Flashback Friday - Family Vacations Part 1

This was originally posted in Dec 2007 on Myspace. We were on a family vacation that would include visiting aunts and uncles, disneyland, and a cruise...Enjoy!
And yes I know it is really Saturday, but I work on Fridays and couldn't quite get it done yesterday.

Part I
As many of you know, I am currently on a family vacation. This family vacation consists of my parents, my two younger brothers (22 & 17), and myself. To say I was a super excited for this trip would be a little less than the truth. I was excited but also a little scared. Traveling in the best of circumstances can be stressful, but traveling with my family, especially my mother, can be one of the most trying experiences ever!

Our journey was supposed to start at 8:30pm from the Eugene airport where we would catch a plane to Las Vegas. Our adventure did not start so well...apparently there were some weather issues in Las Vegas and no planes were taking off or landing there. This meant our flight was not leaving Eugene as they did not want to clog more air-space over Las Vegas. From Las Vegas we were supposed to catch a flight to LA and then on to our hotel room. Eventually our plane did take off at 12:45am, putting us in Las Vegas at around 2:30 am.

Once in Vegas we had to go to the ticket counter to be rebooked on another flight to LA. Unfortunately for us, the next flight to LA did not leave Vegas until 8:00am. Not what we wanted to hear. After being rebooked, we had to contact the hotel and rental car agency to make sure they held our reservations. And then...my mother decides to go gamble, just to kill time, ok, no biggie, until she breaks the slot machine! Yes, I did just say that she broke the slot machine. They had to call maintenance to come fix it so she could cash out her money. It is now 4:30am, our plane doesn't board until 7:30am and we have all lost our sense of humor.

My brothers and I decide to go to the gate and try and get some sleep. You can only get so much sleep on the, oh so comfortable terminal benches, fortunately we were able to find ones without armrests. Shortly after, my parents join us. We all sleep fitfully until about 6:30 and then we wait to board our plane. There are no more delays at this point.

We finally arrive in LA at 9:30am...a full 8 hours after our original arrival time. As a group we all trek down to the baggage claim and hope our bags have made the entire journey with us. They have. As we wait for the bags to come out on the carousel, two men in USC apparel start to comment on my t-shirt. I am wearing an Oregon Ducks tee. I have now been up for more than 27 hours, I am in my clothing from the day before, do you really need to start hassling me about my t-shirt and my team? P.S. My team beat your team, so there! I originally thought I would be arriving at 1:30am and had planned on a whole different outfit for this new day! Needless to say, this did not improve my mood.

After getting our rental car we hit the freeway on our way to the hotel, only the hotel is more than 45 minutes away. Bedraggled and exhausted we arrive at our final destination for the this leg of the journey. Keep in mind, my Aunt Kerry has a big BBQ planned at her house with all of my dad's family, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. for 2pm. First thing my mother says when we enter the room...don't forget we have to get to Kerry's by 2pm. All we all want to do is kick off our shoes and passout on a real bed.

My brothers and I manage to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before my mom is at it again...wake up, you have to get ready to go to Kerry's. Sam was NOT happy with our mother and basically told her to not speak to him. Ah, family time. We all miraculously manage to get showered and changed and over to Kerry's house by 2:15. It was fun to see family I haven't seen in years. And I am glad we did go over there, but by 7pm we were all crashing.

I am now back at the hotel room, oh and, all five of us are in one room with 2 queen beds and a sofa bed. I get the lucky privilege of sharing a bed with my youngest brother and if he tries to spoon me....! ;)

I am off to bed, you have no idea how excited that makes me. And tomorrow my mom has mentioned going to Disneyland, "The Happiest Place on Earth". Please wish us luck. I am going with the thought that all traveling has its mishaps and hopefully our mishaps all happened at the start of the trip and it will be smooth "sailing", wink wink, from here on out.

Good Night!