prutopia

haylee's wedding

we were in florida this past weekend for my cousin haylee's wedding. it was our first trip via airplane with both girls, so there was a little trepidation that preceded our departure. and well-deserved trepidation it was. getting both girls and all of our stuff to the gate was quite a chore, especially if you're out of shape... which i am. as usual, we were running a bit late. no worries on parking, though, as we decided to valet. that was pretty quick and extremely painless. until the parking guy told us to go up to the 4th floor and go straight to get to the terminal. not having gone through the airport valet process before, we followed his instructions. the problem was, that led to no terminal, only more parking. so, either the guy misspoke, has communication issues, or is just a(n) (insert degrading expletive here). i'm going with number 3.

after finding our way to the terminal, we stood in line to check our bags only to be told that since we checked in online, we had to go down to the other end of the ticketing area. reluctantly, we obeyed (as i mumbled a few choice words audible enough to turn a couple of heads). after checking our bags with the hyper-efficient united employees (insert sarcasm here), we stood at the back of the security line to present our IDs and boarding passes.

when we reached about the 5th spot from the front of that line, the line behind us split as another airport employee came to help diminish the ever-growing line. strangely, the gal in charge of our line disappeared. it was as if the 10 or so folks in our line were part of an elaborate yet simple candid camera/punk'd prank. fortunately, i am an amazingly patient man (more sarcasm). once we got past the disappearing lady, however, security breezed by. 'twas a good thing too since we were 1 minute from our scheduled boarding time and an entire terminal's length from our gate. so, we had to rush to our gate without being able to feed the girls.

when we finally got to gate B-20 sweaty, sore, and frustrated, we were greeted with information for a flight to vancouver. reasonably sure that the city of west palm beach had not changed its name, i prepared for another sprint through o'hare holiday congestion. then, we caught our first "break". our flight was merely delayed. the vancouver flight had just not taken off yet. true to airline efficiency, however, we were informed in 10 minute intervals that they would inform us about our flight in 15 minutes. so, we caught our breath and hunted down food for our increasingly tired and restless children.

we finally boarded. not early, mind you, as united's ted apparently does not board "passengers traveling with small children" early, unlike most airlines i'm aware of (or ted for that matter, as we had the opportunity to do so on our way back). the rest of the travel was dotted with similar small yet aggravating details, but we survived.

the weekend itself was worth the trouble, though. it was great seeing family i hadn't seen in a couple of years. many of them had never had the pleasure of meeting the girls, so it was fun introducing them. the wedding was fantastic. my uncle larry and aunt leslie threw an extravagant yet laid-back affair, and that's hard to do. like me, larry's the father of only girls, so i can relate. unlike me, he handles it pretty well. i had to walk away from the father/daughter dance. can't even think about that yet.

anyway, congratulations haylee and alek. we wish you all the happiness in the world. special thanks to don and kathleen for letting us stay at your house. much appreciated. to the rest of the family, come on up to chicago soon. love you!

see pictures from the wedding here. as always, enjoy.

posted by pru @ 4:11 PM