You've GOT to be Kidding

Warning : This is a long post that is mostly a venting! Read at your own risks!

As most of you've heard we had a hiccup in our original plan to fly out Friday Jan 9th. We arrived at curbside check in with our 12 bags, 6 passengers, and many carry ons to find out infants due in deed need passports to travel outside the country. We had investigated this over a year ago and had either come across some incorrect info on the web or had read children under 2 don't need passports for some other type of travel that we thought included the UK. As I always tell the girls... "Everyone makes mistakes!" Our first thought was to send Jason, Mary, Val, & Natalie and have Lauren and myself stay behind to get her passport taken care of. Then we found out BOTH parents have to apply in person for a child's passport. After we realized Jason could sign something notarized and not have to be there, it was too late to put them on the flight...ugh!!! Re-booking fees suck, but it was totally our fault.

It then took close to 3 hours to rebook our flights and round up the already checked luggage. (2 pieces didn't make it off the plane in time and took a little side trip to Cincinnati and were delivered to Niki's the next day!) Master packer, Niki, miraculously got all now 10 bags, 6 passengers, and all the carry ones, including the stroller back in my one car since our other ride had left hours earlier. Jason later told me he thought the axle was going to break on our ride home the car was so overloaded.

For those interested, no, I did not cry! I was very proud of my problem solving, oh-well-that-really-sucks-but-what-else-can-we-do-about-it attitude. The girls were disappointed to say the least! Jason...didn't really speak for about 2 hours.

We also realized L's social security number was packed in our storage unit!!!!! Jason climbed through and found it in under an hour :) I went to get her passport photo and of course the photo machine broke while we were waiting!

Jason flew out Sunday since his classes started Monday. I then headed down to Miami with Little L to get an expedited passport. We got to visit with Carrie, my good friend from high school, thanks for the sleep over!!

Monday morning we made our way to the federal building and as I was being processed they asked where her other photo was, apparently one fell out along the way...another roadblock! Back to the car, it was in there! We were able to walk away with her passport in a little over 2.5 hours. Back in the car for 4 hours to Sanford.

Finally ready to try again to fly on Wed Jan 14th.

THANK YOU to Maria for the ride and Brandee for the quick investigating!

NIKI- I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR ALL YOUR HELP IN THIS MESS!