Been a little out of commission when it comes to posting. I'm borrowning time on Rachel's computer so it's not always convenient and I have been wiped out (last night I fell asleep at 8:30 while we were watching a movie). Finally caught up on sleep last night, did spend the day running around with Rachel doing some shopping and running some errands. Don and Rachel went to a movie tonight and Grandma got to stay home with the girls.

I have to admit poor Macy is having a rough time adjusting to her new baby sister. Probably she is having a rough time adjusting to not being the center of everybody's universe. I have seriously been trying to give her most of my attention, but tonight when Mom and Dad were gone I had to spend more time with Rozalyn and Macy was not impressed. I feel pretty bad for her, but at the same time she has got to adjust. It's rought to be four.

I guess it's time to recount the trip. I was so stressed but I ended up being pretty preoccupied during the flights that there wasn't much time for stress. We left St Croix a little late but not enough to make any difference. I sat next to a nice young woman and we chatted it up the whole trip. Visited with some nice folks in the San Juan airport so that time flew by. I got my seat changed to an aisle seat but it was at the very back of the place. We were ready for take off, right on time, when the pilot said we had to go back to the terminal due to some mechanical failure. They got the problem fixed and we were on our way only one hour later, but since I only had an hour between flights in Dallas, it didn't look too good for making my connection to Salt Lake city. I was flying American Airlines from St. Croix to Dallas and then switching to Delta, American had booked the entire itinerary so I'm not sure why they switched me to Delta, but they did. When we got to Dallas and hour late they were calling for all passengers who were going to Salt Lae City (they had a van on the tarmac to take the passengers to a plane) I started down the stairs lugging my carry on when someone noticed my itinerary sheet that said I was booked on a Delta flight and he says, "this is only for American Airline passengers, you can't go", I was then told that I had to go back to the gate to get rebooked. When I got to the gate they said, "why didn't you get on that shuttle?" so they proceed to tell me to got to the gate that this SLC plane was leaving from and said that they would call them and say that I was coming and to hold the plane, well it was way across the airport and I'm running up escalators onto a train and then down escalators to find that gate and Oh yeah, the plane had left. I went to the next gate and they clicked on their compute for about ten minutes and then said that they couldn't help me and I would have to go outside security to the ticketing desk. So I went down another escalator outside security to ticketing and started to get another run around. I firmly told the woman there what had happened and that I was not happy and could she please just take care of this. At first, she said that they could not do anything to get me out on that night but that they would gladly put me up in a hotel in Dallas. I told her I really did not want to stay in Dallas but would rather stay the night in SLC, they booked me stand by on a flight leaving in two hours for SLC. I was told that I had missed the last flight from SLC to Idaho Falls but that they would put me up in SLC. I was told to go to the American Ticketing desk in SLC and that they would get me a hotel voucher and all set up.

Anyway, as I'm waiting for the plane to SLC they announce that the flight is overbooked and say that they need three people to volunteer to take a flight in the morning. I'm sweating this out because I was told I was booked as a stand by. Anyway when we start boarding and when they scan my boarding pass it gets kicked out, so I'm thinking great when the woman at the gate says, "who is that, is it Byrem, here is her new oarding pass". when they lady hands it to me, before I can say anything she sayd, "your very welcome". I'm thinking what?, then I look at the boarding pass and I see that I'm now booked in First Class. That was nice. I was able to ride all they way to SLC with my feet up. They offered a nice meal, but I had eaten a sandwich at the airport, so I wasn't hungry. anyway, I was actually able to sleep some on this flight.

When I got to SLC, I went directly to ticketing to get my hotel voucher and guess what? there was nobody at ticketing, it was closed up tighter than a drum. I was about to scream, there wasn't anbody around except for the TSA people at the security checkpoint. I went over and asked one of the TSA officer if they knew how to contact anyone from AA. They asked what the problem was, when I told them they sent me to baggage and said their should be someone there, but if not to come back and they would find someone to help me. At baggage I found a women who told me that she coldnt help me, she suggested that I got to a hotel and save my receipt and deal with the airline later, I told her that wasn't happening, so she finally agreed to go to ticketing and see if she could squeeze a voucher out of the computer. After about a half an hour she did get a voucher and call the hotel to send a shuttle to pick me up. Got a good night sleep at a decent hotel and was back at the airport at 9 the next morning.

The flight to Idaho Falls didn'tleave until 11:20am and got into Idaho Falls at 12:15 but it was a nice flight and finally I was there. By the way, I never saw anyody getting a body scan and the only person I saw being patted down was me. In Salt Lake I had on a large baggy sweatshirt with no t shirt under it, when they asked if I could take it off, I told them no so they told me they had to call a female agent to pat me down. It was no big deal, she was just checking the sleeves and things like that for weapons. What is the big deal people? Do you want to be on the plane with the guy with exploading underwear? Not me.

Exhausted, but happy to see the girls.

I have to admit that I can't fault the airlines for the plane being late out of San Juan but the whole screw up in Dallas over whether or not I could get on that van to get that plane to SLC, really got me going. The First class seat did buy me off a little and the hotel room at absolutely no charge wasn't too bad but I sure was disappointed. The trip ended up taking 25 hours instead of 13.

Been here two and a half days and I'm freezing, the skies are cloudy, I had forgotten how dreary that made things. Went to the storage locker today to look for some things and that was overwhelming and depressing. Are we having fun yet?

Well at least I'm not stressed anymore, I'm just complaining like a baby. I think my biggest problem is that Im homesick. I'm loving having some time with Macy and enjoying getting to know Rozalyn and Rachel and I have been enjoying each others company but I miss the sunshine and warm weather. I miss Rick and I hate wearing shoes, my feet are well adjusted to flip flops.