The Trip Home...

So as you heard, Christmas was a wonderful time filled with great memories...until it was time to head home. In 8 years of traveling during every major holiday on the calendar we had never, never experienced anything like this particular trip. We arrived to the airport at 7am, about an hour and a half early, which typically gives us plenty of time. Sure, we know Midway can be crazy. Yes, we knew it was just 3 days after Christmas. Of course we had heard there were storms all over the east coast causing backups and cancelled flights around the country. But the bad weather wasn't in Chicago. It wasn't even in Baltimore where we were headed. We thought we'd be fine. We were wrong.

We walked into the airport which was a mad house and found that the line to check in our luggage not only snaked about a zillion times around those black ropes, but also went down through the terminal, down a dark hallway, into a closet where you were supposed to turn around, and then go back through everything you just waited in. This line alone took us 2hrs. I mentioned we were there an hour and a half early, right? As we stood there getting our tickets from the Southwest employee we heard over the airport PA "paging family of 3, McGinnis. Robert, Stacey, Owen please report to your gate immediately for departure." We hadn't even made it TO security yet! As we walked up to the security line we basically resigned to the idea that we'd have to rebook our flight, and getting a flight out that day would be impossible. We called my parents, and they turned around to come get us even though they had made it home already. I started crying. Owen started crying. Robert tried to keep his blood pressure under control. It was a mess. Several more times as we stood in line we heard our names announced over the PA. I wanted to yell "WERE COMING!" back them, but we were already getting dirty looks from the surrounding passengers.

Finally we made it up to the x-ray machines and Robert told me once I got through to run to the gate and let them know we were coming. He assured me I should leave everything behind and go tell them to hold the plane. So I did. Shoeless and wearing only a tank top in the dead of winter I sprinted to the gate which, by the grace of God, was the closest our gate as ever been. I rattled off our names to the gate attendant and told her my husband and son were coming. She told me to get on the plane and get seats, and she'd wait for them. Bless the hearts of every single Southwest employee on that flight, they had held a row for us in the back of the plane. I did not make eye contact with anyone as I moved down the aisle and sat in the open row, waiting for Robert, Owen and ALL of our stuff. I heard later that not only did he have to sprint to gate shoeless and carrying all of our stuff, but that Owen lost his mind because of all the chaos and Robert had to drag/carry him too! What a disaster! But praise God, they held that plane for us and as I sat waiting for them the pilot announced that every single flight out of Midway that day had to be at full capacity before leaving because of all the travel issues on the east coast. Robert and Owen made their way to our seats, banging our carry-ons into every single person they passed. When they sat down Owen first asked me to put my shirt on (meaning my sweater that I had taken off to go through security) and then to put his shoes on so all could be right in his world again. Once we were settled we wanted to cry with relief. We wanted to hug every Southwest Airlines flight attendant on that flight. We wanted to apologize to all of the passengers who had to wait for us and then get bumped into by our bags. It was one of the most stressful times of our entire lives.

But we made it home.