Christmas 2013

Boy, oh boy where do I start.

Lets just say it was definitely a memorable trip and Jake is never flying with us again!
Okay maybe I'm overreacting but he is a terrible traveler.

So Sunday morning we wake up at 3:30 am to head to the airport.  

We finish packing, wake Jake and our AMAZING friends drive us to the airport.

It is snowing!

Like we've already gotten 4 of the expected 8 inches.

We get to the airport, and wait and wait to check our bags.

We finally get them checked and race to security and then to our gate.

Only to find out our flight has been delayed.

Apparently the person who was supposed to check the plane when it landed last night didn't so it was going to be 3 hours until they completed the inspection!

Oh but wait we only have a 40 minute layover so we need to re-book.

However there aren't anymore flights with room leaving Denver until Wednesday.

So we can be stranded in Denver for 3 days or go home leave tomorrow at the same time with American and going through Dallas.

So the very incompetent man takes 45 minutes to re-book us after calling the help line and having them walk him through it step by step.

Well now we have a new flight but our bags (including Jake's carseat) are on our current plane so how in the heck are we going to get home?

Frontier said they would pull the bags but after 30 minutes they hadn't arrived.

So Ryan decides to take a cab home get Jake's old carseat which he barely fits in and come back to get us.

At least by the time he arrived back at the airport our bags had also arrived.

So 5 hours after leaving our house we finally make it home.

However, we had cleaned out our fridge before we left so we have basically no food!

Our AMAZING friends find out what happened and invited us over for dinner and offered to take us to the airport in the morning again! (seriously these guys are saints!)

So Monday morning we try it all again.

Wake up at 3:30 am to catch a 6 am flight.

Which also leaves late because they needed to replace a part which they don't find out until everyone boarded the plane.

So we sit in the plane for an extra 30 minutes with a tired baby that we can't put to sleep yet because he needs to suck/swallow during takeout to adjust his ears.

But now for the rest of the flight Jake doesn't sleep!

We arrive in Dallas (thankfully we still made our connection) and board the second plane.

This time we also sit on the plane for 30 minutes because some people checked in but never boarded the plane.

Again Jake doesn't sleep but this time he screams.

Great we are "those" people on the plane.

And thanks to the fact that we had to go through Dallas instead of Denver we added an extra 2.5 hours of travel time which is an extra 2.5 hours of screaming baby!

We finally make it to Salt Lake (with our bags) and head to Provo.

Jake still doesn't sleep on the drive down and won't fall asleep in the pack and play.

But finally after some more food and being awake for 12 hours he crashes.

and so do I!

Tuesday was Christmas Eve.

We spent the day resting and recovering.

We had homemade Cafe Rio for dinner,

opened our Christmas pajamas,

(which turned into a present for Ryan's Aunt, Uncle and Cousins that joined us for the evening)

shared funny family stories,

I accompanied Ryan's brother for his Christmas song he had learned on the violin,

and reflected on what we were going to give the Savior the following year.

Jake took after his dad and woke up at 4:30 am on Christmas morning.

Thankfully he played happily and I was able to keep both boys from waking everyone up until 6:30.

How did I end up with 2 boys that have to get so early on Christmas? 

Don't they know you can't wake up until 8 am?

Apparently they weren't taught that rule maybe my parents need to teach it to them.

Jake loved opening presents and we were all spoiled.

After a morning nap we headed to my grandparents house for the annual extended family gift exchange.

It was so good to see everyone even if it was through a blur of wrapping paper.

That evening we head back to the Calders for the prime rib dinner.

The rest of the week was filled with Pretty Little Liars marathons, shopping, family pictures, lunch with friends, rubik cube solving, sewing and carpentry projects, shooting at the gun range, lots of Jake pampering, and movie watching.

On New Years Eve we had the annual party burrito which my brother joined us for, watched a movie, played some pool and ate our 12 grapes to ring in the New Year.

On New Years we packed our bags to head home.

An hour before we were to leave for the airport our flight we found out our flight home was delayed by an hour meaning we would miss our connection in Denver again!

After 45 minutes on the phone with Frontier with them trying to convince us just to fly to Denver and then if we miss our flight they would reschedule us.
Umm... no.
We were already on the last flight out from Denver and I really don't want to spend the night in Denver.
So trying after talking to the supervisor's supervisor they just refunded us our money for the flight home.
We booked very similiar flights with Southwest and headed to the airport.
Of course we got Cafe Rio for the flight and of course with our luck we sat on the tarmac again!
And Jake didn't sleep and was pretty upset for most of the flight.
In Denver we barely made our connection and had to wait forever for the plane to get de-iced.
Jake screamed almost the whole way home.
Finally we arrived home around midnight to a snowy cold Milwaukee very convinced that Jake is never going on another flight again!

So the Utah part was awesome but the flying was terrible!