flying to and from florida

I'm not super crazy about flying.  There's just something about being locked in a giant metal tube with a bunch of strangers, going super fast, that makes me a little squeamish.  And I feel like everyone in an airplane has adopted an "every-man-for-himself" attitude.  And those seats are so small...and kids are soooo wiggly.... I could go on... but I won't.  The boys did great, though on our flight.  We took plenty to keep them entertained, and it was a success.  We sprung for the non-stop flight, and it was worth it.

The flight there was pretty smooth, and we got off the plane, found our luggage, and picked up our sweet rental van with no problems.  We even had a spare minute to stop by a giant Mickey to kick-start our vacation.

Getting to our flight home, however, was not so wonderful.  We spent the first half of the day in the Animal Kingdom, and what it all comes down to is that we probably didn't give ourselves quite as much time as we should have.  By the time we got out of the park, to our car, to the rental car place, then shuttled to the airport, time was short.  We barely made it through the check in counter, and were waiting for the attendant to check in our bags when the lady next to us tried checking in but couldn't.  She was on a flight leaving at the same time as ours, but was too late.  They weren't going to let her on.  Yikes.  So we high-tailed it to security, only to see the longest line we'd seen all vacation.  It was horrible and wasn't moving.  A TSA person showed us the family line as we were getting closer to security, which was quite a bit shorter, but we quickly noticed that it wasn't moving either.  As we passed the TSA person checking tickets, Matt convinced the lady that she wanted us to use the handicapped line because our stroller was so big.  (it's a double wide, and wasn't going to make the turns in the security line anyway...right?) so she let us through, and the line was only a few people long.  As we were waiting to get through, it was apparent that the only people going through were those in wheelchairs, and they were body-scanning everyone.  After we shoved our stuff through the x-ray machine, since there was no one there doing it for you, we were grabbing bags, throwing stuffed animals, and grabbing other people's belts at lightening speed.  (Somehow I ended up with someone else's belt...in my defense, it looks just like mine.  Don't worry, though, a member of our bishopric picked us up from the airport and I told him right away.)  We ran to the gate, to find they were boarding and it was our turn to get on.  We did have like one extra minute, and Matt stopped and grabbed some food from Wendy's.  Phew.  What a stressful airport experience.  So, the lesson we learned was to give yourself a lot of time at the Orlando airport.  It's really busy, and was last updated in like 1987.  

{the picture above is of Graham asleep in his carseat on the shuttle from the car rental place to the airport.  We were in a mad-dash to get all our stuff out, and I carried Graham, in his seat, asleep, onto the shuttle.  We were a sight to behold, I'm sure, as Matt was carrying all our bags and Mason.}