Wednesday, February 8, 2012

First Flight

I really thought I had already posted this, apparently not. I uploaded the pictures, wrote most of the words, but never finished and never posted. Anyway, here it is:

In spite of Michele's protests I managed to get Porter on an airplane. Let me back up for a second. Michele is afraid to fly. Really afraid to fly, and that fear has always extended to cover me as well. I love to fly and enjoy getting from point A to B quickly, but anytime I fly Michele is a bit of a wreck until I'm on the ground. Now that we have Porter, her fear covers him as well. So when my siblings proposed that we all fly out with our kids, but sans spouses (for reasons beyond our control) to surprise my mom for her 60th I naturally took a bit of a pause to consider how my wife would feel about it. Not much of a pause though.

Porter and I got up at the ass crack of dawn to make the drive in to SeaTac (2.5-3 hours depending on traffic and ferry wait), got through security, waited for an hour or so, and then got on our plane. What I thought would be the hard part, the flight itself, was no big deal. Everything before it kinda sucked. Keeping the boy corralled for the hour before boarding while keeping track of carry-ons and the car seat was a real pain in the ass. Once on the plane, he fell asleep and showed no signs of stirring until we were back on the ground in the 'nix.

It took a good hour and a half to get off the plane, gather our shit, and get the Crown Vic we rented. Armed with my old lady car, we headed North to see Char. I don't know if I ever covered who Char is before so here's the quick rundown: She lived in our condo complex in the 'nix and was the very first person I met when I got there. For the two years we were there we were thick as thieves. We dined together regularly, partied, drank, went to the movies (okay, the movies only happened once), swam in the pool, you get the point. When we left town and my parents arrived, they picked up with Char right where we left of. Oh, and the monster is named after her husband. He died long before we ever met Char, but I loved hearing about him. 

Anyway, at Char's place is where we surprised my mom. My siblings arrived a day earlier and had already surprised her but she never thought Porter and I would be there (remember Michele's fear of flying?). Showing up was the big part of the weekend, there was some partying, bbqing, and general fucking around, but that's not really important. Here's some pics: