window. And you have to position yourself so that you can wake up your husband everytime he dozes off because it's not fair that he sleeps on the plane while you are doling out snacks, DS's and markers for three hours. And taking them to the oh so spacious airplane potty.

But then you get there...and your luggage arrives...all of it, undamaged. And your rental car is plush. And your condo is 50 yards from this:



Oh yes, you see the Pacific Ocean for the very first time in your life. And a week of fun is about to be had by all.

But the journey back home after all that exhausting fun, fun, fun...multiply that hell times ten. Okay not really. But it sure seems like it when you are T I R E D.

And that security guard didn't look twice at my name.

Sure would've sucked to have to stay behind with that view. Especially with those California beach boys playing volleyball just to the right ;-)