Welcome Back to the Midwest

I have a lot of posts I want to write, but I thought I would start with this one since it is freshest in my mind.  So we went to California last week (you know there will be lots of posts about that), and left on Sunday morning.  I was already anticipating a little bit of a rough time coming back to business and back to winter after spending such a nice week in beautiful southern California, little did I know how rough it would really be!  There was a big storm set to dump a foot of snow in Fort Wayne, and the worst of it was supposed to hit right when our flight was supposed to get in.  Our connection was in Dallas, and when we left in the morning our flight to Fort Wayne was still on, so we headed out and landed in Dallas, only to find out that our flight to Fort Wayne had been cancelled.  I had anticipated that and thought it would be okay if it happened because Shane had no school on Monday and Josh didn't have to be into work until Monday evening.  I did not anticipate that we wouldn't be able to get a flight to Fort Wayne until Tuesday.  So we (I) freaked out and wondered what the heck we were going to do in Dallas, without a car, in a hotel, for almost 2 days.  Luckily the kids' clothes were in our carry-ons, but our toiletries and Josh and I's clothes were in our bag that was in transit.  And since it was weather-related the airline did not put us up in a hotel, though the airport did give us a pretty good deal on a room at Embassy Suites.  The cook-to-order breakfast, happy hour (shirley temples and hors d'ouevres for us), and separate suites did cheer us up some.  The kids all slept on the pull out couch (though Sadie got put on the floor the next night because she was biting Shane??)

Happy hour was especially good this night with fresh fruit, cheese and crackers, and bar mix along with the standard popcorn, so I thought I'd capture this nice moment, and 2 seconds after I did Marissa knocked half her crackers into the koi pond.  I was mortified and wondered if I should try to get them out or alert someone, and then a large koi came by and ate them.  I didn't know whether to be worried if we had poisoned the poor guy or relieved that the evidence was gone:)

 I hesitate to share this story because part of me is embarrassed by it, but I do want it recorded.  The airport had told us that they were giving us two vouchers for two nights at Embassy Suites, but when we got there they told us they both expired tomorrow and that they have never seen them do that.  Of course when we tried to get a hold of the airline people at the airport they don't really let you unless you go back there.  We were worried and debating about what to do because the rate was going to go up substantially our second night.  We decided we needed to move to the cheaper hotel across the way for the second night, but there was the worry about what to do in the 3 hours between checkout at Embassy and check in at the next hotel.  Lug our carryons around Dallas with our 3 kids for 3 hours?  And by the way, it was not particularly warm there- high 30s/low 40s.  So we went down to enjoy the breakfast, and there was a couple at the table next to us who kept commenting, "what a good dad!" about Josh as he was running around getting all the kids' food.  We chatted with them most of breakfast, they were from Michigan and stranded but on their way out, had grandchildren, etc.  They were super nice and fun to talk to, and told us we had a beautiful family etc. and I guess while I took Sadie potty they were asking Josh what he did and got to talking about residency and how their grandson is an ER resident and how they knew what comes with that.  As they were getting ready to leave they put a $100 dollar bill on the table and said that they hoped this might ease some of the burden and that we might be able to do something fun.  I started to say "you don't have to do that" and felt a little embarrassed but I started to tear up and realize that these people wanted to do something nice and were in a position to do so, and to just let them and appreciate it.  (A man in the airport had seen us and noticed we were stranded and offered to get us some food but I turned him down and realized afterwards that he just wanted to do something nice and I should have let him.)  As awful as an experience as it had been, it kind of turned around then to see the goodness of people.  I am really looking forward to one day being able to do things like that.  And it was really an answer to prayer because we used the money to be able to stay at Embassy Suites instead of dealing with changing and wandering around with our luggage.  Though with a full day ahead of us we did do a lot of walking around (without luggage thankfully), to Jack in the Box and Walmart and just to get some fresh air.  

 The next morning we were more than ready to be on our way, and the flights were uneventful and easy.  Oh, and it happened to be Josh's birthday.  Oh well, We will celebrate this weekend:)

The first night we were stranded my sister said maybe one day we would look back at this with fondness, and I thought, "yeah right" but I already can.  I love my little family and am glad for all the adventures we have together.  The ordeal has made a warmer locale sound more appealing, and we are looking into the possibility of that, but also have a lot of good opportunities here.  And seeing my kids having so much fun playing in all that snow today *almost* made me forget how angry I was about it trying to get home.