We're Leaving On a Jet Plane

We left on July 4th to fly to Washington.

Our trip to the airport in Houston went fairly smooth.  We did have trouble finding a parking spot and ended up parking in the regular parking garage at the airport, which cost us a small fortune, but oh well.  We checked in our bags and headed to the security line.  Allen and the boys went through the regular metal detector while I got to go through the full body scanner.

When I came out on the other side and was working to gather my things and put my shoes back on, Ethan came to me and in a panicked voice told me that the security man had his backpack and was not giving it back.  I looked up to see that one of the guards had taken Ethan's backpack aside and was thoroughly inspecting it.  It was Ethan's big, orange swim bag and he had packed with all his stuff for the plane.

We did not know what the issue was, so we patiently waited for him to bring Ethan's bag back to us.  After about ten minutes, he came over to ask us if there was a knife in the bag.  We said no, not that we knew of. My mind started racing, thinking that these bags had sat in our living room for about three days, packed and ready to go.  I started to think that one of the little boys had slipped something in there without my knowledge.  After checking each pocket over and over again, the guard emptied some things out of the bag and scanned it again.  He kept saying that there was an image of a pocket knife on the scanner but he could not find where it was in the bag.

He would not let us have the bag so that we could look for it ourselves.  He kept taking more things out of the bag and scanned it over and over again.  Finally the bag was totally empty and he scanned it again.  The image of the knife was still there.  Ethan and I decided that he must have taken a pocket knife to the Mom and Me Camp Out for Cub Scouts and forgotten that it was there.  Finally, with help from another guard, he could feel where the knife was in the bag and the two of them were able to maneuver the pocket knife out of the inner lining of the bag.  Somehow it had slipped in between the lining and we did not know it was there.  

They scanned the bag again and it finally was cleared!  It ended up being one of Tristan's special pocket knives that Uncle Frank gave him when he earned his Eagle Scout.  We did not want to part with it, so the guard asked us if we had a bag that we were willing to check.  I gave him our little suitcase that had a change of clothes in it for everyone and he placed the knife in the bag, closed it, and took it into his possession.

I told Allen that I would go on to the gate with the boys to make sure we would not be late for the plane. We ended up being delayed about a half hour at security trying to find the knife.  Allen followed the security guard and the bag back to the luggage counter and checked the bag.  A most exciting start to our trip!!

Thankfully, we all made it just fine to the plane and were able to load without any other problems.  Holden and Allen sat together on one side of the plane while I sat across the aisle with Ethan and Jackson.

We taxied away from the gate and just a couple minutes later I looked over at them and saw this.  We were not even in the air yet!  I swear, Allen gets all the breaks!!  Haha!  He would not have slept had he been sitting with me.

While meanwhile, on our side, this was happening!

It's alright, because we were having a party!

Ethan took a couple of pictures for me outside the window.  He loved that we were above the clouds!

We had a lay over in Phoenix, Arizona.  Ethan especially, was very nervous about flying, but he really enjoyed it once we got in the air.  I am not a huge fan of flying either, so thank goodness our flights were uneventful.  Holden and Jackson were really bothered by the pressure in their ears.  They could not pop them and the gum I brought for them to chew did not even help a little bit.

As we began to descend towards the airport, Jackson started giggling so loudly.  He said when the airplane dropped it tickled his tummy.  It was pretty funny!

When we got into Seattle, we picked up our rental van and headed to Cheryl's house, where they were having the biggest firework show this side of the Mississippi.

Tristan and Savannah were there with their new friends.  Lots of people from their ward were there.  All our cousins were there, too!

I know we were in Seattle, but this is not a picture of storm clouds.  This is the smoke from all the fireworks from all the houses in the neighborhood.  Everyone around was doing their own fireworks and the sky was black with smoke.

Friday morning was spent cleaning up the mess from all the fireworks.  Jordan, Nathan, Michael, Allen, Tristan, and Grandpa were outside raking and sweeping until it was all cleaned up!

Fourth of July Fun!!