We could have gone to Europe..

Bags packed...all ready to go!Saying goodbye to New Jersey

At the airport
Playing at the gate before boarding the plane
Peter and I pre-boarded the flight home to Austin from New Jersey last Saturday at 5:30pm. We were supposed to take off at 6pm (15 minutes later than originally scheduled). The pilot came on and welcomed us to the flight and said that we would take off in approximately an HOUR! WHAT??? Peter had already missed his afternoon nap, so he wasn't happy to have to sit on a plane that wasn't even moving for an extra hour. The man next to me (a geophysicist from UT) said that we probably lost our place in line to take off because of our delay. We sat at the gate for a while, and Peter put his feet all over the nice man next to us and tried to read the paper with him. I'm glad he likes kids!

Because we weren't moving at all, I stood up with Peter for a little bit. The nice lady behind us had kids, so she gave Peter a few toys to play with. They were a welcome distraction for a few minutes. Finally the flight attendant asked me to sit down because we were going to move. About 3 feet later, we reached our apparent destination. This was not going well. The pilot came on to apologize again. He told us that the flights out of the left windows were bound for Europe. Due to a thunderstorm, those runways had been shut down. The flights were grounded indefinitely. I was thinking to myself..."Good thing we're not going to Europe."

After about 45 minutes or so, the pilot came on again and said it would be about 45 minutes until we took off. By this time Peter had downed over half the bottle I had brought for him to drink during the flight. It was a full flight, so I figured a bottle would be easier than nursing. I figured the 8 oz I had pumped would be plenty for the 3.5 hour trip home...

About 20 minutes later, the pilot says that it looks like we are ready to go and we should be in the air in about 10 minutes. People started putting away cell phones, lap tops, and whatever else they had gotten out to entertain themselves and their children during the wait.

Not even a minute later, the pilot comes on and says he has bad news. 4 planes had been circling the Newark airport for quite a while, and they had declared a fuel emergency. All runways were being reversed to ensure that all 4 planes would be able to land. He said that this would take about 30 minutes.

A little while later, the pilot informs us that the thunderstorm has now closed all runways. All planes are grounded indefinitely until the weather clears up.

The engines were turned off, and people started moving around. This was helpful as it allowed me to stand with Peter again. It was past his bedtime at this point, so he was getting pretty fussy. A very sweet girl in front of us (13, probably) had visited Hershey Park in Pennsylvania on vacation. She had a small pillow shaped like a Hershey Kiss. She let Peter play with it, and he loved it. In fact, he used it as a pillow when we finally did take off.

The flight attendants were very nice throughout the entire thing. We were still allowed to use cell phones at this point, so they told us to tell any family members coming to pick us up at the airport to check Continental's website for the latest information. They passed out water and tried to keep people as happy as possible. Peter was much happier to be standing up, but he had also gone through the entire 8 oz bottle by this point. I really didn't want to nurse him on a full flight, but I just didn't have a choice. I let the man next to me know that I would have to feed Peter again soon, and he told me that because these people were bound for Austin, he was pretty sure no one would have a problem with it.

We sat on the tarmac and watched the rain fall for quite a while. Finally, we noticed that the rain started letting up. The pilot informed us that they should open the runways again soon. The front that brought the rain changed the wind direction, so they had to decide which way to go on the runways.

Finally, at 8:45pm, 3 hours after our original departure time, our plane took off. We left New Jersey behind and finally headed towards home. Peter finally fell asleep and slept off and on the entire flight. We arrived in Austin around 11:20pm (12:20am New Jersey time). We had been on an airplane for almost 7 hours! We got in the car around midnight. Peter got to bed around 1am, and I finally got into bed around 2am (3am New Jersey time).

Although we could have traveled to Spain in the same amount of time, we were definitely glad to be home.