It has been great seeing all of our family again and I am excited they all have gotten to meet Kayla and Steph since they are such a big part of my life. Our trip back to Portland started out well but turned ridiculous. You can view the picture gallery of our trip back to Portland HERE.
Step 1: Return to Charlotte
We again decided to leave early to fit into Kayla’s sleep schedule. The drive home was great. Kayla again did spectacular. We only hit one hiccup when we stumbled upon an accident and what looked like a drug raid on a white SUV with 6 police cars present. Not sure if there was a chase or what but it was quite the site. We stopped in Hickory to eat lunch and met Great Grandpa and Grandma Sipe and Great Great Aunt Virgie at a Cracker Barrel.
We had a great lunch and Great Grandpa had fun feeding Kayla some apple sauce and it was good to get to see them again before we headed home. Kayla also enjoyed rocking in a Cracker Barrel rocking chair outside. Our trip back to Charlotte was uneventful and we got some good sleep at the hotel.
Step 2: Fly to PDX
We woke up bright and early at 5:30 am and had breakfast at the hotel before catching the 7:00 AM shuttle to the airport. We had to wait in a large but not too long of a line before waiting in a really really long security check-in line to get to our terminal. When we arrived at our gate we were not gleeful to see our plane had been delayed for an hour. This was no good because we only had an hour layover in Minneapolis. So …. with the help of a very very nice NW Airlines clerk we were rerouted to a US Airways plane leaving in an hour.
The new flight was not a perfect situation because we were now going to be going through Phoenix which added about two hours to our flight time and would cause us to get into PDX at 4:50PM instead of our original 1:40PM. BUT, we were still going to get home which was the important thing. Stay tuned.
The flight to Phoenix was long but went well. We were all assigned seats in different rows and all in middle seats. This was not ideal with Kayla and we were all stuck in the very very back of the plane. Luckily, a very nice man offered to give up his isle seat to me in-order to help keep our family sitting together. He was 6′4″ and not excited about the middle seat but even more amazingly the guy in the isle in that row offered to switch with him. It all was pretty great to see strangers be so friendly on a plane and it made our flight much more pleasant.
Our layover in Phoenix was pretty long but it gave us a chance to get something to eat. Turns out that Spring Break time is not a great time to fly through Arizona. The crowds were pretty intense. Then things got weird. It started to rain and then hail in Phoenix … yes the middle of the Arizona desert. We thought this was neat and took some pictures but it was deadly to our time-line.
We all boarded the plane and the plane taxied onto the runway. The pilot announced that because of the storm we were 24 in line to take off 
but we would leave shortly… He lied. We proceeded to sit on the runway for the next 3 and 1/2 hours!! With Kayla! This was not fun. Luckily she slept for a bit and we survived until we finally took off. The flight was a bit bumpy but we survived and landed at around 9:00pm … that is 12AM EST which we were on instead of the 1:45pm we were supposed to get in.
It was a really really long day but we survived. Steph went to work the next day and a couple of days later we were finally able to catch up on sleep.
Thanks again to all our family for the fabulous time and we hope to see you all again soon.
