Vacay Part I

Well, I am back from my FABULOUS vacation. But then again, what vacation isn't fabulous??? Josh and I did hit many bumps on the way though. Right now I am at work and bored out of my mind, so who knows what this post will be like ;) First, let me tell you how our vacation all started....(Once again, no pictures from the no computer at home problem. That should be fixed soon though)

Our plan was to leave Cleveland on Saturday the twentieth day of December. This did in fact occur, but not quite the way it was planned. Nola (my stepmother, no she's not wicked) had listed us on a flight from Cleveland to St. Louis that left at approximately 9:25 in the morning; it had a good 30 empty seats on it, so we should have totally gotten on this flight. I told Josh that we should be at the airport at eight in the morning. He insisted that we really didn't need to get there until 8:30am. So, of course we get there at approximately 8:30. As soon as we walk in the doors, we see this HUGE line and wonder which airline it was for. Of course, it was for Southwest! I get a little upset and say to someone "I told you so." So, we wait in line for quite some time. When we get up to the counter, there is something wrong with how our itinerary was set up. There actually wasn't anything "wrong" with it, it's just that our bags wouldn't make it. So the lady takes her time to help other customers and eventually fix the problem, mark our bags and get us on our way. She told us that she would call down to the gate and tell them that we were on our way there. We drop off our bags and attempt to go through security, but of course we are both "randomly selected" for additional screening. And the TSA guys take their time searching us and our belongings. Once we are cleared, we have about 10 minutes to get to the gate. I run down there as fast as I can. I get there with FIVE minutes to spare; yet, the plane was already gone! The lady that said she was going to call down, never did and the plane left early because "everyone" was on board. I tried asking the lady at the counter where we should try to go but she basically told me she was "too busy."

We end up going to Las Vegas with thinking that if we don't make a flight out, then we will just drive the rest of the way up. The flight from Cleveland to Vegas left about 2-3 hours later and was suppose to be a four hour flight. The four hours ended up being more like five hours from a high wind that was blowing against us. In Vegas, we have to go to the complete opposite end of the airport to get to the gate that the flight to Salt Lake was out of. We didn't make the first flight; it was too full, but we did make the second one! We get to Salt Lake and are completely happy to be there. Then we go to the baggage claim. Our bags are no where to be found. We have no idea where they ended up! Did they make it on the flight to St Louis? to Denver? to Vegas? Who knows?....no one does! Since we were flying standby, Southwest wouldn't ship our luggage to us when it showed up so we wanted to wait until the last flight came in to see if it was on it. That flight kept getting delayed and more delayed. We missed all of the shuttles to Idaho. We ended up waiting another couples hours for our luggage that never came and then staying the night without our luggage at Josh's aunt and uncle's house! It was quite nice of them! They even gave us toothbrushes! We got up in the morning and luckily were able to pick up our luggage and make the first shuttle to Idaho! We made it to Josh's parents house at about two in the afternoon. Wow! It was totally one thing after another, but I am so glad that we were finally able to make it and then enjoy a GREAT week/Christmas with family! More to come about our actual vacation...