What a Trip!

Wow, What a trip! Utah was great and we are now home in Erie getting ready to celebrate the wonderful holiday we call Christmas! We feel so very blessed, especially after a long and wonderful trip. I am especially grateful that we made it home in one piece. If we thought the trip to Utah was trying read on for another amazingly trying trip home. It all begins Sunday morning with a bleak, winter weather storm approaching Cleveland due to hit just as we are scheduled to land! My darling in-laws walk us into the airport just to make sure we are actually going to take off and make it. Despite the dreary forecast they send us off... We get on the plane and almost immediately the passenger in front of us turns around and tells Jackson that he needs to be quiet as he is repeating the word hands in response to me telling him that I am going to clean his hands. Mind you he isn't even yelling or crying or what not, just being a typical 21 month old. I tell her to give him a break, and that he is only 21 months and in reply she tells me that he needs to be courteaous to those around him! We continue on our merry way and I am reading to Jackson and then we are watching the airplanes take of while we await our turn and yes Jackson is a bit excited and asking for more planes. Again the passenger in front of us turns around and tells Jackson to be quiet. At this point I get into it a bit with her and tell her that he isn't even 2 yrs old and that I can have him sit there and try to be still and quiet and then she can expect a tantrum or that we can go about what we are doing. I tell her that if she has a real problem, she can ask the stewardess to move her or that she can put some ear plugs in. She tells me that I am egging him on and that we need to be courteous of those around us. Mind you he isn't yelling or causing a raucous. He is being very well behaved for his age. Her expecations were absolutely ridiculous. Later on in the flight, the lady got what was coming to her, she ran into the overhead bins where the luggage is stored. The moral: never tell a pregnant lady and her son to be courteous of those around them when they are doing the best they can and in all actuality behaving very well! Anyhow on with the rest of the trip. As we are leaving the pilot tells is if we have to be rerouted, we will land in Pittsburg. (not a good sign). Eventually we are getting closer to our destination and things are looking bleak. We are being rerouted! Not to Pittsburg either! We are landing in Grand Rapids Michigan where we will await until the runways and weather get better! We sit in the plane for an hour while they decide what is going to happen with our flight and which terminal we will get to unload on and await our destination. Grand Rapids is an itty bitty airport and after many strolls up and down the hallway and trying to get Jackson to at least have a short nap, we find out that our future holds a 6 hour bus ride to Cleveland. Yep you read it correctly, they were bussing us to Cleveland! Me, 7 months pregnant with a 21 month old child and every other passenger on the plane. I plea not to have to go this way but upon further research there is simply no other way. The bus we were to ride became overfull and fortubnately for us we were able to ride in a small shutte bus with only 5 other passenger, all of whom thought more highly of Jackson than my previous nasty airplane passenger lady. Meanwhile Casey has made his journey in the snow and wind at 30 mph to Cleveland where we would end up for the evening. At long last, 1:30 in the morning we arrived at the Cleveland airport by bus! Jackson was a complete trooper and really delightful the entire trip! And the next morning we made our way to Erie. Home Sweet Home!