Have you ever been to Baltimore? Kim's clothes have!

So here are my excuses this time for not blogging in so long: I have been extremely busy training two new employees, Kim and I have been practicing for the three different Christmas programs we've been asked to perform in, I've been playing basketball late into the night to get back in shape, and my old age causes me to fall asleep as soon as I sit down on a couch.

I'm at work right now, so I'll have to post some pictures later, but I had to blog about our trip home from Colorado on December 1st. We had a great time visiting Kim's family, but I don't have time to blog about that. The trip home is much more interesting for a blog post.

We found some cheap flights awhile ago, so we thought we'd fly this time instead of drive. The drive from Denver to St. George with two kids takes anywhere from 10 to 12 hours. We thought the flight would be much quicker and much less stressful. We planned on landing in Vegas at about 7pm local time, then driving the 2 hours to our house putting us in our humble abode about 10pm St George time. We were wrong.

We got to the Denver airport around 4pm for our 6:05pm flight. We checked in, walked to our gate, saw that the flight before ours hadn't even arrived yet, walked back to the food court area, grabbed some dinner, and headed back to the gate to wait. Owen happily ate his happy meal, Kim and I enjoyed our Einstein's bagels, and Rhett fought his way through a feeding of some sort of turkey and rice concoction. Rhett would not drink any milk, so we were preparing ourselves for a nightmarish flight of baby screaming. The flight before ours pulled up to the gate around the time ours was supposed to depart, so we were told it would be about an hour and a half delay. They were right. Our plane got stuck in a snow storm in Chicago before it got to Denver. We boarded our plane around 7:40pm, and luckily, Rhett fell asleep as soon as we sat down. He was in peaceful slumber during the entire flight, and we thanked our lucky stars as we felt bad for the lady 4 rows up that was trying to console her screaming baby.

We landed in Vegas about 8:30pm local time. Rhett woke up. Owen fell asleep. We found our sit-n-stand stroller at the gate, (the kind where the car seat for the baby goes in front and the older kid can either sit or stand in the back), crammed Owen's limp body into the car seat area because he could neither sit nor stand, and propped Rhett in his car seat where Owen should have been sitting or standing. We made our way to luggage carousel #3 where our 4 bags were supposed to be. We found zero. We walked over to the Southwest missing luggage office and found 3 of our bags. We were told the snowstorm in the Midwest threw everything off. We were guaranteed that our 4th bag would be on one of the final two flights arriving from Denver before the night was over. If we decided to wait for our bag, they would give us a $50 voucher towards a future flight. If we wanted to drive home and have them FedEx us the bag, there would be no voucher. Kim's bag with all of her clothes, makeup, and such was the missing bag. We decided to wait since Owen was asleep and Rhett was happy. The next flight from Denver was arriving at 10:30pm, so we took our time and rode the shuttle to our car, loaded up the 3 bags and the 2 boys, then drove to the parking garage to wait. I went in to check for the bag while Kim stayed with the boys in the car. The Vegas airport uses parking meters in the parking garage, so Kim was popping quarters into the machine every ten or fifteen minutes waiting for me to come back. I made my way to the luggage carousels again, found the one with the bags from Denver, watched everyone come down the escalator and grab their bags, and stood there for five more minutes contemplating what it would be like to dive down the luggage chute. I walked over to the TV screens with the arrival information, found the last flight arriving from Denver, found the carousel those bags were supposed to be on, and walked around for another hour waiting for that flight to land. I called Kim, and Rhett had fallen back asleep, so she was bored out of her mind. At least I had weird people I could watch and shiny signs I could read advertising the casinos and other Vegas attractions.

The last flight from Denver finally arrived around 11:30pm local time. The carousel started churning, and I got a little giddy-up back in my step. I watched everyone come down the escalator and grab their bags, and stood there for five more minutes contemplating what it would be like to throw an airport employee down the luggage chute. I walked back to the Southwest missing luggage office, and the way too happy lady at the counter excitedly said, "Oh! We found your bag! It's in Baltimore! Would you like us to FedEx it to you?" I thought, "No, lady. I think I'll keep waiting here while my wife fills the parking meter with more quarters." I managed to get a $75 voucher instead of a $50 for all of the trouble, and headed back to the parking garage. As you can imagine, Kim was thrilled to see me come back empty-handed. I explained what happened as we merged onto the highway at midnight. I looked over at Kim and said, "The good thing about all of this is there won't be any traffic through Vegas."

If I could, I would shove those words back down my windpipe, because as soon as I said that, we heard sirens. Traffic slowed down to 5 mph as the fire truck and ambulance tried to get through. It took us 50 minutes to drive maybe 3 miles, and all we got to see was the clean-up crew towing wrecked cars away. I stopped at a gas station to get an energy drink because now Kim was asleep and my eyelids were heavier than Oprah in 1990. The energy drink did nothing for me. I had to pull over and take a quick nap. I woke up 30 minutes later feeling ready to finish the drive. After drifting out of my lane a few times, I decided I should stop putting my family in jeopardy and take a longer nap. I made it to Mesquite, pulled over in the Oasis Resort and Casino parking lot, and slept for 2 hours. I woke up, finished the drive, and we were all warm in our beds around 5am St. George time. The whole trip took about 13 hours. We should have driven. Kim's bag was on our doorstep 2 days later.

Good news! Kim has decided she wants to get in on this blogging stuff, so she will now be a regular contributor. I hope. Her motivation is the website www.blurb.com. They can take your blog and turn it into a book. She wants to have all of our family memories in book form. You should check it out.