New York, New York

Our flight took off from Belgium and I can't remember much of it except that we were surrounded by people that were more than understanding of our two children. About the time we were supposed to arrive at JFK, passengers on the plane began to become worried that we were not yet landed and they were going to miss their connections. We thought we were okay because we had something like a 4 hour layover. Then the pilot came on and said that due to very severe storms in the area, they had decided to go land the plane in Boston and refuel and then try to land at JFK again when the weather had passed. About an hour later, we landed in Boston. At this point, we knew we would miss our flight. We were not the only flights to detour to Boston, there was a whole line of us waiting for fuel. We waited for a few hours. It was long and terrible to sit in the plane for so long after an already long flight. This is why I remember that the people around us were so nice. They fell in love with Sam. He had them all rolling around laughing. Under the circumstances, we were grateful for how well the kids did.

Me sitting in the car seat so that Sam could get a break from it and Kate could sit by herself in a chair

At some point, I was holding Kate in the back of the plane and the stewardess asked me to take a picture with her that she could send to her yoga class members, since she was missing the class. Notice that Kate is doing the stretch as well. She is so cute!

Finally we were back in the air and landed in JFK, I think 6 hours later than expected. We stood in massive lines waiting for customs and then we were corralled into some tiny room with the hundreds of other people that needed to reschedule flights. We were very fortunate that upon entering said room, a lady came right up to help us because we had two kids. Yet another reason to travel with kids. The lady took our papers to a computer and came back to us 30 minutes later. She said they had rebooked us for early the following morning to return to SLC in the morning hours. She gave us meal vouchers, taxi vouchers and hotel vouchers. And the fun began.

I will summarize the events that followed:

1- Called a taxi company, owned by some sketchy people. Said they would send a taxi to get us. Never came. Called again, said they would send someone. Finally a guy arrived but would not accept our voucher as payment and refused to transport us.

Sam as we were leaving the airport to get a taxi. We all felt like this

2- Met a lady that was going to the same place we were. After watching 3-4 taxis take other people and not us, we decided to band together and use our vouchers and the lady's $20.00 to convince a driver to take us to the hotel.

3- Checked into a hotel, somewhere in the state of New York. Got settled in and started getting ready for bed while trying to keep everything in order so we could leave really early the next morning for the airport.

4- Started going through our paperwork to verify times when I realized that our tickets said Sunday, NOT Saturday. Oh great!! I called Delta immediately and they said it would be a 4 hour wait, so I signed up to have them call me back. Went to bed. Woke up at 2:00am and saw a missed call from Delta, must have been so tired that I didn't wake up. Immediately went into the bathroom to call them back. Spent 2 hours on the phone with them, pleading with them to get me on a plane the next day so that we could be home for my cousin's wedding the next evening. After 5 different people and lots of hold time, I was told they could do nothing for me. Because of the weather, everything was booked.

5- Went back to bed really sad and ticked off. Tried to call Delta again the next day to get something and realized it was not going to happen, we had to stay another night in this hotel. And we had to pay for that night.

6- Holed up in the hotel for the entire day. Didn't even leave our room. We ordered pizza for one meal and Chinese for another. We watched a lot of TV and movies.

Sam watching Scooby-Doo

Sam finding things to play with in the hotel room, dads belt and the stroller

7- After an exhausting day of doing nothing but wishing we were home in Utah, we went back to bed.

8- We got on a flight early Sunday morning out of JFK

9- We could see SLC out of our windows when Trisha turned to me and said, "Finally we are home." I replied, "don't say that until we are on the ground." A few minutes later we were about 6 feet from landing on the ground when the plane started to go back up into the air. The pilot came on the intercom a few minutes later and said that something was wrong with the landing and we would have to circle and try again. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!

10- We finally landed in SLC!!

We have never been so happy to be home! The last 3 days of our trip that turned into 5 days was long and adventuresome. We were exhausted.

We were also very grateful for our trip and the many things we were able to do and see.

Our European vacation was memorable and amazing!

Until next time, Europe! We will miss you and talk about you often!