We made it ... just barely!

Getting the 4 of us from New Jersey to Salt Lake City was NOT EASY! In fact, it was probably the longest day of my life. We got home from Nayda's house very late (around 1am), then John and I finished up the last-minute Christmas preparations and packing. We finally got to sleep around 3:30am. Avery, John and I were up by 9am while Reagan slept in until almost 11. We went downstairs and opened presents, then got dressed and finished the packing. The car service arrived at 2:30 pm and we were off to Newark airport to catch our 5:10 pm flight, direct to SLC.

We arrived at Newark around 3:45, checked out luggage (they charged us $15 per bag - what a joke!), then headed for the security line. The line was so long that we couldn't find the end! Once in line, I waited in the Delta ticketing line to see if we could get seats together ... since we booked our flights last minute, we had 3 seats in 3 different rows! Obviously, that was not an option, since Reagan wasn't going to be sitting by herself. Once I finally got to the front of the line, the ticketing agent said I'd have to wait and talk to the gate agent. So, back to the security line I went with John and the girls. We made our way almost to the front, then one of the security agents came walking up, calling for everyone with a 5:10 departure time. This would have been really nice, had she started calling people from the front of the line first - BUT - she announced this when she was at the back of the line, so everyone on our flight followed her to the front! By the time she got to us, everyone from the back of the line had walked in front of us and now we were at the back of the line again! John and I were SO annoyed.

Once we got to the gate, it was pure chaos. We learned that our plane would now be making a stop in Cincinnati to re-fuel! I always select direct flights when we go to Utah because I can't think of anything worse than making stops when you're traveling with young children, so it was very disappointing to have selected a direct flight and find out we had to stop. Everyone was very upset, so the gate agent was in a very bad mood ... she told us the flight was over-booked and if we wanted to sit together, we'd have to ask people to switch us seats. This proved to be very stressful ~ there were very large groups of people traveling together, so no one wanted to switch seats. At one point I thought John would be sitting alone and I'd be sitting with both girls. Luckily, after lots of negotiating, we finally got two people to change seats and we all sat together on one row. Phew! What a relief! We made it to Cincinnati and everyone waited on the plane while it was re-fueled. By now, I was getting very hungry. I had packed food for the girls, but nothing for John or me (I'm usually much better prepared for a flight, but considering that it was Christmas and crazy, I'm cutting myself a little slack!). I was relieved when they said they'd have Food for Purchase once we took off again from Cincinnati to Salt Lake. We were sitting on the 26th row and apparently, they sold out of all their food on about the 20th row. Lovely. So we settled for 2 small cans of Pringles, for $3 each. We had eaten sandwiches around noon, so it was now about 8:00 and we were eating chips and cookies on an empty stomach. Needless to say, I didn't feel so great.

Avery fell asleep once we were in the air again, but it was only for about 45 minutes. So she was awake almost the entire time (we ended up being on the plane for 7 hours!). Reagan was awake the entire flight as well, then fell asleep for the last 30 minutes. I took the above picture just after we landed. It was actually very lucky we were able to land, since we arrived in the middle of a crazy snow storm! We were so happy to finally be in Utah.

My dad picked us up from the airport and the drive home was treacherous. The roads were the worst I've seen them in Utah in a long time (they're usually really good at plowing them, but I think so much snow fell so quickly that they couldn't keep up). We finally got to my parent's house around midnight, which was 2:00 am our time. We were starving, so my mom served us fresh made rolls with ham and fresh fruit. By the time we got unpacked and ready for bed, it was 2:30 am, or 4:30 our time! We were exhausted!

We slept in as long as we could today (Friday, December 26th), then lounged around the house in our pajamas all day. It's a good thing we didn't want to go anywhere, since it was snowing again. My parents gave us some Christmas presents, one being a brand new Wii! I was excited but also worried that it would become a big consumer of our time, so it was a bitter/sweet gift, since I'm already lacking free time these days. But needless to say, it was a very cool gift from my parents and we were excited! They broke out theirs, so we could see how it works and we had lots of fun playing with it. Avery and Reagan had fun watching us bowl and then John and I tried out the boxing and tennis.



We finally got our act together in the afternoon and used my parent's Jazz tickets.

Before the game, we met up with Camille and Brett for dinner ...

Aren't we cute sisters?

My sister Camille and her husband Brett

Here I am after the game, holding Avery and Samantha ... they are about 9 weeks apart in age, so it was fun to see them playing together.

Reagan and Makenna, making funny faces for the camera

Reagan and Makenna

I love this picture of Samantha! So cute!

The Siebenberg Family, as they were leaving