For Christmas this year, Matt and I flew to Florida to spend Christmas with my grandpa and spend a few days in Disneyworld. Little did we know we were in for quite a trip! Most of you know it has been a crazy few weeks here in WA. We got more snow than we've seen in years. We left Seattle the day after the first big snowfall. Getting to the airport was fine and our flight was on-time, so we thought we'd be safe. After boarding our flight, the pilot came on to say we would be delayed about 10 minutes while they de-iced the plane. We only had a 1 hour layover in Atlanta, so didn't worry about an extra 10 minute wait. About 30 minutes later (and only half the plane de-iced) the pilot announced that one of the de-icer trucks had just broken...another delay. An hour after that we moved from the gate to the runway, only to hear we were 3rd in line to take off. With only 1 runway in use and 13 snow plows trying to keep it clean, it took another 30 minutes to take off. Welp...guess we weren't making our connection!
With a 4 hour flight to Atlanta, we didn't worry too much. Even though we knew we missed our connecting flight, the flight attendant assured us a Delta rep. would be at the gate to help us. So...we ran off the plane, only to be told the rep. couldn't help us, we had to go to a different terminal halfway down the airport and stand in another line. (Of course, nothing is simple in airports!). Unable to make the next flight because it was sold out, we were told we would have to spend the night in the airport and catch a flight in the morning. This was NOT okay with Matt. In case you don't know him too well...he doesn't have a lot of patience (and I think has a little ADD). Sleeping in the airport was not an option. So...after spending $180 on a rental car and only getting $60 reimbursed from Delta for our flight we headed on the road.
According to our GPS it said we would be in Tampa, FL at 3:45 am (yep...we drove through the night!). We grabbed some drive-thru dinner and enthusiastically hit the road. After driving by about 25 Waffle Houses (Georgia folk must love their waffles), Matt was getting a little tired. I couldn't help him by driving (because of my eye), so I just started singing Christmas carols. Around 2:30 our GPS said we still had 100 miles to go before getting off the freeway. This didn't make a lot of sense...how could we go 100 miles in an hour? I jokingly said, "what if the time zone never changed over?" Matt, with his dreary eyes and tired voice said, "Shut up...that's not funny." We quickly pulled over to get some gas and I started messing with the GPS settings. I was right, we were still on Pacific time. oops. So, instead of a 1 hour destination time, it looked like we had 4 hours to go! Yay!
At this point we began to regret our road trip decision, but had no choice to keep driving. From 4am to about 5:30am we cranked up the radio and sang Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You" song over and over and over. It was the only thing that could keep us awake. Finally, at 5:45 am we pulled into my grandpa's driveway and crawled into bed. We had finally arrived!!!
We were planning on going out to dinner before church (since my 93 year old grandpa eats early, our dinners were usually around 3pm), but every restaurant was closed, so we ended up at Chili's eating cheeseburgers before church. Not my idea of a Christmas eve dinner, but oh well. We'll get back to tradition next year. 
Tradition or not, it ended up being a very memorable Christmas.
Matt and I went to our favorite pumpkin patch for hay rides, homemade apple pie, and of course pumpkins! This has been a tradition of ours for the last 4 years...it's probably one of my favorite places in Whatcom County!
