There and Back Again... by air

This is basically a boring travelogue, but I wanted to have it recorded.

On Tuesday, Jun 21 Ethan, Bolton and I left Utah bright and early heading back to Texas by plane. Ethan had to be in San Antonio Wednesday for a pre-op appointment for his PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy).

We left the big kids with my family and knew they were in good hands. We barely made it through security in time to make our flight, there were a TON of people flying early morning! Holy Cow! Maybe its always like that, and we just never fly. But I thought it was crazy. The flights were uneventful (thankfully). We landed in A-Town about 1:00 local time. A friend picked us up from the Airport and we had a few things to do before we drove down to San Antonio.

One of those things was getting the oil changed. You'd think it would be a simple thing, in and out in 30 minutes, right? Wrong. I made the mistake of going to one of my least favorite places in the world (don't get me started on WalMart) and they said they were "Unable to remove the oil plug because the people at PepBoys {the last place we had the oil changed} had used the wrong plug. Figures."

So I picked up Ethan and we went to PepBoys to see if they could fix the problem. They got the car in there and said, "What problem? The folks at WalMart said there was a problem? Figures."

I thought it was funny that they each took the time to say their piece about the competition.

So we headed out later than we had hoped, but hit the road south. We stopped at a new favorite local bakery for dinner. Called Side Oats Cafe in Menard. Every time we say the town name, we say it like Todd Packer saying, "What's up m'nerds?"

We got to San Antonio with no problem. Found the base with only a little help from my dad over the phone. :) Then got up early the next morning so Ethan could get his appt.

This is the only picture I have from our trip...

That night we headed up to the nice side of San Antonio and had dinner with the Sclaters. Rod was Ethan's roommate during COT 3 years ago. His wife Jenni and I have been blogging friends since then and it was so great to finally meet them face to face! What an awesome couple they are! And cute, cute kids. They reminded me a lot of our own, pretty interesting, really. It will be fun to get them all together. Crazy, but fun. :) Funny little observation, you know how you hear a voice on radio and have a face that goes with that voice in your head and then when you see the person for real it can be somewhat of a surprise? Well, I kind of had the opposite experience. I don't know what I expected their voices to be like, but they sounded different that I expected. :)

Jenni is one of those women who just amazes me, who has her home in order, loves her kids & husband perfectly, creates things of beauty in her sleep, and takes the most incredible photos. I hope we get to hang out again soon, so some of her fabulousness can rub off on me. :) They fed us a yummy salad, bread, and delicious stuffed shells. Dessert was a yummy strawberry cake. Hmmm. So good. Thanks again Sclaters! Looking forward to seeing you again!

Thursday morning was Ethan's surgery. For those of you who don't know and who would like to, PRK is like Lasik. Basically the biggest difference is that instead of cutting the outer layer of the eye and peeling back, then replacing it after the correction has taken place (as in Lasik), they scrub the epithelials away and do the correction, your eye then has to heal/grow back. It has a more difficult and painful recovery and longer time getting to 20/20 vision. BUT is better for some people. Ethan was one of those people.

Basically the rest of the time was spent in our room, me watching TV, Ethan sleeping. Friday night he was in a lot of pain. Saturday was pretty bad. Sunday was a bit better, so we headed up to Boerne to church. We visited with some of the friends that Ethan knew when he lived there 20 years ago!

Bolton was pretty miserable during this time. You'd think that he would have loved all the extra attention, but he was miserable. I think he really missed his siblings. Not to mention he cut his first tooth while we were there. Everyone thought we were having this nice little escape, but between the surgery and the teething it was a pretty sad trip.

Monday Ethan had his last follow up appointment. After that we hit the road north back to A-Town. I was very stressed about driving in such a big city but I survived (with only a little bit of yelling).

Tuesday morning I flew back to Utah with Bolton. I was blessed to sit next to very nice people. You know how its always a crap shoot when traveling with small children, well, I rolled the dice and won! Boy am I thankful!

My parents picked me up from the airport, treated me to lunch and a trip to IKEA and then we went to get my kiddos.

Big time THANK YOU to all of you that helped with the kids while I was gone. Mom, Jane, Adrienne, Heather, and Kari. I owe y'all one. My kids had a blast building forts out of blankets, sleeping on trampolines, getting spoiled, and just playing with their cousins. I know it was a lot of work, but thank you so much!