Sunday, November 04, 2007

Sabbatical Blog: 10/18 Scotts Valley, San Jose and flying home

10/18 Scotts Valley, San Jose, and Home
So Sad, today is our last day of Sabbatical. One more big breakfast, one more morning to lounge around and relax. I’m glad the weather in Scotts Valley and San Jose has been really nice. We took our time getting our act together, and Traci had made plans to visit her friend Alisa who has moved back home with her husband and family from Bakersfield.

For me, I think this was the first time I’d actually met Alisa. I’ve heard Traci speak of her many times. And Traci has seen her several times in Bakersfield. So it was nice to finally put a face to a name for me. Alisa and her husband Dave, have 4 kids. Two of which are twins. So they have their hands full.

We spent the remainder of our afternoon with Alisa and her family, before heading to the airport. For whatever reason, by the time we left I was slowly starting to feel a bit funny… kind of light headed. Maybe it’s the beginning of an inner-ear infection?

Dropping off the car at the airport was fairly easy. And for the first time in all our sabbatical travels, we had people help us load our luggage onto the rental car shuttle bus. These same people helped us unload, and even offered to help us get all of our luggage up to the Baggage check. It was very nice and refreshing.

While waiting for our flight, Kylie was starting to lose her cool. She was getting tired, and so were we. Eventually our Southwest flight began boarding, and once again no pre-boarding for families. Hopefully Traci is still motivated to write Southwest about their new boarding policy. It really sucks for families. And is a dis-service to passengers in two ways.
1. We get to bump into people up and down the aisles.
2. People don’t get as much of an opportunity to avoid sitting near families (aka crying babies).
3. We simply take longer to get settled in our seats. With the car-seat, etc.

Our flight was late on arrival, and because of this I feel they were rushing the boarding process. Because of their new boarding process, we get to board with the “A” boarding group, which put us at the back of the 60 some person line. The first row with 3 adjoining seats available was just several rows from the rear of the plane. In the time they finished boarding, and pushed back from the gate, we still didn’t have Kylie’s car seat buckled in. In short, the new boarding process sucks!

Here we are on our last day of freedom. Do we look relaxed?

Kylie rolling on the floor at Alisa's parents house.

Alisa youngest son (12mo.), Ezra, and Kylie playing.

Kylie would often try to steam-roll Ezra, why? I have no idea.

He we are at the San Jose airport awaiting our flight.

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