Thursday, May 27, 2010

We went to Minnesota

We arrived home from our trip to Minneapolis via Southern CA about an hour ago. Tired from multiple planes and a 1 1/2 day drive from Redlands, I'll just blog a tad from our trip today and finish up more tomorrow.

Our saga began on Sat. May 15 when Liz flew to Minnesota. Sunday morning early Sydney, Mr. Scottie Dog and I drove to Lost Hill, CA (North of Los Angeles) and spent the night. Sydney is a veteran traveler so it went well. She especially enjoyed the restaurant we chose that evening....she ordered mac & cheese and a bowl of red grapes. Monday it was on to Redlands to spend 3/4 of the day with Great-grandma Willie. My dear childhood friend, Maralee joined us all for dinner. Next morning we left for Ontario Airport for our Minnesota jaunt. We thought it a good omen that instead of 3 planes, United changed us to only two! Yahoo. We had enough time in Denver to get ice cream....always a good thing when you are traveling with a 5 year old. About 6:30 pm we boarded our plane to Minneapolis. We got on, prepared for take-off when the announcement came that we would be delayed for about 10 minutes due to a storm nearby. Five minutes later rain began to fall and 15 minutes later it was pelting the plane. Another announcement..."about a 20 minute delay until the storm passed by." The sky quickly darkened and over the loud speaker, "Leave everything behind and exit the plane as quickly as possible, a tornado is bearing down on the airport." We stood and waited to exit. We were about half-way back in the plane and some people were pulling their luggage out of the racks and nobody we could see had begun to move down the aisle yet. Then the flight attendants began to scream...."Get OFF the plane NOW!" "Run" "RUUNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!" The panic in their voices finally got people moving...I handed Sydney over to Mr. Scottie Dog and we first moved slowly down the aisle then we could run and we ran off the plane, down the skyway, into the terminal. People were running from all directions and uniformed workers were screaming and pointing towards the restrooms which were labeled "Tornado Shelter." As I ran down past the gates I looked at the greenish/black clouds outside saw constant lightening and the thunder boomed. Mr. Dog had gotten ahead of me with Sydney and gone into a Men's Restroom. I stood outside the Ladies' as it was full, but with the option of cramming into it if the glass began to break. A 20-something young woman stood beside me sobbing and texting on her phone. I patted her arm and told her it would be all right. I was probably telling myself the same message!

After about 20 minutes they told us we could go back and sit at the gate before boarding the plane. Whew! What excitement....give me an earthquake any time! We got into Minneapolis about 1:30 am...1 1/2 hours late.

Next morning I got to play with the grandbabies. Liz had bought a "SlippySlide" as the kids called it. They couldn't understand how to slide...but did it on their knees. Look at Jakob (4) here! (Sadies (2) in the background).

Shiloh is 3 months old now, with Mercedes and Jakob. Did I tell you it was hot while we were there? One of the things Sydney really wanted to do was hold her baby cousin. Shiloh seemed to enjoy all the attention.
I'll give a report on Quilt Market tomorrow.

3 comments:

jen duncan said...

My goodness that was an exciting trip over! I can totally see most people casually getting their suitcases and such. Most of us are so hard to get a rise out of anymore.
These kids are adorable!! My goodness, shiloh seems TALL for 3 months. They're all beautiful. That photo of Jakob flying through the air is the best! We could photoshop a magic carpet under him ;-)

metal mama said...

the pictures are beautiful! love it!

Tanya said...

What excitement! I think I'll take an earthquake too... Though those can get pretty scary when they are big too. But look at the precious treasure awaiting you at the other end of the trip!