Last Day in Washington

This last day was so hard. I hardly slept the past two nights out of sadness and anxiety. Everyone has been feeling it. We're all trying to keep as calm as possible and keep everything light for the kid's sakes, but it's been difficult. 

We'd been joking about the fact that we were flying home with a 2yo that barely knows us on Friday the 13th, but then Hamas called for a "day of terror" and we were a bit concerned. After talking it over with FM, we decided that we'd just wait until the last minute to determine how safe it was to fly. That was the benefit of having an evening flight. Thankfully, our fears were unfounded and we were able to take our flight as planned.

We spent the morning packing up and getting ready to fly home. Ben left first and dropped off the rental car. FM picked up G from school and drove A and I to the airport. The drop off was brutal. We had to unload quickly so we sobbed through our goodbyes and I navigated getting little girl and a ton of luggage into the airport to wait for Ben. 

After just 10 minutes or so, Ben met up with us and we started the first part of our adventure by navigating the Seattle airport. A was such a trooper! We'd been telling her we were taking her on an adventure so she was game! We went down an escalator, walked for a bit, went UP TWO escalators, rode an internal shuttled to one stop, switched to another, and then finally arrived at our gate. Whew!

With plenty of time to spare, we grabbed drinks and snacks and sat for a while. Then we visited the restrooms where I changed A in the hopes we wouldn't need a diaper change on the flight

Waiting for the train

She found a stage!

Reading a book at the gate. 

Everything was running on time so we boarded and go settled no problem. The first challenge was when we had to put on our seatbelts and just wait. A was fine with that for about 5 minutes before getting antsy. We explained to her that the captain, who drives the plane, is the boss of the plane and we have to do what he says. She was okay with it and spent the rest of the flight talking about the captain and getting excited every time he made an announcement. She kept saying, "I want to SEE him!" 

We had plenty of toys and snacks and drinks to keep her occupied. Our hopes of her sleeping at all were completely dashed, but that's totally fine. She did great. 

Her favorite activity was spying on our fellow passengers and reporting to us what they were up to. "That man is sleeping! That man is wearing pants! That man has headphones!" All said in a loud whisper. 

She noticed one man was playing a handheld game and decided to designate one of her cookies as her handheld game. Hahahaha.

Isn't this what the tray table is there for?

Cookie game

Kicking back

A and blankie ready to fly!

We made it to St. Louis with no issues whatsoever. A loved looking at the lights of the city as we landed. She kept exclaiming, "I see the city! Oh, I don't see it anymore. I see the city!" 

We disembarked and went to pick up our luggage. Ben took little miss and one bag on the shuttle to pick up the car while I waited with all of our other bags. It felt like forever, but finally they showed up and we were on our way home. 

Little A fell asleep in the car and barely made any noise as we loaded her in and placed her in her big girl bed. WHEW. It was late - about 2am. We were exhausted, but so incredibly grateful at how smoothly everything went. We had no complaints whatsoever at how well she did and how easy it all was considering everything that could have gone wrong.