Delay, Detour, U-Turn!

Plane is running a tad behind but that is alright it is only a few moments. We have said our “see you laters”, cried, laughed, hugged and prepared to fly off into the clouds for our great adventure. My families (Mom and dad, Eric and Laura Beth + the kids, Dwight, the Phillips family – Randy :o( (yea school stuff)) plus Phillip, Jeff and Brother Mike were all there to see us off. We went through security..I set off the alarm. Here is a tip: never go through the sensor with a package of Gushers in your pocket. As a result Alex and Carter got candy. After we boarded the plane Heather and I well mostly I prepared myself for take off. Just kidding…DFW has closed down for a while due to thunderstorms but that is alright because we are the first to take off when all is clear. Just Kidding..some people decided to get off after some time passed. Therefore we need to redo the paperwork. We traveled about 100 yards down the runway and we are waiting. Every half hour we get an update on the situation in DFW. It is a stop and go game that went from funny to ironic to quite frustrating. “Oh it looks like we can go…oh wait never mind.” While we waited Heather and I entertained ourselves (probably everyone around us). We played Go Fish in Portuguese, a card game called golf, and the “Many moods of men game” fortune telling game. It was great fun. We did a donut on the runway, for some reason we had to get more fuel even though we had not moved. This little detour bumped us to the end of the take off line. Due to the weather around the Dallas area Abilene became the stopping point for a lot of planes…you may have seen it on the news last night. Anyways around 7 (we were supposed to leave the ground at 2:10 and our connection flight had been delayed to 8:30 from DFW) we are clear for take off. We fly off into the horizon. We now have to fly to DFW by way of Oklahoma to miss the storms. We are going…going...oh wait we are put into a holding pattern near the air strip. And yet we lack the fuel to stay in this pattern for the amount of time we need to therefore we are off once again…back to Abilene. I really thought that the next time I saw the Zoo, Shotwell and the runway that I would be a whole lot more excited. When we land we have to stay on the runway for over an hour because of the number of planes that have docked. One is from Canada and last I heard they could not get off the plane because we do not have customs in Abilene. Granted some folks on our flight are tired, very hungry, sleepy, and very late and this leads to the attendant threatening to call security due to some very colorful language flowing from the back of the cabin. Heather gets on the phone with the AAdvantage desk after we scramble through the American Way magazines that we have now read close to five times in order to find a number. After an hour has passed and the attendant passes out a few bags of trail mix (for free...score) one of the 3 people working the strip brings us stairs and we all rush to freedom. (Walking across the runway towards the airport reminded me of the scene from Homeward Bound: Lost in San Francisco.) We called Dwight and Patty and Jaylynn and they came to rescue us. My parents provided us a bed and a couch which made us feel like 17 years olds in High School because that we the last time Heather had slept in my old room on that couch. It was fun. Mom, Dad, Patty, Jaylynn, Dwight, Heather and I got food from Sonic, gathered in the living room, talked and then Heather and I got to sleep in!! We have to be at the airport at noon today for the same song second verse. So our first day in Brasil will be a day late (I hope) but that is alright. 10 weeks vs 9 weeks and 6 days is not that bad. Please pray that everything from here on goes well and say a prayer of thanks that we even though we did not make it yesterday we are still here to try again. We have repacked our backpacks with food and AA batteries this time just in case. Thanks for the prayers and maybe the next entry will come from a computer way more south then Abilene.

PS

I Love you Honey