our travel story, which includes a tornado

monday, august 4th, started early for the ladle clan.  arising at 2:30 a.m. to make a 6:45 flight out of san jose.  well, we didn't make that flight.  who knew there would be a monstrous line at southwest?  but there was another flight not too much later.  so, we arrived in chicago at 2:30 with hopes of making standby on a 3:30 flight to buffalo.  not so much.  the next one?  9:00.  now, i don't know about you, but 6 1/2 hours in an airport seemed completely unappealing and impossible.  

but lucky for us we didn't have to wait 6 1/2 hours . . . 

no, we were in the chicago midway airport for ELEVEN hours!  thanks to a storm and talk of a tornado, the airport completely shut down.  at this point, i was sure there was going to be a shortage of food due to the growing population inside the airport, so i stocked up on airport-priced diapers (i had not planned for a tornado!), bananas, yogurt, juice, and water.  i was out of formula (did you know that airports don't sell formula?) and was just praying oliver would be okay until we got our luggage (speaking of luggage, where was our luggage?  would it make it? would it find us?  did it know where we were?)

after about an hour and a half in the airplane on the runway, we finally took off and arrived in buffalo at 3:30 a.m., only to face a three-hour drive to ithaca.  josh and i were both half asleep as we tried to find our way to ithaca with no directions and no sense of direction (josh) which resulted in one of the most interesting car trips ever.  i really have no words to describe that leg of the trip.

and all of this with three kids.  they actually did surprisingly well.  they were all (yes, ALL) awake all day until the plane took off at 1:30 a.m. and pretty much stayed asleep till we got to ithaca, so they each get a gold star.  

thanks to the wonderful southwest flight attendants who took care of us.  really.  they were carrying our bags, helping with carseats, telling rowdy youngsters to be quiet because of the "tired family in the back who've been in the airport all day."  you all get gold stars too.