The Great Texas to Utah Migration, Part 2 (How to Make Friends With Strangers in a Hurry)

Let's see. Where did I leave off? .......Oh yes. Landing in Denver.

Like I said before, the flight itself was pretty unremarkable. The kids were good, nothing eventful happened. We got off the plane, found the train to take us to a different terminal, got some lunch, found our gate, and sat down to eat. Sitting on the chairs across from us was a mom waiting with her 11 year old daughter, who was about to fly all alone for the first time. We visited with them for a little while, and then we boarded the plane. We sat for a LONG time. First, they were having trouble with their numbers, somehow they had more people on the flight than they should have, so there weren't enough seats. I had three different flight attendants ask if I was absolutely SURE that Kate wasn't a lap child. I had to keep showing them the paperwork with her ticket information. Super annoying. But whatever. They finally got that worked out, and we were good to go, but then I noticed something weird. The flight attendants started asking groups of people to get off the plane. They weren't taking their luggage, just purses. Just standing up and hurrying off the plane.

When it was our turn, I didn't know what to do. Kate was sound asleep and Megan and Jared were panicking. I couldn't carry William and Kate and the diaper bag, and they weren't unloading the stroller. That's when I started making friends really quickly. The lady that Jared had sat next to on our flight from Houston to Denver was actually a couple rows behind us, and she and the lady sitting next to her jumped up and came to our rescue. One took William and one took the diaper bag and I carried Kate and herded Megan and Jared. As we got off the plane, the mom that we had met during lunch was still there, waiting to see her daughter take off, so she and her daughter joined our group. It was a tornado warning and they were directing everyone to take shelter in the bathrooms. The first two bathrooms we came to were completely packed, but a airport worker saw us and directed us to a stairwell that was also used as a shelter. It was already pretty full, but we found a place on a landing about two flights down. We all sat down on the floor and waited.

After a while, some airport workers came rushing through, directing everyone to get lower, so we picked up and went down two more flights of stairs. We ended up in the huge cavern of a basement. It was bigger than a gymnasium, with pipes on the ceiling and concrete walls and floor. I think most of the people in the airport ended up down there eventually because it got pretty crowded.

We found a spot and sat down. By this point, a couple other women had joined our group, and they all took turns holding William and entertaining Megan and Jared. My phone was dead, but they let the kids play games on their phones, and just helped keep them calm. The alarms were so loud and constant, I really don't know how Kate slept through the whole thing, but somehow she did. I just sat and held her and tried not to cry. Not because I was scared, but because I was so grateful for all of these kind strangers who took care of us. I truly couldn't have managed without them.

All the while, I wasn't too stressed about the actual tornado - we get tornado warnings in Houston fairly often, but no one really worries about them. I was more tired from all the travel and worried about making my sister wait so long for us at the airport in Salt Lake City. After seeing some of the news coverage and photos from outside the Denver Airport, maybe I should have been more concerned about the tornado...

Here's some pictures from the outside: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-reported-near-denver-airport-20130618

When we finally landed in Salt Lake (about 3 hours late), I left the kids and carry-ons with Charlotte while I went to round up all our checked baggage. Charlotte said that several people came up to her in the airport to check on the kids because they knew that she wasn't the one traveling with them, and wanted to make sure they were okay.

The Great Texas to Utah Migration, Part 1 (The Great Applesauce Explosion and The Bloody Tongue Biting Incident)

Warning: Long, long, long-long-looong blog post ahead.

Yesterday the kids and I flew to Utah. Four kids. And me. And a gazillion bags and backpacks and a diaper bag the size of Rhode Island. With a layover in Denver. During naptime.

Yes, I have changed my middle name to Crazy. Anna Crazy Mansfield. It seemed appropriate.

Travis took the morning off to help us to the airport. He helped us get all of our suitcases checked and our boarding passes printed and walked us to Security. And then he left. He could have gotten a boarding pass and walked us to the gate, but I was all like "No, I can handle it. I'm going to have to do it alone in Denver and in Salt Lake, so I might as well do it now too. You go on to work, honey. It'll be fine."

That's the last time I'll ever utter such stupidity. If I ever act like I can handle it all, ever ever again, y'all have permission to whack me up side the head.

So, Travis left us waiting in line at Security. Security is a lot of shuffling along, waiting in line, cross-your-eyes boredom. Until you get to the front of the line, and then it's a lot of crazy madness, trying to get everything and everyone through the various x-ray machines and scanners without holding up the line and without forgetting anything or losing anyone. We had with us: two big kids who enjoy fighting with each other (they must enjoy it or they wouldn't do it so often, right?) two backpacks, one laptop bag, with a laptop that had to be removed (or dropped by Jared...), one ginormous diaper bag, one camera bag, one carseat, one baby (who must be removed from the carseat and held while shuffling everything else down to the xray machine), one toddler with a propensity for running away, and one monkey-back-pack-leash thingy to keep her from running away. Whew! I'm getting a headache just writing all of this!

So, we get up to the front. And everyone takes off their shoes and starts helping me load things into bins. And Kate starts freaking out because she doesn't have a clue what's going on. And she isn't happy about having to get out of the stroller. Or having to take off her monkey (truth be told, I wasn't happy about that either - did I mention she likes to run away?). She's in full out tantrum mode. So I gave Megan an applesauce pouch thingy that Kate loves and told her to go stand to the side while I dealt with everything else. Um, yeah....That didn't work so well. We are forever more referring to this as The Great Applesauce Explosion of 2013. It resulted in me carrying a sticky, thrashing two year old through security. There may have been some applause when we finally left. A TSA worker may have started weeping with joy. I know there was some rubbernecking from people in other lanes - you know like when you are on the freeway and you see a gruesome wreck off to the side and you slow way down so you can stare in fascinated horror at the carnage? Yeah. It was like that.

We finally made it to our gate, about 45 minutes before boarding.We staked out a row of chairs in the corner. Kate was happy again by then and wanted to explore, so Megan took a hold of her leash (don't judge me - I used to think those toddler leashes were horrible, but after Kate, now I think they are rockin'-awesome!) and let her roam. All was peaceful for about 15 minutes. Until Kate tripped on her shoe, faceplanted on the tile, bit her tongue, and was carried back to me gushing blood.I had another clean shirt for Kate to wear, but not for Megan. She had to spend the rest of the day in a shirt covered in blood, boogers, and chewed up goldfish. She's such a good big sister. She didn't even complain.

Totally another one of those awesome rubbernecker moments, with bystanders stunned by the blood bath. Actually, everyone around us was really nice. Multiple people offered to run and get some ice or a popsicle, no one accused me of being a negligent mother.

So there you have it. That was the first leg of our journey. The actual plane ride to Denver was a a piece of cake. Megan slept, Kate slept, Jared sat across the aisle and talked some nice lady's ear off. William sat on my lap and babbled. Easy-peasy.

Little did I know that that was just the calm before the storm. Tune in next time to hear the rest of the story.

Our Wheel Parade

We had a Wheel Parade to celebrate the beginning of summer. Everyone came and decorated their bikes and scooters with ribbons and streamers and pipe cleaners and paper plates. When they were all ready, they lined up and paraded down the street to the end of the cul-de-sac and then back up to our house.

There was lots of decorating.

There was lots of posing.

There was lots of jumping out from behind the light pole and yelling "Surprise!"

There were LOTS of friends.

There was lots of zooming.

There was waving.

There was a little crashing, a little bleeding, and a few tears. But not too many.

There was lots of fun wheel-themed artwork.

And best of all, there were popsicles.

The kids had a great time. What a fun way to kick off summer vacation!

Oh, and I made the invitation in PSE, with Kim Meeder's super cute Tike Transports Collection from Scrap Girls.

Last Day of School

Today is the last day of school. Megan and Jared will be home a little after noon. I'm a little apprehensive to have all four kids home with me all the time, but at the same time I'm really excited. They may drive me crazy some times, but I really have been blessed with awesome kids.

I was thinking about just how much has changed from the first day of school back in August til now. And just how much has stayed the same.

• Back in August, there were only 3. Now there are 4.

•  Megan has always been a beautiful girl. But looking at these pictures, she now looks more grown up and sure of herself as well. She has started to come into her own - she's confident in her style, her hair, the way she deals with people and situations. She's blossomed this year, and I am so excited to get to know the person she is becoming.

• Jared has grown up a lot too. He's comfortable in school, and with hanging out with friends. He's independent and excited to try new things. And coincidentally, he wore the same shirt on the first and last day of school. :D

 It's been a great school year! And it's going to be a great summer!

End of the Year "Celebration of Learning" Parties

At the end of each year, instead of having a big Awards Assembly, each class has a Celebration of Learning party. The kids get awards, they read something they've written or preform as a class, and everyone gets to hang out and relax for a little while.

Jared has loved having Mrs. Adams for his teacher this year. He has learned a lot and really enjoyed school. His reading has improved immensely. He was given a "Voracious Vocabulary Award" (I think it's a nice way to say he talks a lot?) and a "Mr. Goodbar Award" for being a good friend and all around good kid.

He says when he grows up he wants to own his own restaurant.

Last year Megan had a wonderful student teacher. She got hired to teach 3rd grade, and Megan was in her class again this year. So really, she's had Mrs. Halbot for two years now. It's been a wonderful school year and Megan has done so well. She has improved all around, but she's really flourished the most in math and art. (One she gets from her dad, the other from me. I'll let you guess which one. ;) She got awards for both.).

She says that she wants to be an elementary school teacher or an art teacher when she grows up.

I'm super proud of both of my big kids and I'm excited to see what the future holds for them.