The Redeye

We spent 10 days celebrating Thanksgiving in Oregon.

We saw clouds on approximately all 10 of those days. In Oregon’s defense, the sun did peek out once or twice.

We drove 700 miles and had 4 Thanksgiving Dinners.

Not to diminish the importance and joy of celebrating Thanksgiving with family, but one of my favorite dinners was our Friends Thanksgiving. Friendsgiving? I was thrilled that we could continue the tradition this year. It’s a great way to celebrate with those people that are not family by birth, but family by choice.

Our dance card felt very full while we were there. It was a mad dash of visiting as many people as possible.

Oh, and did I mention that all of us were sick at some point during the visit? Yes… we passed some not-so-good cheer around too.

Which leads me to the redeye flight home. See, we used my husband’s miles for part of the tickets. A blessing, right? Sure. Except you don’t get the greatest flights that way. So, the only direct flight we could take was at 10:45 p.m., arriving in Atlanta at 6:00 a.m. 3 months ago we figured the kids would sleep, we’d nap on the flight and then arrive home and crash for a few hours. Surely that would be better than flying all day with a connecting flight and a 4 hour layover (our trip there).

Well, we hadn’t factored in two parents who were a little under the weather. Just who you want to be traveling with, right? Not.

The kids did sleep on the plane – sprawled out over the seats and on me. Just as I was about to fall asleep, my son would shift positions. I didn’t want him to suffocate his sister or kick the seats ahead of us, so I was doing all sorts of Cirque du Soleil contortionist moves in economy class to prevent that from happening. This occurred, oh, once every 10 minutes or so for 4 very long hours.

I remember thinking that this was sort of like childbirth. It’s so painful and there’s nothing you can do to stop what’s happening. At some point, all you can do is pray that it will be over soon. That’s what I was doing during that whole flight. Praying for it to be over.

This would be a good time to point out that I’m no longer a teenager. I’m closer to 40 now than I am to 30. Waaaahhh! Pulling an all-nighter while sick is just not something by body is equipped to handle.

My kids, while mainly recovered from whatever ailed them, slept almost 17 hours each last night. WHAT??? I totally had to do the breathing check on them. Remember when your kids were newborns and you’d wake up and realize they had slept more than 45 minutes straight and you were so freaked out that something had happened? That’s when you had to check to see if they were still breathing? If it was your first child you might have even woken them up? I guarantee by the second child that you would have done the breathing check and then slowly and silently ninja-walked yourself back out of the room.

My point is, I guess my kids aren’t fans of the redeye flight either. And to think my daughter has to get up at 6 a.m. tomorrow for school. Which means I have to get up too. Waaahhhh!

As you can see, I am the picture of maturity when I am sick.

All in all, I am so thankful that we were able to travel and spend time with family and friends. I appreciate them even more when I haven’t seen them for awhile. 😉 I am so, so sorry to anyone who might have caught our cold. So sorry.

I am thankful for kids who are good travelers. And I never thought I’d say this, but I am so happy to be back in sunny Georgia! I hope to be back to normal this week and well, I guess I should start thinking about Christmas! All of you folks who have trees up already – you are so ahead of me!

P.S. These were “outtakes” of a photo session for my kids this fall. I just jumped in right at the end at the awesome photographer snapped a couple of shots. The editing is all mine, so don’t hold that against her! If you are in the Atlanta area, contact Meg Davidson Photography.