travel antics

So, we just spent a fabulous week in California; 3 1/2 days in solvang, and 3 days in san diego, where i was born and spent the first 6 years of my life. we saw great friends, went to Jon and Julie Reibsamen's wedding, visited my family in california, and went to the san diego zoo, and a whole lot more. the kids were amazing given the fact that they were very sleep deprived (with staying up late and the 3 hour time change). They had such a good time they didn't want to come home, even though daddy was already at home having left a few days before we did. which left me to fly home with three tired kiddos across the country. of course, we get to the airport only to find we have mechanical difficulties on our plane out of san diego, and i waited in line for an agent for TWO hours, by myself, with all three kids. anybody with children under 5 understand what this means. Amazingly, it went totally smoothly! i kept thinking to myself, "i can't believe they're just sitting here, hanging out, waiting patiently." can you believe that! only by the grace of God, that's for sure. thanks to all who were praying. anyway, our trip back was really good, and i would actually say i had a good time with the kids, minus the moment of insanity in the atlanta airport. i was standing in line waiting to get the kids some dinner, and nathan and ellie said they needed to go to the bathroom. well, for some crazy reason i let nathan convince me to let the two of them go into the mens bathroom together (which was right next to where i was getting food), thinking, "okay, they'll just go in, go to the bathroom, and come back out. yeah. it will be no big deal." right. not so much. so, i finish in my line, and i'm waiting outside the men's bathroom, and start hearing ellie scream, "MOM!!!!, MOM!!!!" i call into the bathroom, "what ellie?" "MOM, I NEED YOU TO WIPE ME!" I tried to convince nathan to help her out, but she wouldn't let him. meanwhile all the men are coming in and out of the bathroom, with this incredulous look on their faces like, "is that your kid?" "so, after about 2 minutes of back and forth coaxing, trying to convince ellie to just come out and i'll help her in the women's bathroom, i'm left with no other choice, and i walk into the men's bathroom, very awkwardly with many men looking at me like i'm crazy, wipe her, and bring her out myself. fortunately there was a nice looking man who agreed to stand outside the bathroom with all my luggage and youngest son in his stroller. yes, he could have taken my kid or stolen something, but honestly, i didn't know what else to do, and i didn't think he'd get far with anything, so i chanced it, and decided i could scream really loudly if i saw him taking off and there were enough security officers around who could help me out. we did make it out of the bathroom, albeit with a few remarks from annoyed passerby about how this is the MEN's bathroom. i decided to hold my tongue.
one good thing about the mechanical difficulties was that they let me change my final leg of the trip to bring me straight into columbia instead of charlotte north, carolina where we would have had a 1 1/2 hour car ride back home. of course the bags went to charlotte, but at least i don't have to pay the gas to get home;)