Flying with Ryan & Addie Belle

Andy & I flew from Florida to Dallas and then stopped to pick up Ryan & Addie to fly on to Amarillo with us. Their Daddy & Mommy (David & Lindsey) were moving all their things to Amarillo where David will work at Hoffbrau until a church position as worship leader opens up.
You could tell Ryan & Addie had missed out on their nap---I'm sure they were too excited over everything that was going on to sleep. A friend brought them to the airport and Ryan high-fived him good-bye and Addie ran to him and planted a kiss on his lips. They love Austin.
We walked to the ticket counter where I could tell Ryan was already gearing up for a good cry. I leaned down and asked what was wrong and he told me he wanted his mommy & daddy. I promised him that we were on our way to see them. It got worse as they began bagging his car seat as we checked it. I asked why he was crying and he didn't want them taking his car seat! I told him they were going to put it on the plane for us and it would meet us in Amarillo (while I whispered a prayer that it would make it!!). So we began walking towards the metal detector gate with Ryan dragging a little and Addie dancing all around us. When Ryan found out he had to put his shoes in the x-ray machine, he just lost it. It was just getting a little personal now. And to top it off, the machine ate one of his shoes and they had to stop the whole thing and fish it out. But as that crisis was over, we walked to the gate---shoes on and all! I decided a Happy Meal would make us all happy, so the kids & I walked to Gate 4 to purchase said Happy Meal. (What was I thinking?? How was I going to get 2 kids and 3 Happy Meals back to the gate---where Pops was waiting?) We made it back and began chowing down on french fries, at least. It did the trick! Ryan perked up. Or maybe it was the toy from the Happy Meal, I'm not sure. Anyway, we played with Star Wars characters until we were able to load on the big, big jet plane (Addie's version). We got settled into the plane (me in the middle of 2 kids...where was Andy??) and I began dishing out the goodies. The take-off wasn't scarey at all (Addie: We're not scared, huh, Guh?). I told Addie to look outside at the little bitty cars and houses. Here was her response in magnified amplification: "WWWOOOOWWW!!!" Everyone around us began laughing. Ryan was very into his Nemo coloring book. But he did look out the window occasionally. But things really got exciting when they got to order whatever they wanted to drink on the plane---SPRITE FOR EVERYONE!!! Luckily, Guh had brought along Whales & Mini Cookies (Ryan-ism: Donut cookies [They had a hole in the middle!]) for the trip. So we settled back to enjoy our refreshments and try to balance 3 drinking cups at the same time.
The best moment came as we landed (Addie: "We're not scared, huh, Guh?") and we all stood in the aisle to disembark. Addie asked in that same loud voice, "Can we go again, Popsth?" (Yeah...where was he?!?!) And once again, we had the crowd in stitches!!