The wonderful trip where everything went wrong

Last friday, on my 24th birthday, My mom, Nathan, and I set out for RDU airport at around 10:15 AM for our trip to NJ. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 12:2o pm, and we planned everything out perfectly to arrive at the airport the recommended (and annoying long) 2 hours before take off. I was really, really hoping the day would run smoothly since A. it was Nathan's first time on a plane, and B. it was my birthday and the last thing I wanted was for anything to go wrong. well, obviously, the airport gods had different plans for our day. I swear if we could have seen them they would have been pointing their finger and laughing at us. At first it was a few small delays but that quickly turned into many long delays. I had brought a stroller, (an old stroller that my parents used for my sister and I when we were younger and had been stowed in the attic for 20 years), in hopes that Nathan would maybe sleep at the airport. Not happening. Regardless of how cranky and tired he was, he was not sleeping. He just wanted to run around, talk to random people and watch the airplanes. FINALLY, sometime around 4 pm we were allowed to board the plane. When we actually started to moving down the runway, we got really excited, but I should have known better. The pilot came on the intercom to announce that the weather was so bad in Newark that he was going to have to turn the plane around. WHATT?? At this point Nathan was a mess and the airplane felt like it was 95 degrees. After and hour and a half of deterring Nathan from crying with mounds of airplane pretzel sticks, we finally took off and arrived in Newark a little before 7 PM. We get off the plane, open the stroller, put Nathan in, and CRACK. Completely broke in half. At this point I just had to laugh.

That night we went to Janine and Billy's for pizza and birthday cake and spent the next day enjoying the wonderful company. That night, the crazyness continued after dinner when we lost power from a horrible storm. Not only did we have no electricity, but we had no water either. Apparently, it was the worst storm they had had in 20 years. The next day (Saturday) was Jackie's bridal shower and we still had no power. Thankfully, the venue had a generator so the shower was still able to happen and it was absolutely beautiful! The power never came back the remainder of the weekend. We stayed at my Grandmas house Sunday night. She had power, but no water. Monday morning, we headed back to the airport. Thank you airport gods for realizing we had been through enough We actually arrived back in Raleigh ON TIME.

So was the weekend crazy? Completely!! More than I could ever have imagined. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Despite everything we had a wonderful time. Nathan had so much fun playing with his cousins and we loved seeing everyone. I am so lucky to have such an amazing family.