Kodak moments

I was going to blog about our fantastic Palm Springs weekend for my husband's 40th birthday, but he already did in yesterday's comment trail. Here's the gist of it, leaving out some of the ooey-gooey stuff:

Here's what she did: 1. Planned a romantic get-a-way for two at a cool little Moroccan themed Inn and Spa near Palms Springs. ...*boring, mushy stuff*.... 4. Once we got to the Inn, we didn't have to DO anything or BE anywhere if we didn't want to. She left it all up to me. And consequently we didn't do much and I enjoyed it immensely!

So since he kind of told you everything already, I'll leave you with some pictures of the El Morocco Inn and Spa. It was a lovely desert oasis. We've stayed in hotels in New York, Paris, Rome, LA, Florence, Nice, Glasgow, Venice, and the English countryside, and this was HANDS DOWN my favorite of all of them. No detail overlooked, the owners are warm and wonderful, and the experience was utterly perfect.

Twilight by the mineral spring pool

Our 7-foot round bed in a room called "The Sultan's Playpen." Don't love the name, LOVED the room. And there are crazy piles of pillows hidden behind those veil thingies.


Interior shot of the HUGE hot tub fed by a hot mineral spring

This is where I lounged pool side and thought about writing but never got around to it.

All the doors are painted Moroccan blue

My favorite picture EASILY. Study it closely:
This captures the split second before Kenny's momentum as he raced to beat the self-timer on the camera carried him backwards over the bench and he landed in the weeds with his feet sticking up in the air. It's totally worth me looking like a dweeb for the pleasure of that memory.
P.S. I'm not fat. It's just my posture.

Here's the difference...

So yesterday I recounted a particularly nightmarish overseas travel experience that culminated in me gibbering like a hysterical idiot in the Dublin airport.

That experience was called to mind by the travel craziness we dealt with on Saturday. Long story short, our cruise ship arrived in Vancouver at 6 in the a.m. My husband left it at 7:30 to get a rental car so we could get my son down to the Seattle airport for a 2:30 flight. It was supposed to be no problem. We got the minivan, loaded it with our mountains of luggage, and pointed toward the U.S.-Canadian border. Found that with no problem, but then sat there for almost three hours (it was supposed to be 90 minutes), waiting to clear the line. No way is my firstborn making his flight so we call the airline and find out that he can go standby for no charge at 4:30. We finally get to the airport and he misses boarding that flight by five minutes. So they book him onto the 6:30 flight and we settle in to wait. 45 minutes before that's supposed to board I look around the waiting area and realize something isn't right. It's emptier than it should be.

A trip to the counter reveals that the flight is delayed three hours so they diverted passengers to a flight landing in a nearby city and then they would be shuttled over to the original destination airport. Except they don't do that for unaccompanied minors and anyway, why are we just now asking about this? The flight is boarding in ten minutes. Can't put him on the next flight at 9:30 because kids can't fly by themselves after 9. So come back in the morning. Thanks for spending nine hours doing nothing today, though.

Two years ago, I would have at best thrown a royal hissy and more likely collapsed in fresh tears. But two years ago I was single mom working full-time and helping to care for a critically ill father. I didn't have the emotional reserves for the little things that went on outside of a tightly proscribed sphere. I had such raging control freak tendencies that any slight deviation I wasn't prepared for (and being a control freak, I always tried to prepare for anything I could think of) was enough to make me explode in any number of disturbing ways. My life worked only if it followed a very specific path. Surly ticket agents? Not on that path.

But in the time since, I've married, had another child, and acquired a set of rambunctious in-laws. I'm able to stay home with my kids and soak up each day a little more. So when everything started falling apart at the airport, I just shrugged and grinned at my son. "Cool. You get to hang out with us some more." I didn't freak out about the lost time or the frustration. I called my husband who was out roaming Seattle in our rented minivan with his parents. They picked us up at the curb and we set off to find the ferry, in good spirits, minds more or less intact.

The difference in two years stems from sharing burdens, knowing that someone is cheering for you, and taking the time to enjoy the small moments. Rather than begrudge the time sitting and waiting in the airport, I spent it instead enjoying my son's lego creations without an infant yanking my hair. It was kinda fun. I relaxed knowing that my husband was ready to swoop in and commiserate, his parents would cheer me up, and I got an extra day with my kid.

I love being married. I love having someone who's always on my team. I know that even when life gets stressful again (because it always does at some point), I'm part of a pair that can take it on the chin, lift each other up, and keep going with heads held high. I know that even though I don't need my husband to fix stuff for me (like travel disasters or burnt out lightbulbs or mean people at church) he'll gladly do it anyway. And even when I don't accept the help, I just breathe easier knowing it's there and it's a little easier soldiering on.

Seriously, I get why this is part of Heavenly Father's plan for us. Being married rocks.

Melanie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This time two years ago, I was hysterically crying my eyes out on a pay phone in the Dublin airport, disturbing several sleeping Estonians on the floor. That was a bad day. Lots of things went wrong.

Funny how much of a difference two years makes.

Take this past Saturday, for example. I didn't cry. I just shrugged and thought, "Oh, well." Let me explain.

Two years ago, when my husband and I were still dating, he was doing a short tour with his band through parts of the U.K. We hadn't been dating very long and the idea of being separated for three weeks seemed intolerable. (I know....but it was new love). He invited me to fly over and join them for the last week in Scotland and England and I jumped at the chance. (Um...duh.)

I traveled out by myself, only the second time I'd ever left the country. It was during extremely heightened security measures because of a terrorist threat against flights between the U.K. and the U.S. (This is where the no liquids in your carryon started). Since it was all so new, the security was a nightmare to get through and no one knew the rules or procedures. It caused my flight into London to leave late (and it's a loooong flight from the West Coast). I had to change airlines at the Heathrow airport and my flight delay caused me to miss my connection to Dublin on Aer Lingus. They didn't feel it was their fault since I didn't come in on their airline but after parking myself in front of their service desk on my hibiscus print suitcase and looking mournful for about an hour, the desk agent finally relented and got me on a flight. From there I just had to make it to Glasgow and then I would be with my husband (boyfriend at the time). My flight into Dublin was the last one I could take and still make my final layover. We pulled away from the gate, everything looked fine, we started to taxi and then....we went back to the gate and sat for an hour.

When I finally did get to Dublin, the Aer Lingus counter was closing and the harried agents there were not interested in a travel stinky, tear stained wreck of a girl and her problems. By this time, I was running on no sleep for 18 hours and fueled by sheer frustration. So that's when the hysterics started. My husband (boyfriend ) had given me his credit card information in case anything went wrong and after naviagting the incredibly thick brogue of the phone operator I got him on the phone and gasped out everything that was going wrong. He felt terrible even though it wasn't his fault and there was nothing he could do about it. He tried to cheer me up. I pretended to let him so he wouldn't worry anymore. Then I took another stab at it with the lone Aer Lingus agent still at the desk, powering down her computer.

My true patheticness must have finally gotten to her because she relented and began looking for a ticket for me the next day. Her first solution: fly out the next night. No. I wasn't going to lose an entire day in Europe because they delayed me in making my connection. Next solution: fly out the next morning but pay the difference. In Euros? Definitely not. Again, not my fault I was stuck in the airport. Finally, she just gave up and gave me the morning ticket, no charge. When I got in touch with my husband (boyfriend) and told him how it all worked out, he was totally worried about me sleeping overnight in the airport. He wanted to send me to a nearby hotel. Just the thought of trying to navigate public transportation in a unfamiliar foreign city at one in the morning was enough to send me nearly over the edge so I opted for the dubious comfort of an airport bench and sleep interrupted by a security announcement every fifteen minutes.

Yeah, I got it. Don't leave my bag unattended.

Ultimately, my greatest danger was leaving my bench for the restroom and losing it to one of the canny Estonians eyeing it's half inch of vinyl covered cushioning and coveting it from their spots on the institutional tile of the airport floor.

What a night. I think my hysterics subsided under the weight of pure exhaustion and still I couldn't sleep. I read two books and stared vacantly when I couldn't focus anymore. Then I dozed until the next security announcement. Lather, rinse, repeat.

My husband (boyfriend) had asked what he could do to make it better when I got to Glasgow. I had the presence of mind to give him an answer, so the next morning when I stepped off the plane, he was standing and waiting with a hand drawn sign made with taped together paper and borrowed crayons. It was decorated with rainbows and airplanes and a big bubble lettered "Welcome!"

I always wanted one of those.

It ended well. Our trusty chaperone, Bass Player Joe, let us out of his sight long enough to say our "I Love Yous" for the first time. Their shows went well. We took in an amazing Shakespeare play and made it back to the States without too much fuss. We were engaged a month later and married three months after that. I didn't get stuck in the Dublin airport indefinitely, grow old and die there after living only on their bizarre version of McDonald's. I made it. I lived to have yet another ridiculously bad travel day with totally different results. Good ones, ones that didn't involve hysterics.

But I'll save it for tomorrow because this post is long and my attention span isn't, and I have "vented my spleen" at Ye Olde Aer Lingus and surly Dubliners in general. Alaska Airlines, you're next!