Here's pictures from all of our other activities:
It was a great few days, though of course too short. The weather was perfect, and lake was warmer than usual. I think it was our best beach days of all time. The kids all play so great together. These people are so fun- it's so wonderful to be able to spend this time with Ben's family. What a blessing this family time is!
It is really nice that we have this tradition- this summer anchor- of going to Bear Lake.
Ben was not planning on going. After the trip home from Myrtle Beach, he was DONE with traveling and just wanted to sleep in his own bed. Plus, he had a major deadline due August 4th. If it doesn't get done, people may lose their jobs. So the plan was for him to stay home, and I was totally fine with that. I gave him no pressure to come to Bear Lake,
But, in the end, he figured out how he could work in the car (which almost worked perfectly except he lost an hour because he had the caps lock on so his password wouldn't work), and he worked all day while we were at the beach on Thursday. He actually got a lot done.
Here's combined pictures of our two days at the beach.
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Well, apparently it wouldn't be a Marriott summer vacation without a travel disaster.
On the way to Bear Lake, my tire indicator light went off. Yay!
Here's the blessing: It happened right outside Laramie, 1.4 miles away from Les Schwab. The indicator light came on right before I got onto I-80. I decided to pull over (the light comes on so often, I don't always pull over anymore) and you could hear the air coming out of it. Thank heavens I didn't get on I-80 or we would have been in serious trouble.
Les Schwab was awesome. They had us in and out in 40 minutes. This could have been a disaster, but it wasn't.
For as perfect as the first 10 days of the trip were, the last 27 hours were the exact opposite.
Every travel problem that we saw on the news we experienced.
Words can not express how horrible it all was, but I will try.
We got to our flight 2 hours early. We had a connecting flight in Charlotte and we were flying out of Myrtle Beach.
Our flight to Charlotte was delayed. Then delayed again. Then again. And again.
Stephanie texted me to tell me they are in Charlotte for their connecting flight and they have been stuck on the airplane for over two hours because of a massive thunderstorm. Everything is grounded.
We get an alert saying we will miss our connecting flight and we should rebook for a flight tomorrow.
We don't know what to do. Shouldn't our connecting flight also be delayed? Why is it not delayed when everything else it?
We are stressed and calling American Airlines and trying to make quick decisions with limited information.
Finally we decide to get on the flight and at least get to Charlotte. And we pray that we will make the connecting flight, and we tell my family and friends to do the same.
We get on the flight and land in Charlotte.
A miracle happened- our flight is still there, we didn't miss it! Woo-hoo! We are allowed to be the first ones off the plane so we can make our connecting flight. Everyone on the plane is cheering for us to make our flight! We race off.
They haven't boarded the flight to Denver, we got our miracle!
It's been delayed 45 minutes, no big deal- that's what allowed us to not miss it.
They say the pilot is just three gates away and is on his way.
Then, suddenly, the screen pops up "Flight Canceled" and the ticket agent RAN away as fast as she could.
WHAT?!?!? I immediately go to the app- thankfully, because of the issues in Myrtle Beach, I now knew how to go to the app. Everyone else was racing to customer service. I get on the app and immediately book us a flight for 8 AM.
It's now past 10. We have a flight for 8 AM. What do we do now? Where's our luggage? Do we get a hotel voucher? I call the 1-800 number to see if we can get a voucher. I'm on hold for over an hour and a half.
We go to figure out what to do about our luggage. We have no idea.
There are a million people everywhere- I have never seen so many people! There are over 7,000 stranded passengers (we found out later) because of the storm.
By now it's after midnight. We discover we don't need to do anything about our luggage unless we want it, and that we won't get a hotel voucher.
We decide to just book a hotel. Or should we sleep on the airport floor? No, Ben would never sleep on the airport floor. It's gross- he's right.
But the wait for a Lyft or Taxi is over an hour.
Hotels near the airport are booked.
Ben finally gets us a Marriott Hotel 30 minutes away. But how can we get there?
We finally decide to go rent a car.
Thankfully, the line was short- FINALLY a short line! By the time we get our car, the line is a mile long.
We get to the Marriott at almost 1 AM. We are exhausted. The girls are holding up, but it is ROUGH.
Ben, Audra, and Claire all slept on the king bed and Camille and I slept on the hide a bed. It wasn't comfortable, but it was better than an airport floor.
We try to sleep.
At 5:30 we get in the car. Ben leaves the keys in the room as that's one way to check out, and we load up the car. We pull out of the parking lot and I get a message saying our flight is canceled and we have been re-booked for the NEXT day! So we would have another night at the hotel!
Ben goes to the lobby to say he needs another key because he locked himself out.
I call the airlines to get us a different flight while everyone else goes back to bed. They said we can get us a 9 AM flight to Miami, then a TEN HOUR layover, and a late flight to Denver, but we would get home at 1 AM Monday.
Should we take it? At least we'll be home. And, Audra has cried because she doesn't want to miss marching band. At least this way she can get to marching band.
We book the flight. The second it is booked, it is delayed until 3 PM. That sounds great because we can sleep some more, but how much more will it be delayed? Or canceled? And, with a 10 hour layover we could try to find another airline to get us to Denver earlier. Or go see Miami. Now we don't have that.
But at least it gets us out of Charlotte.
I go to sleep.
At 7:45 I wake up. I turn to Camille and say, "do you want to go see if breakfast it still happening?" and she said, "I would rather sleep." Good. Please sleep, Camille- you deserve it! That 2-3 hours was the best sleep any of us got that night. It was glorious.
About 8:45 we wake up and we watch our sacrament meeting via Zoom. I was so grateful to have that. It was a light in what was a dark day!
Ben called his parents to say what was happening. He broke down a little bit describing our terrible situation.
Thankfully, breakfast went until 10. We went down. It was a full banquet! It was the most delicious, and welcome, and needed breakfast! It lifted all of our spirits, and I decided right then: I will always try to stay at a Marriott. I realize that's our family business, but when you stay at a Marriott, you know you are getting quality. You know it will be clean and nice, and now I know the breakfast will be Heaven. And we desperately needed some Heaven after what we had been through.
Randomly, I decided to check the app. A direct flight at 9:15 PM popped up. Should we take it? At least we wouldn't have the terrible Miami flight. We didn't know what to do. Again, we were operating on limited information. But, we decided to do it. We thought a direct flight would be best, and we had to hope it wasn't canceled again.
At midnight the night before as we were getting the rental car, we didn't know if we should get it or not, to pay that money for just a few hours. Now we were so glad we did!
We decided to make the best of our day in Charlotte. Now we could really, truly, cross North Carolina off of our list.
We went to a nearby park and watched some Little League, the girls played on the playground, and we walked around a little bit.
Then we went to a mall. I bought the girls some books from a book store. We ate lunch. And, we decided to go to the theater. We never go to the theater- that would be something fun. We saw Gru- a Despicable Me movie. It was hilarious. Ben slept all the way through. That was the best $10 we have ever spent- getting Ben a much needed and well deserved nap.
Eventually we headed back to the airport- hoping that this flight would finally go.
We braced ourselves. I didn't believe it until the flight was finally in the air- but it went! HALLELUAH!!
We got home at 1:30 AM- but we got home! Never have we been more happy to be HOME!
It was horrible. From start to finish, it was awful. Even thinking about it now, weeks later, it makes me want to cry.
But, here's the thing: For as bad as it was, we never cracked. Audra had a tiny meltdown for about 2 minutes when she thought about missing marching band. Ben choked up talking to his parents. But other than those two things, we all stayed in positive spirits and there were no meltdowns or tantrums. Our kids were amazing. They were so exhausted and it was SO HARD and they stayed strong. Ben and I, in hindsight, ended up making really good decisions even though we had such limited information and were pretty clueless as to what to do.
I'm proud of us. I'm proud of us getting through this really terrible experience, and getting through it well. I can't say enough how well our kids endured this. And Ben did awesome, too. He and I both remained calm. He was a rock.
I never, ever want this to happen again. But I really am proud of us.
Now, of course, I will say: it helped immensely that we have the money to get a hotel and a rental car and to pay for the comforts that proved so heavenly. I feel for those who did have to sleep on the airport floor and who didn't have the resources to pay for some conveniences. That is a tremendous blessing, and I made sure to tell the girls that we are blessed because of that. Not everyone has that.
Saying good-bye was so incredibly hard! I hate it, and I was quite depressed about it. I honestly don't know when or if we will ever be all together again. It was very, very sad!
We consoled ourselves by going to Duck Donuts.
We actually had several hours to kill before we had to go to our flight. We stayed at the cabin for as long as possible so we could enjoy the beach. Camille and I went one last time to the beach. Sigh. I love that beach!
We went to an indoor amusement park which was a blast. Matt and Ilea were also there killing time so it was nice to be with them for a little longer.
