home again, home again

Well, we made it back home! What an amazing trip! it was difficult to get onto the internet while i was gone and then when you did get on, there weren't any plugs to use, so usually i only had about a half hour of battery time, so everything was done quickly before my battery ran out! since i didn't get to blog much, i think i will start at the beginning of the trip and work my way up until now.

Due to bad weather, our original flight on friday june 29th was was cancelled. we got out on saturday morning, but the schedule was INSANE! here is what we had to do to get to the west coast. we flew into Toronto - then we flew from Toronto to Vancouver - then we flew from Vancouver to Seattle. after getting thru customs in Vancouver we had to go into this room to pick up our luggage, which we then had to recheck to Seattle. well there was a little snafu and we ended up being in this room for 3 hours! i felt like we were stuck between 2 countries. we weren't allowed to leave this room without our luggage and the Air Canada guy kept assuring us that the luggage was coming. after i sent the boys over to ask him "again" to find out when our luggage was coming and he didn't remember who we were - i almost lost it! i marched (literally) over there and said: " i am this close to having an anxiety attack. i'm tired, i'm hungry and this room is making me claustrophic - now when is our luggage coming?" so, he says, i'm sorry, but we are really busy. to which replied, " i am sure you are - but we've been in this room for 3 hours - wouldn't you agree that that is an awful long time to be waiting?". he agrees that yes, it is a long time. so then he leaves and we find this other girl, who wants to see our luggage tags and she realizes that the luggage has been sent elsewhere! when the air canada guys returns he locates the luggage elsewhere and when he tells the guy to bring it over, i heard him say "take your time, they don't leave til 8:00pm!" i looked at him and said, i want my luggage now, i don't care if we aren't leaving til 8 o'clock. i'd like to get something to eat and get situated before we fly out again. this guy has no concept of OUR time. Come on! finally he says he will go get it, but it would be another 45 minutes. unbelievable. i was livid to say the least when it finally got to us.

so from there we fly into Seattle - which is under construction and a total mess. it is around 9:30pm now. the airport is so hot and we are exhausted. we get our luggage and try to find where to catch our shuttle to the hotel. there is absolutely no one around to ask for help - i can't find an employee anywhere. finally we see a skywalk and realizes we have to cross over it to get to taxi's and shuttles - which we do. FINALLY, we check into our hotel and go to bed at 11pm.

well, i'm going to go ahead and post this - for some reasons the pictures aren't loading and i am tired of waiting!