Day 1 - To the Brink....and Back Again

So where do I begin?  Oooohhh, I know...how about midnight.

Yeah, we knew we were getting up at 5 am....did it matter?  Not so much.  As I was doing some last minute things (and there were SOOOOOOO many things I didn't get done...SORRY Marie!), trying to get Noah and Savannah and the dog and the cats settled down for the night.  Yeah....it didn't go so well.

Around 12:30 we were laying down, and every 5 minutes either Noah or Savannah had a question.  The dog was so grateful we were there and even the cats ignored the dog so they could be in the room with us too.  Around 1, I was starting to relax....I don't sleep and I wasn't going to take Ambien when I knew I was only going to get a couple of hours of sleep.  But right about then, Noah woke me up to tell me he was having a hard time sleeping.  He whispered in my ear, "So I prayed about it Mom....and everything is going to be okay."  It was all I could do to keep from crying because I was so grateful for that moment.

So finally, everyone was asleep.  Well, everyone but me.  And then the Fartfest began.  Don't tell Noah I told you...but man, I have no idea what that kid ate!  WHOA!  And did I mention that the poodle is really, really, really afraid of farts?  Yeah....she is!  So she kept getting up because Noah's tushy was having a rough night.

Finally, the dog went upstairs and I settled in to sleep at around 3-ish.  But whoa....sleep was not a good idea.  For whatever reason, without my Ambien, I have freaky, freak dreams!  I apparently was really stressed about having everything done, which I knew it wasn't.  So I dreamt that I overslept, nothing was packed and there were little see-through Smurf running around unpacking everything that had been packed.  And I had to chase them all down, scare them to turn them visible and then slay them.  Yes, I said slay them.  I had to kill them in order to get them to stop unpacking.....but, I tried to be humane.  No, not really, I was pretty much just shooting them.

Then I woke up at 4:45.  That would be A.M.

I woke the kids up at 5.  We drugged the animals, put them in their kennels and loaded the car.  We took some more of the mountains of garbage out, tried to wipe things off and pretended I didn't see all of the things I didn't do.....and we were off.

I went to the hotel and picked up Felix, Baylee and Caleb.  We stopped at California Avenue to top off the rental car tank....that was scary.  'Nuff said.

We got to the airport, and headed straight to cargo to drop off the animals.  They didn't open until 6:30.  They were all in there looking at us....but they wouldn't open the door until 6:30.  We got in handed over the paperwork and the first thing they told us, is that it was wrong and unless it was fixed....no pets....no fly.  WHAT THE?????

I told the lady that I called three times and they never told me I even had to have the paper they were complaining about.  Seriously?  So I called the vet.  Not there.  I called the emergency vet....not there.  I started crying.  Savannah started crying.  Felix even almost got teary.  The lady finally agreed that she would process them as long as the papers would be there by 8.  Okay...our flight was at 8:33....let's not cut it close, shall we?

We started loading the kennels and they said that one of the kennels was not airline approved.  They just changed the regulations.  Again...I called three times.  So to fix the problem, they handed me a drill and a bunch of screws. Savannah took the drill out of my hands and said, "I got it Mom."  Awwwwwww......that's my girl.  But I took the drill and fixed it.

In the meantime, I kept dialing the vet, and miracle of miracles, the receptionist I needed on a whim came in at 6:45.....a whole hour early.  Can I just reiterate, prayer really does change things.

Everything got taken care of and we jumped in the car and jammed to the rental car return.  We were not going to make our flight.  But again, miracles of miracles, we flew through car return, security and made it to our gate 45 minutes early.

We got on the plane, and surprise of surprises....it was the most uneventful portion of our day.  We landed, got off and Caleb lost it because he was starving to death.  We started getting our luggage and I went to pick up the pets.  The sweet and wonderful lady at the desk got Caleb something to eat from her own lunch because "that poor baby needed to eat right now".  And then told me we had to drive to a hanger to pick up the animals (that inside I was still hoping made it on the plane).

We went and waited for the shuttle to rental car return....with our 4 kids and 9 bags.  That was a sight to see.  Got to the rental car place and they had the wrong car.  Oh my.

They didn't have anything bigger, but we made it work.  Perhaps a little on the illegal side....but oh well.  We drove to the border of the scary part of St. Louis and walked into the hanger.  I told them we were there to pick up our furry babies and someone walked out and told us they just watered them!  That meant they were there!  YAY!

We got them...and sweet babies were still drugged!!!  And funny!  They recognized us and we all were able to breathe a sigh of relief when we saw them.

We drove the hour and a half to Farmington and dropped off the babies at the vet.  We decided to help them acclimate and not lose them, they needed to stay in the kennel until the truck was unloaded and we could close the doors.

We went to the house, picked up our keys and took the kiddos on a tour.  Everyone (but Savannah) was thrilled. She is 13...and this is scary.  She came around....eventually.

We had dinner and finally checked in to the hotel.  We went swimming (at the hotel) and then settled into our beds.  I was done.  I think I looked at my Ambien and went to sleep.

All in all, it was a good day.  Eventful, stressful, scary, but we made it.  All in one piece.

Miracles really do happen.