The RAINSTORM State - Part 5 - A Memory to never forget...

Where do I begin...It's on days like this that I wish I were an amazing writer that could capture all the feelings and emotions to all things that happened...but pretty much I can only pinch myself to honestly think that we lived through it and we are only $133.00 out...buckle up your in for the story of the week. Pretty much I'm documenting this because in years from now the memories will fade and the details will be lost. But some time back in heaven maybe we will be shown why all these things happened...But we are here, safe and sound in the comforts of our home once again. What a fun and adventurous day!! 

 If you read my previous post you would have read there there were blue skies and we were saying our final good byes to Ashley and baby Mikey at 11:30pm (Texas Time). We fed the kids, fed Jared and I and off we went. We had plenty of hours in the day before our flight took off at 2:30pm. Well, we plugged in our gps to make sure we were smooth sailing to find the airport and a gas station to fill up our oh so sweet mini van...gotta love rental mini vans. They are WAY cooler than the one we would ever drive...automatic doors, dvd players, you name it, it was loaded. Anyways, along with this fancy minivan comes fun “beeping” features that notify you of certain things. Well as we are driving calmly to the airport we are about 15 miles away when a fancy red flashing “DING” beeps at us…Jared and I say, “Huh, what does that sound mean??” Well, we look at the digital dashboard lights up read that reads, “Low Tire Pressure” Well, we recognize the fact that this fancy minivan is telling us something, we disregard it and keep on driving knowing how close we are to the airport. We continue to drive without any thought of anything other than our delicious lunch we had and our relaxing vacation.

As we are approaching the airport it was about 12:30pm. We (or I) was beginning to have a slight “panic” feeling knowing what was ahead of us again at the airport…how many kids we have, security, returning a rental car, potty stops, etc. Anyways, Jared was calm as a cucumber (as always), telling me all would be well. He reminded me the boarding passes just encourage you to be there 75 minutes early, and we were clearly ahead of schedule. Miles pass and we are about 3 miles out from the airport when a nice lady in the car next to us begins to wave us down notifying us of having a flat tire. To which I say, “Oh, that’s what “Low Tire Pressure” means!” Jared says outloud, “Thanks lady, but I can totally tell that is happening.” I then say, “What you can feel it?” Yeah, pretty much it just started changing…we pull off quickly to simply show the lady we were stopping.  Jared and I both think, “Oh, come on we are like 1 mile away…” I say, “I’ll say a prayer to have Heavenly Father help us just make it there and have enough air in the tire to get there…Well, no more than a few seconds later, it was clearly evident that it was impossible to keep driving. The thumping and grinding sounds were not a good sign…so we did as anyone would do…we pulled off the very busy freeway on to the shoulder of the road. This is when the time started ticking, closer and closer to our flight departure…we were so close…just ½ mile from the airport…Are you kidding me???

 We pulled off to the small shoulder on the free way…Jared checked for cars, all was clear, he hopped out and surveyed the damage. We most definitely had a flat tire. It was the back left tire, closest to the freeway lanes of traffic.  I decided to call roadside assistance with our rental car and I notified them of our flat tire. Their first question was, “Are you in a safe area?” With my heart racing, trying to keep my panic mode nice and calm for the idea of missing a flight, having four kids to keep calm, my husband out on a very BUSY freeway, etc.  I answered, “Yes, we are safe.” I was simply thinking of us as people, we were not injured. So she then began to tell me it would cost $49 dollars to send out road side assistance and it would take over an hour  to come and help us change the tire. I laughed and said, “We don’t have that kind of time!” I hung up and then started brainstorming with Jared…We thought, “Well we are out of luck and we will have to switch flights.” Oh, how naïve that thought was. We thought magically they could transfer all 6 of us to another flight just a few hours later until we got this resolved…Oh, how wrong we were…

As time was ticking the pressure began to mount. We quickly realized how unsafe and unrealistic it would be for Jared and I to change this tire. It was impossible. As we sat in the van, hundreds of cars at the speed of lightening were passing us. I couldn’t turn around to look out the rear view mirror without screaming in fear that some distracted driver on a cell phone would clip our van and send us all to an accident. It was literally frightening. We realized that we couldn’t take this tire change on our own. So I call back to roadside assistance to notify then we were actually not in a safe area. So she said, “Well if that’s the case we can not help you, you need to contact the police.” I thanked them and on to the next phone call. Again, time is ticking…I can’t recount what time it was, but Jared and I were beginning to sweat a little…I called 911 and they kindly said, “Well get right out to you and help!” We felt hope. We felt relieved like this just might be possible.

My sister-in-law encouraged us to contact Delta airlines to notify them of our impossible situation and the risk of not making the flight. As Jared was on the phone I was trying to feed Ben, entertain three small kids, and get a movie in the handy DVD player.  As Jared is on the phone with delta, I’m only hearing his side of the conversation… “Transfer our tickets…Nothing is available…Tomorrow at 3pm…5 seats…What are the charges going to be?...WHAT???...Did I hear you say, “$200 per person to transfer a ticket…Um, are there any additional charges…Oh…Oh…Excuse me…did I hear you say, $1,000 per person…(Then Jared told me the lady on the other line said, “I’m sorry Sir. You didn’t hear me correctly, That was “$1,032.12 per person to fly home tomorrow on a different flight.”)…Then Jared says, Let me speak to your manager right now! Thank you!” My stomach sank…what a blow. I felt sick. Like that, I’m in shock feeling. What were we going to do. We were literally stuck on the freeway.

Well in the meantime we get a phone call back from the police when Jared was on the phone with Delta and they notify us that they will not be able to get help us until upwards of one hour because they are under a shift change…WHAT!!!

At this point Jared and I were laughing…well, that laugh to simply release pressure because we were moments away from panicking. Well as Jared continued to speak with a Delta manager she says, “Hey, instead of trying to move your family to a different flight let’s figure out how we can get you to make this flight.” Oh, what a novel idea. That’s what we were trying to think of the whole time. Our minds were reeling with ideas, ditch the minivan, call a taxi, walk to the airport, super unsafe area, tow-truck, etc.” Anyways, we were stuck. Jared remained on the phone, this manager was honestly helpful, she just notified us that our flight was listed as on time but it was going to be delayed until 3:15pm. This was the FIRST good news of the hour!

We look across the freeway and see a Marriott hotel. We say to each other, “Hotels are WAY more helpful than anyone else has been so far…they have shuttles, information, etc. Go there!”  So Jared jumped out of the car, across the freeway he goes, to try and save the day. I knew our new plan, so I dial roadside assistance for the third time. I notify them now that we are planning on literally leaving this rental car on the side of the freeway. They didn’t believe me. I said, “Trust me the keys are in the glove compartment, it’s abandoned.” Soon, the thoughts of paying for a tow truck and gas fill up through the rental car seemed MUCH less expensive than paying over $5,000 to get home! So good bye to the fancy minivan.

As I sat for the longest three minutes of my life I uttered another prayer… “Heavenly Father if we are not meant to get on this flight, just help us not have to drain our savings to get home. Just keep helping us!”

I look out the side window and here comes Jared back from the hotel, he had miraculously flagged down a minivan taxi. Oh, what a blessing! Jared was running back, flagging us down. Now, super mom mode takes over and I begin the lecture of a life time to our children. I am literally scaring them with their lives. About how to run as fast as they can, across this field off the shoulder of the freeway, do not enter the road, touch it or go anywhere near it. If you touch the road you will literally die, you will be hit and die! I told them this is the time to obey and listen to every word we tell them. I think I scared them, but what else could I do as we crossed the freeway with four small children, luggage, etc. It was insane. But we made it. I had to keep reminding myself to breath. We were on our way. We were out of the stuck, flat-tire minivan. We were safe, breathing, sweating (remember we are in Texas where it’s 96 degrees with 80% humidity) we were soaked. We were in a taxi on our way with 30 minutes to spare. We arrived. We paid the taxi for $32 for a ½ mile commute to the airport.

We stood in the security line. We breathed. We laughed and we kept track of our kids. Now was not the time to lose one of them either. I called Roadside assistance again, to make sure they understood what we had just done. They did. They said, “I’m so sorry, I’ve never heard of this happening before.” Oh, well. We arrived. We thought we were in the clear…Oh, if only!

We filed through security. We each took our turn. It was Caleb’s turn to walk through the metal detector. Lights flash and he gets beeped. Unreal. Why? What is the deal? I had the post shock nausea going on…My mind raced and I said, “What are you hiding a race car in your pocket?” Caleb says to me, “Yeah, mom I have a wace-cawo in my pocket!”  The TSA and I laugh.  He walks through again, “beep!” We laugh again, and he says, “I have anoth-o wace l cawo in my pocket!” So out comes his second race car. He passes with ease. We continue to our gate. Four kids in tow and we arrive. Jared immediately checks with our gate attendant and he confirms that we are listed to be on the flight. Yes, she answers. We began to panic that while speaking to the delta manager that for some strange reason they remove us. That was going to be the worse news. We were safe. We arrived. We made it. We were listed on the flight. Ah, breath. The flight was delayed and we were there. Hip Hip Hooray!

We sat. We waited and breathed easy once again.  The time came to board it was 3:15pm. They allowed us to come to the front boarding with the “special” boarding people, ya know because we have four little kids! We line up, hand her our boarding passes and low and behold what happens… BEEP! Your ticket is “Not checked in!” She said as if she hadn’t spoken to us before, “You tickets are not clear to enter this flight…we don’t have you on this flight!” Jared calmly as possible said, “This is why I came to you when we first arrived to make sure we were on the flight!!!” I stood in the doorway with the children running up and down the ramp. I was stuck holding Ben, luggage, and yelling at kids to not run up and down the ramp! Jared attempting to confirm we are meant to be on this flight. I at this point said again a prayer…”Heavenly Father, seriously, I surrender, if we are NOT meant to get on this plane then please don’t make this a financial burden, just bring a storm or something to delay us till it’s safe to get us home…seriously you can do anything. Just help us get home!” I just walked, nearly in tears, nearly collapsing of exhaustion of feelings like… “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!”

Let’s just say by this point I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t surprised that we were deleted off the flight. THANKFULLY somehow this gate attendant added us on. On we go to the plane. So get settled, we began to breathe deeply again. Jared and I sat across from each other on the plane. We just laughed and smiled. Unreal. What a living joke this has been. But safe and sound. We would be taking off and we’d be home.

We kept sitting. I internally laughed again. What was going on? Delay again…shocker….time passing; it was 3:45pm. The flight crew began to sense the increasing tension from the people on board. Jared and I looked at each other, not being surprised by the delay…this was happening between batting down kids, voices, treats, you name it, they were losing patience.” The flight crew said that shortly the captain would get on to notify us of the reason for delay. I again laughed to myself. Just smiling feeling literally that we were being watched over from high up above.

The captain came on…”We are experiencing some mechanical problems, we will wait this out and once they have it fixed on the airplane we will be off shortly.” I smiled again. Time pasted, 10 minutes…15 minutes…20 minutes…nothing happening.

I looked out the window…grey clouds were forming, strange clouds, a few rain drops….started to happen.

The captain again said…”We don’t know what’s going on out there but apparently there are some major micro-wind bursts out on the runway we cannot leave. We will here shortly!”

We laugh again….I say to Jared, “You know this is happening because of us, right?” Jared smiles and agrees.

More time passes. It’s around 4:30pm…pretty much we should have been landing in Utah by this point. Oh, well. These things happen right?

The airplane starts to move…hip hip hooray…We are lined up on the runway to depart….we sit some more. Time continues to pass. The Captain gets back on the intercom, says…  “we are 8 in line to depart! We are on our way!”

The kids excitement on being on an airplane is gone. They were getting antsy. Our toys, books, games were well exhausted by this point. Please fly off! Seriously, let get home!”

Well, as we sit on the run way…waiting oh so patiently, I look out the window. The sky is changing color. Grey clouds start to appear and suddenly it’s pouring…buckets of rain…then it began, wind, rain, lightening, thunder, wind so strong it moved the airplane…We were in the heart of a storm. “Oh, great I thought, here is my long last wish for a good storm in Texas.” This however was not where and when I had in mind to experience it! Oh, well. We can’t control the weather….remember that prayer I said an hour or so ago….well that storm came.

We were stuck, idle in the plane. We sit for another hour. Waiting….by this point we had taken the kids to the bathroom like 20 times. We finally had turned on a movie on my ipad to help ease the time. The kids were good. Ahhh. Ben was sleeping…Ahhh. We were just hanging and visiting with all the people around us. It was just fine.

The captain returns on the intercom system. It’s about 5:00pm by this point and he says, “Sorry folks we are not going anywhere soon. The entire runway is shut down. This is a bad storm.” He continues to explain how when lightning strikes you can’t go anywhere until it stops for 15 minutes. Each time it strikes in a 5 mile radius, the 15 minutes start over again. So we sit and wait.

Time passes again.  It’s around 6:00pm.

The captain gets on again.. “It’s looking good, we are able to take off here shortly.”  We see a few planes go off…one, then another, then another.”  He gets on again and notifies us that we are number two to take off.”

Cheering was beginning to take place on the plane.

We sit more. The next airplane takes off….It’s our turn. We sit.

The captain gets back on… “I’m sorry to say this folks but we have ran out of gas. We now have to go back to the airport to refuel. At which point you can disembark the plane, stretch, change flights, figure out your connection flights you have missed, etc. We are sorry about this terrible delay.”

Off we return to the airport. I’m just smiling and laughing once again. Seriously, shaking my head saying, “Are you kidding me!” This really is unbelievable. Now during all this time we had been in communication with our sister-in-law who was giving us updates of our flight status online, the weather and the situation at her house. She said it was black as night at her house, lightning hitting her fence, streets flooding, her house shaking due to the winds and the power turning on and off. It was an awful storm and it was forecasted to not let up until 10pm that night.  Our flight was listed to take off at 6:45pm. So we were an hour away from that projected time.

After we received clearance to finally connect to the airport, people who were literally panicking about being on the flight, jumped up, and tried to leave asap. People were on their phones calling trying to reschedule their once so perfectly organized lives. Jared and I just sat praying our kids would remain “very well behaved” as people kept reminding us they were being so great.

The lightening stopped. The airplane had been refueled. We were given permission to return to the runway. I sensed a change. I felt that we were okay to go. I felt this feeling of relief. Like whatever the reason we were to be delayed was past. It was as if now, we were free to go. And just like that, we were off in the air… “Blasting Off!” as Caleb liked to say! The airplane CHEERED and CLAPPED with elation we were in the air. The flight crew quickly came over head saying, “Please keep your applause until we actually arrive safely to our final destination…the Salt Lake City airport!” We all laughed. Good point.

With a 2 ½ hour flight ahead of us, we did what we do best. Ben slept. Jake slept. Jared talked to strangers. Alayna teased Caleb. Caleb and Alayna watched yet again another movie on my ipad.  I just prayed, pondered and thought about how in life things happen for a reason and rarely do we ever see the other side to why these things happen. But this time, I hope when we get to re-watch life up in heaven we get to see and understand the WHY behind this day of adventure.

We land in SLC around 8:15pm. We get picked up. We drive home. We FINALLY feed our kids dinner at 9:00PM. They were so good and patient all day long. They went from 11am lunch till 9pm. What troopers. (I guess those “Peanuts, Pretzels and Cookies” really hold some great nutritional value after all!!!) The day was done…We say more prayers of gratitude and off to bed we go. I had to keep pinching myself to make sure we actually arrived home. I have never been so pleased with being in my own home after such a long and exhausting day.

A few lessons learned. Jared and I work well under pressure. I realized how smoothly that went. From the flat tire, to the delay in the airport, to all the stressful situations we did well. I love this man more today than I did before. We thought through difficult situations, we assessed what was most important, and we took care of our kids. I realized we had done so well keeping calm when I asked Alayna on one of our MANY potty breaks… “So, were you nervous at all when we had the flat tire and had to leave the car?” She said, “Um…I was really just sad that I couldn’t finish watching a movie in that really nice car!” I continued to ask her, “You didn’t think it was strange at all how we had to run across the road?” She said, “No, not really…Why?” I just laughed. She was clueless. Success. They were not scared or damaged in any way. 

So that’s that. We are home now and feeling totally blessed and thankful to be watched over…even if it was seriously in such a bizarre way.

Update on the rental car…they towed it and billed us only for the cost of a roadside assistance ($49) and plus the cost of gas ($84)…we felt like this is a super SMALL price to pay considering we were thinking of either driving home from Texas…awful idea…or paying $5,000 to get home!

Finally arriving to the gate...

Those two race cars...

Trouble...Trouble...Trouble

Watching their first movie during the delay

Being as good as always...he got to sit up since the three kids were sharing seats during their movie.

Happy kid. We were so blessed to have such great kids.

Running out of ideas how to entertain these kids.

Finally in flight...he is sleeping. What a good kid. He slept the entire flight until we began our descent into SLC.

Doing what he does best...the ipad.

Mixing the flight up...playing with Ben...while Jake keeps sleeping.

We have really made it...there is our little home.

Beautiful view from the flight.

 

He's so excited to be landing.

Are we seriously on the ground...in SLC. It's hard to believe it really happened!

 

The "People Mover" as the kids called it! Yes, this was their personal favorite of the SLC airport. They were thoroughly disappointing that the DFW airport didn't have one.

Such a darling kid, pulling his little suitcase...it really was so cute since it was bigger than him!

We made it! What a great way to end the day. Sleeping in our own beds, with our own pillows. I can tell you what...we all slept amazing!