Babies Make Four: January 2016

Oh. My. Goodness.

We are finally home from our trip to Texas. And let me just be the first to say that this trip is one for the record books for the Kestner family.

It all started about a month ago when one of the medical offices I work for decided that we should have involvement with the Zero Prostate Cancer Awareness group. It's a great group that brings awareness to prostate cancer and also helps patients financially who are battling the disease. All across America they host 5K runs partnered with local practices and then help the patients in that community with the money raised. We decided that we would like to take part in this and their annual planning meeting was to take place in January in San Antonio. Cue me scheduling a flight and hotel and joining the conference.

Now, if you know me even just a little bit, you know I have a fear of flying. I will get on a plane, but it usually involves some medication and really tight hand holding of someone (even if I don't know that person). We thought it would be fun if Dillon tagged along with me to provide support and it would allow him time to see a new city (we'd try to explore in the evenings after the meetings were done). So it was set. We would only be gone from Wednesday morning to late Friday night, nothing major. Mom and dad would watch Luke, we would have a little getaway, no biggie. Plus, this winter has been super mild, so nothing to worry about, right?

When we got our flight reservations, we decided to fly from Greenville as it was cheaper and only an hour further drive. Only our flight was at 6:45 AM. Add one more night stay in Greenville so we didn't have to get up at 3:00 in the morning to catch our flight.

We're up to the weekend before our trip. Luke catches a cold and comes down with a horrible cough. A trip to the pediatrician's office, antibiotics, and an ear infection later, I'm leaving a sick child while I travel. I also start to get a scratchy throat which, but Tuesday (the day we left) turned into a really bad head cold. I called our doctor and asked if they could call in an antibiotic in case this turned into a sinus infection. Thankfully, they did, because this trip would have been way worse without the medicine.

So, Tuesday evening we head down to Greenville. We have a good meal, we find the airport, I take some cold medicine. I check Facebook and find out that there's a winter weather warning for our area coming up. No worries, because our local weatherman posts that he feels this system will completely pass our area. Maybe an inch or so of snow. No big deal. We'll make it home just fine. It must be really nice to be a weatherman and just guess all the time about what's going to happen, because he was totally wrong.

By the time we landed in San Antonio on Wednesday afternoon, the storm hitting our area was imminent with several inches expected. I had also lost my voice my this time, the congestion wasn't only in my head now, but had moved into my chest and I. Was. Miserable. We landed around 10:00 am San Antonio time and caught an Uber to the hotel and grabbed a bite for lunch. I went to my meeting around 1:00 and Dillon explored the city a little bit. That evening we had dinner and I went back to the hotel and was asleep by 7:00. Only I woke up around 10:00 again and when I checked online again the storm was supposed to be even worse now. I tossed and turned all night wondering if we should try and get back on Thursday or wait until later in the weekend to get home. I woke Dillon up early the next morning and got in touch with our corporate travel agent. All earlier flights on Friday were booked, we could leave that evening, but wouldn't get into Greenville until 12:00 (and that flight might even be canceled because the bad weather would already start by then). OR we could wait until Saturday, stay one more night and flight out early that morning, and get home by 3:30. We chose that option. At least we were warm and safe.

I went to my meetings all day Thursday and Dillon went around San Antonio, taking pictures, playing guitars at the oldest music store in Texas and having beers at local pubs. I was feeling a little better because I started my antibiotics, but Dillon definitely got the better end of this deal!

Friday morning, I had one more meeting and finished up around lunchtime. The nice thing about staying one extra night is we had all afternoon to look around. We rode the Towers of America and had drinks overlooking the city. We visited the Alamo and walked around the River Walk and I bought a pair of boots for our travel the next day. Friday afternoon was the best part of the trip. Meanwhile at home, they were getting snow all day, 12 inches at last count.

Saturday was an early start at 5:00 AM to the airport. We got there early since when we changed our flights, Dillon didn't have an assigned seat, only a reservation. We tried to talk with every Delta agent to reserve a seat, but no one could help. We'd have to wait until we got to Atlanta. Our flight was uneventful and we raced to our gate to see about getting Dillon a seat. Our flight was still on time but no one was there yet as we were too early. We grabbed a burger and a beer then made our way back to the gate. Our flight was still on time, only an hour away from leaving and finally a gentleman showed up who helped us get Dillon a confirmed seat. We felt SO GOOD. In two hours we'd be home.

Only 30 minutes before we were to leave, our plane hadn't arrived yet. This isn't good, we thought. Our plane was delayed for 2 more hours. We could have driven to Greenville in that time, but we decided to just wait it out.

Finally, our plane came in. They boarded us quickly and we made the 25 minute flight to Greenville. Once we landed, the real fun would begin, trying to get home in the snow. The roads weren't too bad on the way back, but we got to the road down below our house and it hadn't be scraped or salted at all and the snow was packed and slick. When we finally got to our road, Dillon said "I'm going to make a go at it, I think we can make it up." We almost made it to our house and got stuck 10 feet from the entrance to our driveway. A little sand and shoveling and we at least made it into our driveway. I will say that my little Subaru is a beast. 14 hours later, we had made it home.

While it was nice to get away with Dillon for a few days, and I learned a lot about planning for our 5K in November, I don't plan on traveling in January any time soon, at least on a plane. San Antonio was a nice place to visit and it was good to be Dillon and Katie (not Luke's mom and dad) for a few days. And while that was nice, I don't want to go without that title for that long ever again.

It's so good to be home.