HAPPY SOLEMNITY OF ST. JOSEPH!!
Our morning started before the sun was even up! Our flight was scheduled to depart at 5:30am, so we were up by 3:00am and checked out of the hotel by 3:30am. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post there is a bridge that connected our hotel to the airport so we just had to walk across the bridge and we were in the airport. My luck of being on the wrong end of the terminals continued as we had to walk to the opposite end of the airport to get to the Southwest Ticket Counters in order to get our boarding passes and check our bags. We then made our way through security, which once again was pretty tame compared to the US, we didn’t even have to take our shoes off! I am was wearing a maxi skirt though so I was “randomly” selected for a wanding so that was exciting!

Given the early morning we made a pit stop at Starbucks on our way to the gate! We made it to our gate and our flight left on time, in fact we actually left about 5 minutes early and we arrived into Houston about 25 minutes ahead of schedule!! Since we were awake before the sun, we got to watch the sunrise from the plane, which was pretty cool! (Also, for those of you not well versed in your Frozen quotes, the inspiration for the title of this post come from a part in the movie where Anna jumps on top of Elsa in the morning, when Elsa tells her to go back to bed, Anna replies “the sky’s awake, so I’m awake!” I felt it was an appropriate title for today!) It also wasn’t a full flight so Abby and I got to have an empty spot in the middle for us to stretch out a bit!

We we arrived in Houston we had to go through customs, which was much easier to do as an American citizen coming back to the States than it was going to Mexico! After customs we had to get our bags and recheck them and then go through security again…that’s when it hit me that we were back in the US…shoes off, liquids only in a clear container, x-ray body scans! Haha!! Abby got the pat down this time, but only her left pocket!

Once through security we actually didn’t have far to go, but did have about 3 hours to kill. Abby worked on some grading and I just fiddled around on my phone. Then came the dreaded announcement, the plane we were supposed to take was delayed out of Nashville by about and hour…luckily they followed that with “but it to worry, we have found another plane for you all to use, it will be coming in at the gate across the way (45 instead of 44).” My first thought was where did you FIND this plane at, and does it have all the parts necessary to actually fly??

Just before we boarded the plane we grabbed lunch from Subway…I know very American of us, but it was either that or Wendy’s and we figured we should celebrate making it back to the States safely! The flight left about 10 minutes late and as I suspected the plane they “found” was definitely an older one…no wifi… 😭😭 We also weren’t so lucky this time around with the number of people on board so we had a full row.

We made it safely into Kansas City right on time and I was greeted at the airport by my WONDERFUL mom!!  I still cannot believe that the trip is already over, and I know that the impact of the trip will continue to bless my life in the days and weeks to come! I’m already planning my next trip down, maybe for a longer stay this time! 😳😳

So for now I leave you, but I’ll be back again when I board the plane for my next great adventure!!