Thursday, April 1, 2010

Spring Break...Traveling Nightmare

So I am going to try once again to be a little better at posting. I have decided that I don't always have to have pictures to go along with my posts. I think that is what keeps me away. I think that I need to have pictures to go along, and I am so far behind I don't know where to start. So we will just start with an update of our spring break.

Colt and I flew to Phoenix for our Spring Break. We were very excited to go look for a home, visit Mark, Alli, and their kids, and just get away. We also had my little brother's (younger brother) wedding to go to as well. Going to Phoenix we had an evening flight out of Kansas City. We made sure we were plenty early to catch the flight (1 hr and 1/2). When we checked in they told us there was a problem with our seats. We were told to work it out at the gate. So we got to the gate, and they said the flight had been overbooked. They told us that we were bumped, and wouldn't be able to fly out. Well I was, lets say, a little upset...the Johnson temper may have flared a bit! After sitting in the airport for almost 5 hours they finally put us up at a hotel, and got us booked for the 6:30 AM flight (this flight was also overbooked meaning that because we had confirmed seats someone else was bumped). We finally got to bed at midnight, but had a wake up set at 3:30 AM (2:30 actually because of daylight savings). Colt's alarm went off at 1:30, so we ended up getting maybe an hour of sleep. We did however, make it on the flight, and were able to get to Phoenix by 9:30 AM minus our luggage. It didn't quite make it. No worries though, it was delivered at 10:00 that night!

We had so much fun visiting Mark, Alli, and the Kids. Their house is absolutely beautiful, and they live in a great area. We totally fell in love with the Gilbert area, and are so excited to move there. We didn't find a house, because it was too early to sign on anything. We definitely have a great idea where we want to live though.

On Wednesday Colt, Alli, the kids, and I drove to St. George for Craig's wedding. My dad rented a cute little house for the whole Johnson clan to stay in. It was an interesting few days. We had 8 adults, 7 kids and 2 bathrooms! Needless to say, it was a little crowded, but we had a lot of fun with lots of laughs.

Craig and Natalie's wedding was beautiful. The St. George temple is so pretty. The day was fabulous, the luncheon and reception were great, and it was so fun to see family that we haven't seen for a couple of years. Its always fun to have family together even if it is for a short time.
On Saturday we drove up to Salem, and spent the night with Colt's family. We had a lot of fun, even though it was a very short visit. (We flew out Sunday)

So our trip back to Kansas City: Our flight was supposed to take off from SLC at 5:02PM. The plane pulled away from the gate, but didn't take off. We sat there, and after 20 min they pulled back in and said that we were having maintenance issues. Colt and I were concerned, because we only had 20 minutes to catch our flight out of Denver to Kansas City. I called my boss to let him know that we were most likely going to miss our flight out of Denver. (I failed to mention that I was sick during this whole trip) My boss told me to take the day off since I sounded awful, and I was very grateful for that. An hour and a half later the plane finally took off. As we landed in Denver they announced that our flight to Kansas City had been delayed as well, and so we were going to make the flight. The doors were shut, but they opened them for us. The plane was completely full, and as Colt and I walked back to our seats we could see they weren't empty. (They boarded standby) So an employee of the airline was telling the people in our seats that they had to get off the plane. The seats were ours, and we just came in off of a delayed flight out of SLC. The couple sitting in the seats got really upset, and the woman started crying. She started yelling out that they were evil, and how could they do this to her. Meanwhile the entire plane is staring at Colt and myself, because we are just standing there. We decided to go back to the front of the plane to wait. Finally the couple got off, and as they did so they gave one last pouting/cry face to the flight attendant standing next to us. Then Colt and I walked back to our seats...with the whole plane staring at us again.

After we arrived in Kansas City, we waited over 30 minutes for our baggage...what's 30 more minutes, right! We were finally on the road back to Kirksville at about 12 AM. We take a little 2 lane highway back to Kirksville, because it is a little quicker than the main road. About 60 miles outside of Kirksville, in the middle of nowhere, our car broke down. This was about 2 AM. We call our insurance, and they send a Tow truck. They told us they tried 4 different companies and this was the first to answer the phone. They were coming from a little town of 300 called Eagleville, MO. Apparently it is the last town before you cross over to Iowa. So it took the tow truck an hour and a half to get to us! Luckily we pulled off the road in an area that happened to have cell phone service and wireless Internet. Colt was able to work on an assignment, and I slept!

We arrived home at 4:30 AM paid the tow truck guy (he would only take cash...luckily we had some) and headed up to bed. As Colt was carrying our suitcases up the stairs the handle to one broke, and it went tumbling down to the bottom. He looked at me and said, "Really, really that just happened," and then we both laughed (that's all we could do) Perfect ending to a very chaotic day!

So $2,800 later we have a car that runs nicely, but smells like a transmission shop! Not to complain, but seriously I can't get the smell out...so if any of you have any tips!!!

Good night!