Our daughter Laura has been in Finland/Sweden for two years now this summer, and she's been very anxious for some of her family to come see her. Large families, small incomes and crazy work schedules are not very conducive to travel like that. About a month ago several conversations, and some spur of the moment decisions, it was planned, tickets bought and passport applied for so that Meshayla could fly to visit Laura for 2 months this summer!
My Mom has traveled alot, and my 3 older girls some. Me, very little so making these arrangements and what it all entailed really isn't up my alley! Thankfully I had lots of help from Lynisha & Laura to get arrangements made.
Meshayla ended up with an unexpected Root canal the week before she left, finishing up just 2 days before she flew. Thankfully there was no problems with that. Yay for youth! We left home on Wed. this week to go out to Sidney where we left my younger kids with their older sister, and Thursday morning left early for Denver for the airport. Lynisha left her kids with someone too, so it was just Relyssa, Meshayla, Lynisha and I. We had plans to go wedding dress shopping after seeing Meshayla off.
At the airport they would only give us one guest pass to go to the gate, so that left Nish & Lyss on the other end of the airport to pass time while I went with Meshayla.
I had checked about assistance for her, but unfortunately the airlines she was flying with did not have a contract with the airlines she was connecting with in Newark NJ. Getting her assistance in Denver to Newark was quite pointless since I was going to the gate with her to see her on the plane anyway. I was not worried about her once she was on the plane, flying even tho oversees, and her sister would be there meeting her on the other end, but the changing planes, going to a different terminal & checking in with a different airlines in Newark, plus a 4 hour layover before the plane left was giving me fits of nerves! Since she didn't have anyone at that point to meet her there & hand her over to an assistant, then that option wasn't going to work either.
She refused to acknowledge being nervous over going thru there alone, whether she really was or not, but I'm quite sure I about drove my daughters crazy with MY nervous state over it!
We "solved" the problem the best we could by giving her a cell phone to take, printing maps of the Newark airport, (for both her to take, and me to keep) and highlighting where she needed to go, along with going over everything a billion times :D
A friend had sent her a small laptop to take along, so we spent our time waiting on her flight out of Denver on the computer, phone, and walking the moving sidewalks, along with eating 3$ ice cream cones. Ouch!
The plane was about 3 hours late, which made for a very long wait, more time for my nerves to get worked up. The sign kept moving ahead the flight time, and it's probably a good thing that I wasn't realizing a 2 hr. time difference in NJ that was going to make meeting the connecting flight tighter! Anyway, finally boarding time, and I stood there watching her go thru the line, snapping a few pictures, went up to give her one last hug as she was giving the agent her boarding pass, and the agent turned me to mush & tears when he asked if I would like him to take a picture of Meshayla and I before she got on the plane! WOW! He apologized to the other passengers, said they had plenty of time, and took our picture! I was so impressed with his kindness!
In the meantime in Sweden, Laura was tracking Meshayla's/the plane's progress, and was talking to me on the phone, could tell me exactly when they actually took off, as I couldn't see, and when she was flying over our home town!! Amazing! (well, she SHOULD have been sleeping...!)
When Meshayla arrived in Newark, we had agreed that she would call me, and I was so happy to get that call! Now for getting her thru the airport to the next terminal, checked in with another airlines & boarded. She had her map, I had mine, and the phone connection kept us both reasonably calm. I reminded her to look for signs, & could hear her as she asked directions several times. Everything went quite smoothly, but I could detect a few nerves on her end. We discovered that really she did not have any extra time at all, as they were already boarding her plane by the time she was in the right place. I'm glad I didn't know that ahead of time! We hung up the phone after she was boarded, and Laura called her a couple minutes later, as she was watching the tracker, and wanted to make sure she was on! Then Laura called me too. She finally went back to bed then.
The other girls and I were wedding dress shopping in Denver, and didn't get back to Sidney till Midnight. Laura called me at 5:20 a.m. to say that Shayla had arrived, & Laura was with her. I gratefully thanked her, sent Love & hugs to them both, & went back to sleep. They went off to have fun. Today was a very long tiring day, I'm exhausted! 3 hours back home, and I am very stiff & sore and very very tired. Even after a nap, bed/sleep is going to feel very wonderful tonight!
My summer has officially began!
