Babies' First Airplane Ride

I've been negligent of the blog. The first of my many excuses is that we've been traveling. The husband, babies, and I flew to Montana for the family reunion for my dad's side of the family.

The reunion was great, this was the first time most of my relatives got to see the girls. The getting to and from the reunion was dramatic to say the least.

First off, if the airline says, arrive 45 minutes before your flight to check luggage, they mean exactly 45 minutes. Not 44 or 43. They will bump you to standby on the next flight the minute you are late. They don't care if you have two babies and the next flight is in 2 hours and the delay increases your layover from 1 to 3 hours.There were at least 8-9 other passengers who missed the flight like we did and all were willing to accept if they were bumped to the next flight but an exception was made for us poor fools with two babies. The airline did not see it that way. We also discovered that hot weather in Montana = turbulence. My husband and I spent almost half the 2 hour flight from Denver to Billings trying not to slam the babies in the sides of the plane or seats because the turbulence so bad one passenger kept raising his arms in the air as if on a roller coaster. Finally, after waiting 30 minutes for our rental car and listening to the girls cry on the entire 2 hour drive from Billings to Livingston we called ahead to our hotel to discover the 2 cribs we requested were not available and we had to change hotels when we arrived in Livingston. Moral of the story: always we really really early and never expect anything you request to be ready for you.

On the upside, almost all of the flight attendants and passengers on our flights to and from Montana were very understanding and helpful. They fetched things from the overhead bin, held babies on a couple of occasions, and even tried to help entertain them. And the girls were good sports, they were only fussy on the very last flight on the way back. The airline was also very good about the stroller and baby carriers. They were checked at the gate on the all the flights and returned to us when we landed. All for no extra charge.

On a final note, although we did have to resort to some jarred food; bananas, cheese, tofu, and avocado were fairly easy "homemade" food options while traveling.