Ode to Airports, Airplanes, and Lost Luggage

Before I venture into the pictures and details of our tropical vacation, I cannot forget to add this picture to my blog since we became so well-acquainted with airports and airplanes during our vacation:
We may look happy and all smiles in the above picture, but traveling to and from Cancun was actually quite a nightmare. It's laughable now, but at the time: not so much. Our vacation began with Garrett and I flying to San Diego to meet up with his awesome parents, Sid and Claire. The next morning we all hopped back on a plane to take us to Cancun via Houston. We were all loaded up on the airplane and sitting on the tarmac ready for take-off when the pilot's voice over the loud speaker informed us that the Houston airport was temporarily closed due to thunderstorms. So we sat there on the tarmac for five hours before being able to take off towards Houston. The airplane was hot and stuffy without one empty seat. Pretty miserable for anyone. Unfortunately, "morning sickness" has not completely left me and I had the sweet experience of getting sick on the airplane. My ankles and feet also swelled up to about twice their original size (for all my nursing friends out there: 2-3+ pedal edema). Not to mention the heartburn.....(at least I didn't have any kids with me!)

We finally got to Houston and then FINALLY to Cancun at about 2am. Everyone got their luggage and we headed to the hotel (oh, except for me, because the airlines lost my suitcase and I was without clothes or essentials for the next day, and of course the only clothes I had on were pants and a long sleeve shirt). Once my luggage was recovered and we were settled, we had a WONDERFUL vacation, which I will blog about next. So wonderful, we didn't want to leave. But leave we had to.

9 wonderful days later we were back on an airplane towards Houston. About an hour before we arrived in Houston, the pilot's voice came over the loudspeaker to announce that the Houston airport was once again closed due to thunderstorms. (curse you, Houston!!) We had to divert and land in San Antonio where we couldn't de-plane because we were on an international flight and San Antonio's airport is not an international airport. So back to our familiar spot on the tarmac for a few hours before heading to Houston. Of course we missed our connecting flight to San Diego, so we got to spend the night in Houston until the following afternoon when we FINALLY got an airplane outta there!

As you can see our traveling experience was quite exhausting and we became very familiar with trying to get some rest in very uncomfortable airport chairs:

The happy ending to the story: the only seats they could find for us back to San Diego were in first class, and it was amazing!! I guess that was our compensation for all our traveling hassles, or maybe we deserved to have such nightmarish traveling because our vacation was pretty much the best vacation ever and it would have been too unfair to have a perfect vacation AND smooth traveling. :)