Mid-air collision with a snack truck
I went to Chicago last Saturday so I could be associated with the blessing for Chelsea. I got in at about 10:00 p.m. Chicago time, and Eric was right there to pick me up. It seems he was on his second pass of the pickup area before going to the cell phone waiting area. I got to sleep on the air mattress in the living room. Eric warned me that the kids might wake me up by jumping on me. I said that I needed a way to wake up on time for their 9:00 a.m. church meeting, and I couldn't think of a better way. Sure enough, at 7:00 a.m. my partly awake brain noticed that the sunlight pouring in on me was being blocked. I opened my eyes, and there was Ashlie standing there smiling and saying "It's Grandpa." I was so happy (sucker Grandpa). When I told Mirinda that I was glad Eric had told her that it would be fun to be awakened by the kids, she said that she was glad - but that Quinten had let Ashlie out of her room, and now she was waking up Grandpa.
It was a deligthful time at church. I got to hold Chelsea for a little while. Eric did a great job giving a blessing. After church, I broke out the presents for Qunten and Ashlie that I brought from home. They were pretty excited. I got Ashlie a watch that looked something like Diane's watch, which Ashlie was always taking away from Diane back in May when we were in Chicago. Ashlie was soooo excited to get the watch. Lesson: remove gifts from the store packaging - kids don't have the patience to get the gift out of the store packaging. Ashlie was trying to rip the watch out of the plastic. The watch band was WAY too big, so she had to walk around with her arm in the air to keep it on - soooo cute. Quinten got a Cars watch, and he kepts snapping it open and declaring "It's too late ..." for whatever. I made up some whatevers, and Quinten called me a silly goose.
Eric took me back to the airport on Sunday evening for my late flight back to Portland. The airport was crowded with people waiting for delayed flights, but my flight SEEMED to be on time. The plane got moved to a different gate, so we got seated about 30 minutes late. All of us were tucked into our seats, when there was a bump and the plane moved a little bit. The crew cabin was still open, and everyone could see the pilot look around trying to see what had happened. Sure enough, it was not good news. The provisioning truck had hit the wing, and I could see a bent aileron. Yikes, we can't fly this plane, and everyone is waiting for delayed flights... Another plane became available right away, and we took off about 90 minutes late. I'm pretty sure we did better than most of the people waiting for delayed flights.