Family

I love the Paper Pumpkin kits!  I made this card for Superman’s Dad in about 30 seconds.  Don’t tell Grandpa Harold…I think it looks like it took much longer.  I love him enough I would’ve spend more time, but Paper Pumpkin makes it really easy! If you live in the Des Moines area you can come to my monthly FREE get together to put together your Paper Pumpkin kits and get alternative ideas of things to do with the kit.  Our next Paper Pumpkin get together is Thursday July 9 at 9:30am or 6:30pm.  Please email me at Beth@StampingMom.com and let me know that you want to come.  If you live anywhere else in the U.S. you can still do Paper Pumpkin with me.  I’ll send you alternative Paper Pumpkin ideas and you can Skype with us at our party.  The only charge is the kit that will be sent to your house.

Funny story…was coined in our family by our 20 year old son Ryan.  I believe the first time we got a “Funny story…” phone call was one month after he turned 16 and got his drivers license.  He was on his way home from a choir concert.  He had to be there early, so we drove separately.  Anyway, the phone rang and Ryan said “Funny story… I was turning left onto Ashworth Road and I just got T boned by a Suburban.  Ryan was driving our old Honda Civic.  I can’t believe it wasn’t totaled and thankfully Ryan wasn’t hurt.  Well over the last five years we’ve gotten a few more “Funny story…” calls from Ryan.  Ironically, I’ve yet to think any of these phone calls were actually funny.  Ryan’s very sweet and I believe he thinks it somehow softens the blow of what he’s about to tell us.  When Ryan’s kids start calling him with “Funny stories… he’ll better understand my perspective.

Imagine my surprise, when we were about to be dropped off at the airport to go to New York City for our 30th Wedding Anniversary celebration when Superman from the backseat said…”Funny story…” My heart dropped, was he using Ryan’s “Funny story” or was he truly going to tell me a funny story?  No such luck.  Steve has taken hundreds of plane trips for his job and we travel quite a bit as a family.  In 30 years we have never missed a plane… until now.  Steve’s funny story involved telling me he had misread the boarding pass and the plane we were there to catch, had already left.  We were in Moline, IL, a very small airport.  The plane we missed was also the last plane leaving that day.

OK… I thought, things don’t always go our way.  We asked Steve’s father to stay at the airport and we went in to see what our options were.  We actually didn’t know at that point that there were no more planes leaving that day.  Since there was no one at the American Airlines desk, we figured out the desk clerk doubled as the boarding clerk.  Yep, it’s a really small airport.  Anyway we walked down to security to see if we could talk to the American Airlines clerk.  The AA clerk came back from the gate as we were talking to the TSA security agent.  The TSA agent said since we had talked to her, we needed to go through security even though we weren’t getting on a plane that night. This seemed very odd to me.  Why did we need to go through security?  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Superman and I both have TSA Precheck so we don’t have to take off our shoes, get liquids out of our bags, etc.  Well, in Moline, IL, they only have TSA Precheck in the morning.  We got our liquids out and the TSA agent said the bag we had them in didn’t meet their specifications.  In the past it never mattered. because we never had to remove them.  At this point Superman was begging them not to confiscate our liquids, as we were going through security, for a plane that didn’t exist.  All of a sudden missing the plane, having no other planes leaving that day and having all my liquids confiscated was more than I could take.  I was pretty sure at this point that none of this was funny.  At the same time, Superman had planned a wonderful trip to New York and I didn’t want him to feel any worse than he already did.

After talking to the AA clerk we realized our best option was to drive to Chicago.  She told us we needed to be in the airport by 3am to fly stand by on a 5:30am flight to New York.  We got to Chicago and parked in the Economy parking lot at 11:30pm and set an alarm for 2:30am.  Not that I needed it, because I wasn’t able to fall asleep.  How do people living in their cars brush their teeth and wash their face before bed?  I can’t go to sleep without doing those things.  Yes, Superman snored for three hours (no way to plug in his breathing machine) and I sat and watched the time go by.  At 2:30am we took the shuttle to Chicago O’Hare airport.  The line to check the bag at American took us over an hour.  We went through TSA precheck and again encountered problems.  At Moline the night before when they finally agreed to give us back our liquids, I threw everything in my bag when I should’ve only taken my own.  Now my bag had too many liquids because I had Superman’s also.  TSA took everything out of my bag, put it through the x ray a couple times and practically strip searched me.  I handled it better this time because I had 12 hours to get used to the idea that it would take longer to get to New York than we had planned.  They also told me there was a foreign substance in my Vera Bradley bag.  Superman decided we were going to throw the bag away and get a new one for me in New York.  No way!  A Vera Bradley bag is too expensive!  I would rather be searched again going home and wash it when we returned to Des Moines.  Ironically, TSA in New York had no problem with my bag and I went through security unscathed on the return trip. Anyway, even though we were flying stand by, we did get two seats on the 5:30am flight and got to New York City by 9am.  At this point I had been up since 5am the day before, but was so happy to be in NYC!

Please subscribe to my blog and in a few days and I’ll be back to tell you about being “assaulted” in Central Park.

Yeah! I found out today that my Flower Shop thank you card from a few days ago was chosen as a Pals Paper Arts Pick of the week!  Yes, it made my day!!  See my card here.

Today is the last day to sign up for the ultimate bundle and get two free sets!  Don’t miss out!  Email me or click to sign up here.

Blessings,

Beth 🙂