Beat-Up Luggage and Lotsa Love in "The Lou"!

(i have no idea whose house this is, i just wanted to share these fantasy icicles!

 yes, it is rather brrrrr here!)

Well, YAY-I made it "home" to St. Louis safely, on a boring almost 5 hour flight Monday afternoon/evening. I always like flying Southwest because they are almost always the cheapest fare, the flight attendants usually have a wicked sense of humour which I appreiciate, and to my great pleasure, have added a non-stop flight from Seattle to St. Louis! My parents both worked for the airlines for years (my mom and dad met at a work part for Eastern airlines in the late fifties...then my mom worked for Frontier for almost 30 years) so I am a season traveller and (used to) know a little more about inside airline stuff than the average person. (you should HEAR some of my mom's stories!) I have been flying since about age 5, and can only remnember a few "interesting" incidences-such as the time our plane got struck by lightening and lost an engine ( I was way too young to be scared) or the time I was flying with my mom, sitting in a window seat over the wing and as the flap was moving yelled out "the wing is breaking!", and getting stcuk on standby at Lambert Field for over 11 hours with my two then-young kids, trying to get to Florida to visit their great grandma! And can you believe that I never remember an incident of lost or damaged luggage over all those years of flying? Well, that changed upon my arrival in St. Louis Monday evening...I even let my suitcase go by me on the baggage carousel twice before realizing (accepting?!) that it was mine...the poor little smooshed up thing! I was mannly worried that it was the one which held the 2 one-liter glass bottles of Torinos coffee syrups I brought for my daughter...but thankfully, it was not! And, another kudos to Southwest, I had no more entered their baggage claim office pulling along my pitiful bashed in, wheel bumping suitcase before Debbie had whipped out a brand new Coleman suitcase for me as a repalcement! I was so surprised and grateful,

and was on my way again in less than 10 minutes time!

(I'll skip the boring story about how it took me twice as long to secure my Priceline rental car due to our credit card company denying my card at Alamo because they were suspicious of Jeff having used it in Seattle that afternoon and then me in St. Louis that evening! I'm thankful to them for the security measure but they could have let us know!)

Mr. Monkey working hard to dispel the childproof lid theory of his mamas vitamins!

(he succeeded!)



Anyway-here I am, on day 3 (already!!) in St. Louis, with my "babies"- my daughter Kaelyn, my grandbaby Ryatt...and my son Trevor even made a few hours appearance to hang out with us  yesterday! I am somewhat wireless while here, (I'm at the library just for the wi-fi right now), so my posts will be short and few, but suffice to say, being in the presence of my adorable, sweet, playful grandbaby, and my beautiful, funny, loving daughter and son, makes for an over-the-moon:

Happy Me-LaurieZ!