Tardy

We screwed up.

We screwed up so, so badly.

Our flight was at 7:10 a.m. yesterday morning. We got up at 4:30 a.m.

In hindsight, it was so clearly not enough time, but our hotel was relatively close to the airport (less than 10 minutes), so we thought we were good.

I started to get very, very nervous when it was 5:45 a.m. and we were still in our hotel room. We lit a little fire under our asses and got out as quickly as possible, but then we had to stop to top off the gas tank for the rental car. And then, the rental car return ended up being way PAST the airport, and by the time we got there, unloaded, got Nora’s car seat (and other belongings) packed and zipped into the car seat bag, caught the shuttle to the terminal, arrived at the terminal…

We were 5-10 minutes too late. FIVE TO TEN MINUTES.

They wouldn’t let us check in. Delta has a policy that you must be checked in 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure time. (I know that other airlines are only 30 minutes. Too bad we were not flying those other airlines.)

We got sent over to “Special Services,” to deal with a (admittedly VERY nice) ticket agent who tried everything he possibly could to get us home as soon as humanly possible. The very best he was able to do was to get us home at 11 p.m.

We were supposed to get home at 5 p.m.

If we had been up at 4:00 a.m., we would’ve been fine. But that extra half hour of sleep cost us SIX EXTRA HOURS in an airport.

I have never been so pissed at myself. Not only did we miss our flight, but we missed our flight WITH A BABY. For crying out loud, we are idiots. But I’ll tell you what, though… I don’t foresee us ever making that mistake again. Lesson learned, folks.

So, after being on a vacation that was go-go-go (which is typical travel fashion for us), we suddenly found ourselves with a lot of TIME. Lots and lots of extra time. We meandered everywhere today. I don’t think I’ve ever walked so slowly in my entire life. What, we have to go all the way to Terminal A? Meh. We have THREE HOURS. Let’s walk slowly. Really slowly.

Our 7:10 a.m. departure from Vegas became a 9:45 a.m. departure. So, needless to say, we had plenty of time in the Las Vegas airport. We discovered they had free wi-fi there (love it), so we spent some time uploading pics to Facebook, and of course played with Nora. She was simply fascinated by Daddy’s hat.

We made it through our first stretch of waiting, and it was finally time to board. A 4+ hour flight later, and we were in Atlanta, at least. But we had a freaking four-hour layover to contend with there, which was less than ideal. Surprisingly, it went by more quickly than we thought it would, especially since we killed a ton of time by going for a sit-down dinner.

From there, we simply walked the terminal, back and forth, back and forth. Nora dozed off in her stroller, which was great, considering she had barely napped all day and wasn’t going to be home until way past her bedtime.

Thankfully, after missing the flight, everything was uneventful. Flights were on time, Nora was a fantastic little flyer (once again), the in-flight movie (which we could only half-watch with a baby) was decent (it was The Tourist), and all was well.

It was certainly a long day, though.

My mom (bless her!) picked us up at the airport shortly after 11 p.m., and we pulled into our driveway around midnight. Nora fell asleep in the car on the way home so I transferred her directly from her car seat to bed. For the first time in her little life, she slept in her clothes. :)

Michael and I were more than ready for bed ourselves. We’re tired today. The late bedtime + jet lag is not fun. Nora has been a trooper, though. We all slept late this morning, until 10:00 a.m. We actually got up before Nora did, which was great because I went in to find her in the “butt-in-the-air” sleep position that is ridiculously adorable. So, of course I had to take a thousand pictures of her:

It’s good to be home.