Heath & Stef plus 2

It was our last day in Missouri and the girls were so excited to go on their first airplane ride!  Before leaving Gramma's farm, the girls were pushing each other on the big kid swing! (Ah... self-sufficient swinging... finally!) We started our travels at 10 am and said our sad goodbyes to Tim, Jaleesa, and Gramma. :( At the airport, getting through security with the girls, the electronics bag, my purse, and both of their backpacks was amazingly painless! My planning and preparation had paid off! The girls were eerily quiet as we waited to board the plane. They were so cute with their backpacks on, sitting crossed legged with hands in laps intently watching everything around us. When we boarded, they were all smiles as we found our seats and got out the chewing gum to help our ears pop. The seats in the Frontier plane were amazingly wide and there were only 4 seats per row (2 and 2) so I had to sit across the aisle from the girls. Because of the wide seats, I could only reach halfway into Hannah's seat and not even close to Kayla's. Once we got past the millionth "Are we flying yet?", takeoff was easy and we had no ear problems!! Wahoo! Unfortunately, we had a wing view, so we couldn't see much of anything. I broke out various activities to keep them entertained. Unfortunately, the DVD player didn't work but they kept busy with their Leapsters, coloring books, reading books, kids music on the iPod, and iPad with coloring and storybooks. They kept me busy because, of course, neither could do a single activity longer than 10  minutes at a time. I got lots of compliments on how well-behaved the girls were! At one point Kayla needed to use the bathroom so I got a flight attendant to come sit with Hannah. Luckily I didn't have to take them both and our bags with me because we wouldn't have fit into the bathroom! Kayla was pretty amused about how small the bathroom was. "This baffwoom is berry berry small! We don't even fit in hewe!" :) Then they decided they needed snacks, so we broke out the travel applesauce pouches and they each got a small cup of soybeans, pb crackers, dried fruit, and pretzels. Kayla promptly knocked hers off the tray table, spraying snacks all over their seats and floor. *sigh* I'm sure we entertained everyone and they were thankful it wasn't them. We even got a special announcement directed at us that went something like "The captain has  turned off the seatbelt sign. If you're traveling with small children, now's the time for you to clean up all debris in your area as this plane has another destination immediately after Seattle." Nice... Unfortunately, the girls didn't sleep a wink even though they had their pillows and blankets out - and it was naptime. At one point we hit some turbulence which threw us around a bit and the girls thought it was hilarious. Thankfully they didn't notice that everyone else was scared to death and just kept right on laughing and throwing their legs up into the air. Throughout the flight they kept me on my toes, but it was pretty easy going… until our descent… about 20 minutes before landing, Hannah started doing her "I'm tired" whimper that included a few "I wanna go home"s. Kayla had the evil eye going that comes out when she's napless. Timed perfectly to coincide with me getting incredibly bad knifelike pains in my ears (that wouldn't go away with the most ferocious chewing/swallowing I could manage), they started arguing, pushing each other, screaming, slapping, and slowly taking down the tray table with a sly smile knowing I couldn’t reach them… My death look worked on Kayla who put the tray table back and started whimpering because I was "mean at her".  And even though my ears were on fire, I was deaf for the next hour, and it took us forever to find Daddy, we made it safely at about 4 pm local time (8 hours total travel time, 4 hour flight). The girls were out like a light the second they hit their carseats in the van. Thank all that is holy that I was the only one with the ear pain! I probably only lost a year or two off my life due to that flight... much less than what I would have lost if we had attempted the 30 hour road trip instead. Now onto the next chapter in our lives!