After Christmas in La Mesa, it was time to pack our bags and head to Texas for another fun and exciting Christmas.\u00a0 On the 26th my dad got up early with us so he could drop us off at the airport.\u00a0 The drop off spot was actually pretty empty and we were able to check our bags pretty quick.\u00a0 Things were looking pretty good.\u00a0 If you have ever flown out of the San Diego Airport, you know you have to walk upstairs to go through all the security stuff.\u00a0 One of the things you never really think about until you have to push a stroller around, is where the elevators are.\u00a0 We were able to locate the elevator pretty quickly and head upstairs.\u00a0 That is where our good luck ended.\u00a0 As soon as we get out of the elevator, we see the line for security.\u00a0 The line was all the way across the covered pedestrian bridge and almost to the parking lot!\u00a0 Now, keep in mind, the bridge is part of the outside, so we had to stand in the freezing cold weather with two tired, cranky babies.\u00a0 Not fun.\u00a0 Despite being super long, we were able to get into the warm part somewhat quickly.\u00a0 As soon as we were inside, it felt like we were in line at Disneyland, but without the fun ride at the end.\u00a0 When we finally got up to the place where the TSA agents check our licences and boarding passes, the guy who was checking our line was also checking the first class line, so it took FOREVER!\u00a0 After we got through, we had to deal with the actual security part.\u00a0 Normally this is pretty easy, you take off your shoes, and put all your crap in the grey bins, walk through, and then collect your crap.\u00a0 It’s not that easy when you are traveling with two toddlers.\u00a0 Since I had a bunch of milk and food and stuff like that, I had to go in the “special” line after we walked through the detectors.\u00a0 They had to check every single item with a special light.\u00a0 For as long as this took, Pat took longer.\u00a0 Apparently he “had too many electronics” in his bag so they took the bag, emptied it, and checked everything.\u00a0 I think it was the baby monitor that made it “too many.”\u00a0 OK, so about an hour after we got to the airport, we were finally headed to our gate.\u00a0 Thank God our gate was the first one, because when we got there, they were boarding the last section!\u00a0 When we got on the plane, you could almost see the dread in everyone’s eyes as we walked on with our two cranky toddlers.\u00a0 We found our seats and had to do some shuffling because we weren’t allowed to have the both babies in the same row.\u00a0 It was time for take off!<\/p>\n
The kiddos were actually pretty good for the first half of the 3 hour flight.\u00a0 For the most part, they just slept on our chests and everyone was as happy as could be.\u00a0 Things started going down hill after the drink cart came by.\u00a0 I don’t know if the cart hit Ella or if it was the noise, but whatever it was, she woke up.\u00a0 In an effort to get Ella some milk, I jarred Jack enough to wake him up too.\u00a0 Queue the crying and whining.\u00a0 I had enough snacks and milk to keep them somewhat satisfied and they calmed down.\u00a0 I was also fortunate enough to have an empty seat next to me so I could put Jack down for a little bit and give my arms a break.\u00a0 We took turns putting Jack and Ella in the empty seat and it worked out pretty well.\u00a0 When we were landing You could tell that Jack’s ears were starting to hurt and he started crying.\u00a0 We made it out of the air and onto the ground and the kiddos were pretty happy again.\u00a0 Tom picked us up at the airport and we headed to Brian and Dorothy’s house in Houston.<\/p>\n
When we got to the house, our first priority was getting the kiddos fed!\u00a0 They made sure we knew how hungry they were.\u00a0 After a yummy lunch we let them meet their great aunts and uncles and their great grandma.\u00a0 After all the oohing and ahhing, we let the kiddos play for a few minutes and then it was nap time for them.\u00a0 Around the time they went down for their nap, their cousin Liam was waking up from his nap.\u00a0 Liam is just 12 days younger than our munchkins and looks just like Jack!\u00a0 We were kind of bummed that their nap schedules were so different, but it all worked out.\u00a0 Eventually our kids woke up and their other cousins, Oskar and Maya showed up.\u00a0 Oskar is 18 months old and Maya Just turned two.\u00a0 They all had a great time playing together.\u00a0 We decided to walk over to the neighborhood park for a little bit to let them burn off some extra energy.\u00a0 they all had a great time playing on the swings, slides, and rocking things.\u00a0 After we got back, we opened all our presents.\u00a0 We got some great stuff and the babies got a bunch of new toys!\u00a0 After the excitement of opening all our new stuff, we fed the kiddos and put them down for the night.\u00a0 We had an awesome dinner shortly after and spend the rest of the evening hanging out with family.<\/p>\n
The rest of the week was pretty mellow.\u00a0 There were more walks to the park and more playing with babies.\u00a0 It was so much fun watching all the cousins play together.\u00a0 It is amazing how different they all are, and how much they look alike.<\/p>\n
Our week finally came to an end and it was time to pack up and head home.\u00a0 As much as we love visiting with our family, we both wanted to get home and free Lunchbox from the kennel.\u00a0 We headed to the airport nice and early in anticipation of another security hell.\u00a0 Well, we were through the security line and to the gate in just 20 minutes.\u00a0 This time they didn’t have to analyze every little thing in our bags and we just walked on through.\u00a0 You know what’s not fun?\u00a0 Being at the airport an hour early with two tired, hungry toddlers.\u00a0 We ended up finding an empty gate and just let them run around a little bit.\u00a0 We were finally able to board the plane.\u00a0 Once again, we had to do some seat switching so we weren’t all in the same row.\u00a0 There were actually quit a few babies on this flight.\u00a0 Ours were by far the loudest!\u00a0 Once we got in the air Jack fell asleep pretty fast, while Ella was just screaming!\u00a0 She finally fell asleep and it was all good for about an hour.\u00a0 When they woke up, all hell broke loose.\u00a0 Jack was sitting in my lap and he didn’t want to be there.\u00a0 He was so squirmy and loud!\u00a0 Yup, we were those people.\u00a0 Jack kept hitting and scratching me and kicking the girl sitting next to me.\u00a0 Pat was holding Ella and she was even louder!\u00a0 I guess she kept pinching Pat and squirming around.\u00a0 The flight seemed to take FOREVER!\u00a0 As soon as we finally landed, the people around us jumped up as fast as they could.<\/p>\n
Chris and Patty picked us up at the airport and we headed home!\u00a0 While we were gone, a Christmas miracle occurred, our house seemed to clean itself!\u00a0 Thanks parents!!!\u00a0 Pat picked up Lunchbox and it was nice to finally be home.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After Christmas in La Mesa, it was time to pack our bags and head to Texas for another fun and exciting Christmas.\u00a0 On the 26th my dad got up early with us so he could drop us off at the airport.\u00a0 The drop off spot was actually pretty empty and we were able to check […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":605,"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelorigans.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}