The Christmas that almost wasn't

I have been meaning to blog about our trip for almost a week, and now that I am through the trauma of it all I think I can finally sit down and write.

It all started with a peaceful trip to Orlando last Wednesday morning.  Matt bought us tickets out of Orlando (about 2 hours from Jax) to make the ticket prices more reasonable.  Our flight was to leave at 3:00 p.m., we left Jacksonville at 9:30 a.m. so in PLENTY of time.  

We get there, try and check bags but since Matt is traveling with a firearm we need special attention.  He carefully read all the regulations several times over to make sure he would be legal (he has flown with guns before, no problem).  They were very understaffed so the checking in process took about an hour.  The lady behind the counter, who knew nothing, proceeded to fight with Matt and tell him he couldn't travel with them in the case he brought them in.  Finally, she involved TSA and after much sweat and frustration we were able to pay our $15 per bag (yes, you now pay per bag) we were able to check all four.  That wasn't before I had to unpack mine, transfer some of the weight into Matt's bag so he could put the firearm case in my bag (you are charged over $100 for luggage over 50 pounds).  O.K. so we go have a little lunch, take the kids to the bathroom and wander down to the gate.  We get there and find out our flight to Denver has been delayed (this is on UNITED airline).  What does that mean?  We miss our connection from Denver into Pasco, Washington.  Mind you Matt paid more money to fly into Pasco because it's about 1 1/2 hours from my where my family lives in Oregon.  After waiting for about another hour in line Matt finds out we have the option of being stuck for 3 days in Denver or flying to Portland, Oregon (which is about 3 1/2 hours from my family).  We chose the option to fly into Portland because staying in an airport in Denver for 3 days with the kids didn't really seem like a party to us.  We get into Denver with like 5 minutes to spare so Matt and I RAN about 50 gates to try and catch our flight to Pasco.  UNITED wouldn't hold the plane for us so we missed our connection.  We tried to figure out what we were going to do once we got into Portland since there were major winter storm warnings.  My sister, Jaime, spent probably 3-4 hours on the phone with UNITED that night.  Matt decided to rent a car and a motel room (all unplanned expenses).  Our flight out of Denver to Portland kept getting delayed so Kai was sleeping on the aiport floor, Kaden was running "amuck", Matt was swearing and threatening to get us a flight back to FL, I was crying.  It was HORRIBLE.  We finally board the flight to Portland and by this time have almost been up a full day.  We get into Portland, wake the kids up and drag them off the plane to get our luggage.  We wait, and wait and wait.  NO LUGGAGE!!!!! We had no clean clothes, no toothbrushes, nothing! Matt files a claim at 1 in the morning (4 our time), rents us a car and we set off to find a motel Jaime had booked us.  Couldn't find it so we wake her up at 1:30 in the morning and finally located it.  We get in the room and I kid you not, SUB ZERO temperatures.  It felt like the heat hadn't been on ever.  Coming from FL, it was probably an 80 degree temperature difference for us.  Matt tries to heat it up by turning on shower/faucet and microwaving towels for the kids to curl up with.  We get in bed, sleep a few hours only to be awakened by phone call saying there is no way we can make it to Pendleton because of the road conditions in the car we rented.  Jan's husband, Lance, calls back and booked us flights from Portland to Pendleton (tiny commuter plane, very expensive).  We think we are all good, we board that flight and start on our merry way.  We get 1/2 way to Pendleton and we have to TURN AROUND and fly back to Portland because there is a failure in some deicing thing and conditions in Pendleton were horrendous.  Good to go again, get on another plane and head to Pendleton again.  We get there and can't land and there is talk of rerouting us to another city (which nobody could've gotten us from because of the weather).  The cute pilot circles the runway while the snow plow is trying to clear enough space for us to land.  He lands with 1/4 mile visability,  snow DUMPING all around us we get off the plane finally.  Jaime cried as we landed.  We got here and UNITED still had no idea where our luggage was, we called every few hours and no more information, no more help.  After a couple days MATT was the one who finally found our luggage in Pasco at a Horizon counter.  The person who helped him was from Skywest. Bottom line, UNITED sucks and we have never been treated so poorly but customer service agents before.  We still plan to seek help and be compensated for our troubles.  You all know how ocd I am about cleanliness, whether that be my home, my clothes, my kids, whatever, so to see my kids in the same clothes 3 days and sleeping on airport floors was enough right there to cause a nervous breakdown.