Day 1 - Off to the great adventure!

Got up, headed to the airport, and just BARELY made our flight. We walked up to the gate just as they were finishing boarding! Whew, that was close.



Flew to Denver on a small commuter plane. The person I made the reservations with had told me she couldn't seat all 5 of us together on this flight, so she said she would do two together, another two tgether, and one alone. But her idea of "Two together" was one on each side of the aisle! Other passengers were kind enough to offer to trade so that Darrin & Brynn were together and Kyra & Callie were together, with me just across the aisle from them. Brynn LOVED flying. Every single time we took off, she would shout loudly "WHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Making the other passengers laugh. I was relieved because I'd wondered if she would be scared.

After the quick flight to Denver we went to the gate for our next flight. We had some time, so we got lunch and explored a bit. Brynn was delighted to see this:

so of course, we had to get a picture.

On the next flight, we had seats all together, three on one side of the aisle and two on the other. The flight to Boston was much longer. The girls did well with the stuff I'd packed for them to do, Brynn especially enjoyed the small tub of play doh and new cookie cutters. They showed a movie on the plane, but it was "Failure to Launch" - so the girls were disappointed that they wouldn't get to watch one they liked. (But the way home was "Eight Below" which they'd seen with Grandpa Doug and loved, so they were happy then)

Callie had a window seat, and liked seeing the Great Lakes from the air.

Brynn cried and cried in pain when we were descending into Boston. Her ears were hurting. She wouldn't do any of the things we were trying to do to hekp her, ike yawn, eat something, chew gum, etc. She just cried & cried. I felt so bad for her, yet I was not able to do anything for her. Other passengers were very nice, offering gum and other suggestions. As we discovered later, it was the first sign of a cold coming on for poor Brynn.

Once her ears popped while we were taxiing and she felt better, she was her usual happy self again.

Getting the rental car was a two hour long nightmare, I'll spare you the details, except to give the name of the crappy company: Dollar Rental Car. They'd told us the van we rented would have a built-in car seat, so we didn't bring Brynn's with us. They offered to rent us one for $9 a day (for 8 days!) and we decided to just buy a new one, as it would be cheaper and we could use it at home in Darrin's car.

By this time it was dark, well past dinner time, and we were all crabby & hungry and tired. Drove out to the hotel in Rockland, near where Darrin grew up. Checked in, dropped off the luggage, and went to Papa Gino's (a pizza place that holds childhood memories for Darrin) for dinner. Got in just before they closed. I ran next door to the grocery store for some speed shopping while our pizza baked, just finishing before they closed. I guess 24 hour grrocery stores are not common in MA yet. With some food in our bellies and a temporary "home" to sleep in that night, we felt much better.



We all slept well that night. Something about travel just wears you out!