The Flight
The trip started out a bit rough. We got up early on Christmas Eve to get to the airport, but apparently, everyone else had gotten there before us. And then we had a delay getting to customs because the parking lot was full, I forgot Scott's carseat in the car, and we thought we lost Katie's blanket (it was still in the car). Then the line for customs turned out to be enormous. They came through and asked for people who were on our flight and pulled us further up in the line, but not enough to get us to our gate on time, so we were a little freaked out. In the end, the flight was delayed a bit so we still made it on the plane.
I don't quite remember when my first plane trip was (grade 8 band trip to Ottawa, maybe?), but I know I was considerably older than Scott or Katie. Despite their tender age, they endured like champs. Aside from watching out the window during takeoff and landing, I think Scott watched TV the whole time and Katie smiled at people and melted their hearts. It seemed a bit funny when the flight attendant came by to see how we were doing and I had Katie crawling around on the floor beneath my legs and I was handing snacks down to her mouth as you would to dog beneath the dinner table. It's a pretty short flight to Vegas if you go direct, so that was the easy part.
As we flew over the mountains of southern Utah I pointed out the clouds below us and tried to explain to Scott that he was high enough to be above the clouds down below. He said, "You mean that snow down there?"
The Car Rental
Once on the ground, we had to get our vast heaps of luggage to the bus that would take us to the shuttle for the rental car building. That proved to be quite stressful, since we had more bags than we had hands and Scotty ended up pushing the stroller through a crosswalk (the stroller contained luggage, rather than babies -- don't worry).
Stressful situations continued at the car rental building, where alarms and evacuation announcements commenced as soon as I got up to the Advantage counter. I made a very slow escape from the building to try to hang onto my spot at the front of the line (successfully). After a few minutes we were able to go back and talk to the attendant about our so-called reservation.
We had booked a Chevy Impala (or equivalent) sedan one-way rental from Vegas to Los Angeles for a really good price from Advantage Car Rental, but when we got there, the Russian girl at the counter said that they didn't have one with a California plate. At first she tried giving me a smaller car for the same price, but I insisted that there was no way we could fit. Then she tried selling us up into an SUV for an extra $200, which she considered a big favour. In her fabulous accent she said that her and she boyfriend always get the SUV and that we would love the space and the ability to fold the seats down. I looked at my two children and wondered how comfortable they might be with the seats folded down on top of them. When I said that I really wasn't interested, she said that her manager would go look for something with an appropriate license plate.
We stood there in an awkward silence for at least 5 minutes until she finally announced that our patience had paid off -- she could give us a Toyota Camry with Tennessee plates for our original price. That's honestly what she said: "Your patience has paid off." I was incredulous that our reward for being patient/persistent is that they provided us with our original reservation, but I was just glad that we finally had a way out of there.
The shady-looking ponytail guy in the garage took a parting shot at us, remarking that there was no way were getting all our luggage into our car, and maybe we should have gotten an SUV. 5 minutes later we drove away, with everything stowed comfortably in our trunk. We had purchased soft-sided duffle bags for the trip for exactly this purpose -- because they can squish to fit the available space. Eat that, Advantage!
Christmas Eve in St George
The rest of our Christmas Eve was considerably less harrowing, including a perfectly peaceful drive from Las Vegas to St. George with no navigation problems, arriving at my sister's house in the mid-afternoon. Scott was thrilled to have so many cousins to play with and I took great satisfaction in relating our car rental story to anyone who would listen, reenacting it again for my parents upon their arrival.
My neices and nephews entertained us with a modernized version of the Christmas Carol, written and directed by eldest-daughter Emily. It was genuinely hilarious in parts, and I was glad to see that my sister's role as the in-house artistic director has been handed down to her next generation.
The Other Type of Christmas Carol
We rounded out the evening with some caroling, provided by my brother-in-law G, who had all the lyrics and guitar chords laid out in a powerpoint presentation on the TV. For some reason, Scott had a major meltdown during the carol singing, which we attributed to his early morning and lack of sleep. We don't think he has developed any hatred towards Christmas carols.
Stop-Gap Christmas Jammies
But before Scott could go to bed, he had to open the wrapping paper on his new pajamas. Unfortunately, his new pajamas were sitting in a shopping bag in our bedroom 2000 km away in another country. Fortunately, I found some Lightning McQueen pajamas at Walmart for only $5. Unfortunately, the pajamas were designed for someone with an enormous neck and the world's skinniest arms. It was a horrible fit, but it served the purpose on our trip.
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