I Deserve a Refund

Well, we finally made it to Utah. It was quite an adventure. We got on a little plane in Cincinnati and flew to Detroit. There was a crosswind in Detroit, which was kind of fun. When we arrived in Detroit, our next plane was already delayed a half hour, which was not a big deal. We got something to eat, wandered around, and headed to our gate.

Of course, the plane we were supposed to board came in late. After a few minutes, they got on the intercom and said there was a slight mechanical problem and that a mechanic was going to look at it. They eventually told us that the pilots felt a vibration when they braked and they needed to have it checked out before the plane flew again. If it was going to take too long, they would just have us board another plane. We waited for a little bit longer, and then they sent us to another gate.

We arrived at the gate to find that our plane hadn't shown up yet. A few minutes later, the plane showed up. They tried to get the walkway out to it, but it got stuck in the snow. We had to wait for a snowplow to come and dig out the snowdrift so that the walkway could get to the plane. That didn't take too long and the people on the plane were finally able to get off.

After the passengers got off, they got on the intercom and said that our flight was overbooked and they needed some people with flexible travel plans to give up their seat. Um....No. I wanted to see my family. And I was sick of delays.

So, we finally got on the plane and got all ready to take off. Or so we thought. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. The pilot got on and said that he didn't know exactly what was going on, but we were waiting for ground grew to come and load some luggage, shut the cargo hold, and push us back. Well, we waited there for three and a half hours! Yes, on the plane. The pilot would get on and let us know what was going on, but he didn't know much. Apparently, the ground crew was short staffed and there was about 19-30 other planes in our position. Finally, they got Minneapolis (?) on the problem. I guess they are the head honchos of some airports back there. They said that the ground crew had to come take care of us in the next 5 minutes or let us off the plane. Finally, after three and a half hours, we left for Salt Lake City. (At this time, our flight had been delayed a total of 5 hours and we should have already been in SLC.)

The flight was unevental, other than I was uncomfortable within 5 minutes of flying and slept most of the way. We finally got into SLC at 2 am local time (we were supposed to arrive and 9:15 pm) and started to stand up to leave. And nobody moved. The pilot got on and said that Northwest doesn't normally come to this gate and their ground crew didn't have security clearance and we were waiting on that. So we waited some more and then the pilot got on and said that the person that came to unlock the door didn't have the right key on him and needed to go find the right key. At this point, it was just ridiculous.

We finally got off the plane and headed towards the luggage claim. When the first luggage claim started up, only a few bags came and about 2/3 of the people on the plane were still luggage-less. Three baggage claims away, another one started up and more people got their luggage. Now there was only ten of us without luggage. So, we stood in line to talk to the baggage agent. By this time my poor parents arrived and stood in line with us. Because the Delta agent in Cincinnati hadn't given us a baggage claim ticket, it was going to be a little difficult. We finally left the airport at a little after 4 am, stopped by Wal-mart for the essentials, and was in bed by 5 am.

So, we keep bugging Northwest about our luggage. They finally said it was in Detroit. Yes, we had waited three and a half hours for luggage to be loaded on and it didn't include our luggage!! We finally got our luggage today, Tuesday afternoon. Since then, we've been surviving on my little sister's shirts, my mom's washing machine, and Carl's been wearing my 15 year old sister's socks.

Christmas Village and Christmas Tree

I took some pictures of my decorations so everybody could see how cute they are. And also how my obsession with my Christmas Village has grown. I just started it last year and it's already too big. And I love it!
Our little Christmas Tree. I put the lights on last year for the first time ever and put on about 8 strands of lights. So, I refused to take down the tree and just stuck it in a closet.

Here's the entire village. For those of you who saw last years village, you can tell it's expanded. A lot. I don't know what I'm going to do next year!

The rest of the pictures are close-ups of the houses and people.

Thanksgiving Finally

Well, I decided to finally tell you about Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving at Colleen and Arlyn's house. This year, our good friends Dustin and Merideth joined us. It was a full house with them and Ken and Michelle here as well. Dustin brought over his X-box and his flat-screen computer monitor, we brought over our X-box and TV, and we had fun playing Halo and Guitar Hero all day long. The food was good, with yummy turkey and ham, rolls, salads, and much more. For dessert, we had a dessert for every person. We had Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Cheesecake, Caramel brownies, Pumpkin cake, chocolate chip cookies, apple pie with ice cream and that's all I can think of. We were eating dessert for days! I made my first ever pumpkin pie. Even the crust was from scratch. Here's a picture, I was proud:

It was a good break from school and we enjoyed having Ken and Michelle and their two kids here. For the first time ever, I went out on Black Friday, stood in lines, and braved the madness. It was a good, relaxing weekend with lots of yummy food!

Bands Of America

Don't fall over in shock. I'm posting.

Quite a few weekends ago, the American Fork High School Marching Band had the opportunity to compete in Grand Nationals in Indianapolis. This is THE high school marching band competition of the year. Unfortunately, they don't do the competition like football, where the best of the best compete and then go on to Nationals. It's more of "whoever can pay the money and get their entire band out to Indiana can compete and we'll choose a winner out of them." It puts the bands out West at a disadvantage: they can't afford to come out here every year.

Well, the band came out to participate and my little sister came with them. My parents flew out as well, so we got to see them. (Indianapolis is only about 1 1/2 hours away from Cincinnati.) My parents actually flew into Cincinnati, we picked them up, showed them around for a few hours, and then we drove to Indianapolis and spent the weekend there.

I had some pictures, but I don't know where they went to. They're on Facebook, if you're that desperate. The band played great and Mallory was awesome. It was a lot of fun to see what the other bands were up to and the cool things they did.

The band didn't make it to finals, but did place 14th out of about 90 bands. They had a good experience and can now go back and dominate Utah. (They've placed first in the state for the last 16 years!) We loved that the band came out so that we could see my Mom and Dad and a little bit of Mallory. Thanks for letting us bug you all weekend long!