Wrong Airport, No Key, and the Cheap Jeep

May I suggest you grab a coffee and make yourself comfortable as I am about to tell the story of world's worst vacation - and it isn't short. Not because I'm exaggerating anything, but rather because just when you thought nothing else could go wrong, it did. I have included some of the "happy snaps" from our trip - they really have nothing to do with the story as I'm telling it, but rather I wanted to include some shots from the fun moments of the trip; it wasn't all horrible!

The kids on the luggage cart the morning after our night

in the hotel in Ventura.

It all began on another balmy morning in Houston. Everyone woke up on the good side of the bed, just a bit earlier than normal. The bags were packed, we we're ready to go. The Explorer car parked outside the door... and we were off. We find the airport parking, no problem, in fact, they offer Valet service at no extra charge - yeah! We manage to balance all our luggage and two car seats precariously on one airport push cart. The kids are enthralled with this incredibly large cow dressed in a space suit (I understand the space suit since Houston is the home of NASA, not so sure about the cow). I'm standing in line at the airport and I turn to an airline clerk to ask if there's any way I can check Rich and Sydney in at the kiosks (I had done John and myself the night before, more on why not all 4 in a minute).

I am met with a response of "OH NO". I'm like "what, what's wrong". His response: "You're at the wrong airport. You're supposed to be at Hobby". I grab my papers, run over to Rich and scream, yes, scream "WE HAVE TO GO - NOW".

He calmed me down very quickly and we soon realize that we would never get back to our car, drive to Hobby (about 50 minutes), park the car again, get checked in, through security and onto the plane in time- it was 9am and our plane was scheduled to leave at 1020. By this time I was just about ready to grab a paper bag I was breathing so hard. We came up with a preliminary game plan which included getting later flights, but out of Hobby. As we were waiting for our shuttle to take us back to the car, we re-evaluated and decided to try and get flights out of the airport we were out, George Bush.

Side note: SOOOOOOOOO happy I decided to get the iPhone. I was able to search for flights and phone numbers and access info very easily. See, gotta look at the bright points.

We had booked our flights using frequent flier points, so we were limited in what we could do. For a mere $100 American Airlines let me confirm John and myself on flights out of Houston thru Dallas to LA. Qantas, on the other hand, was not so accommodating. They did not have any frequent flier seats available on the Dallas to LA connection, so they couldn't confirm us. Nor were they able to secure wait listing. Luckily we had nice people at American who put Sydney and Rich on the top of the wait list.

We did get a "fun" break at Disney for a day. Gotta see Mickey!

We got to Dallas, no problem. Another positive was Rich's frequent flier card status allowed us to get into a lounge so we could relax in comfort (in the soundproof child room - brilliant!). Whilst in Dallas, I realized - oops, I forgot the key to the beach house on the kitchen counter in Houston. Strike two for Jen.

I called my mom to see if she could arrange with a relative who lived on the way to the beach house for us to pick up a key. It was relatively simple to arrange that and it was only 3 minutes off the freeway, so it wouldn't add too much time to the drive. Another crisis averted.

John fell asleep on take-off, thankfully, but I then made the mistake of taking him out of the carseat so I could spread him across the seat. I have done this every other time I've flown in the last year, and he's taken at least a two hour nap and been fine. Not so much this time! (Strike 3) He woke up and I couldn't get him back to sleep - so he clocked up 20 minutes of zzzzzs - not cool (if you know my kid).

We got to LA, collected our luggage without any pain, almost got run over crossing to the middle car shuttle pick up spot (see, LA drivers don't realize those white lines mean STOP) and got to the car rental place. I looked at Sydney, she didn't look so good. I thought, um, I'm tired too, we haven't eaten a proper meal all day, it's late for her (with the time difference) and told her to come over and give me a hug. The poor child was BURNING UP.

I managed to find the medicine kit, grabbed the thermometer and it skyrocketed to 104F (that's 40C). I changed her into cooler clothes, gave her some water and Tylonel and she told me she didn't feel well and had to throw up. Luckily she didn't, but we got things ready on her side of the car just in case. I grabbed the trusty iPhone to look up Urgent Care clinics if we needed any, and of course they all closed at 7pm.

John is in love with Pooh these days, so we made sure to visit Critter Country

so he could give Pooh and Tigger a hug. He wasn't afraid at all!

In the meantime, Rich is filling out our paperwork. We are then presented with the Cheap Jeep, or the Ghetto Cruiser as we came to call it. Turns out it was a 2008 model, but we had no idea that they still made cars with manual locks and windows. And since we're in LA we were especially careful to keep the door locked, but you had to manually do them - we spent a week accidentally locking them when we shouldn't, forgetting to unlock them or forgetting TO lock them. Sydney figured out how to roll down the window with her foot, but couldn't move it backwards to get it up again! Little things, we know, but annoying nonetheless.

Anyway, we manage to get all our luggage in the Ghetto Cruiser and we're off. About 40 minutes into our journey, the early morning and no nap catches up with John and he just loses it. I've never heard the kid wail so loudly. Then the wailing stops (yeah), he takes a breath and then starts throwing up - over and over again. I'd heard this can happen from crying too much, but I'd never seen it before. All of our throw-up preparation was on Sydney's side and I couldn't reach it. Talk about feeling helpless.

We get to Camarillo and get the key. John is taken out, changed into pyjamas and we clean up the seat as best we can. He refuses to get back into the car and I literally had to pry him out of my Uncle's hands. He starts wailing again and I just turn to Rich and say "Drive fast". The throwing up continues for the 20 minutes to the beach house.

Like I said, the kid loves Tigger. He gave everyone a kiss.

We pull into the driveway at the beach house, which was devoid of my grandfather's BMW (a sad thought in and of itself) and you can feel this wave of relief sweep over us. I open the doors of the GC to give the kids some air and go over to open the front door.

The key doesn't work. No joke.

I just about cry. I think Rich swore, maybe not, maybe that was me too. Here were my options:

1. Call someone else to bring us a key, or go to my grandparents and get another one

2. Check the side door, maybe the key works there only

3. Break a window

I went to open the gate at the side to access the side door and couldn't see the latch. I tried to make a joke of "I could really use a flashlight right now", but Rich was not amused. See, he wanted to bring our 6 D-cell battery Maglight with us, and I told him he could, but we'd buy new batteries in CA as they were too heavy. So we had the Maglight, just no batteries (does that make it like strike 5 or so for me?).

Needless to say, the key didn't work in the side. I just about threw it into the ocean. Rich finally took control of the situation and said - we're going to a hotel. We had to pin John down again to strap him in (yes, same routine as before as we drove...) and we were off to find a hotel.

Oh, did I mention that it was Saturday on Labor Day weekend in a beach town? Yeah, good luck finding a room. At one point, we were in the drop-off zone of the Marriott and the bellboy at the front used his walkie talkie to see if there was a room left - there was; we said we'd take it. He said to Rich "go grab it". By the time Rich got to the front desk - it was gone!

Sydney was sooooo happy to see Minnie as we

were leaving the park. Look at that smile!

Again, thanks to my iPhone (where would I be without you) I was able to search for open hotel rooms and make some calls and reserved a room at the Hilton Garden Inn - a very nice place, I highly recommend it. It was the 6th place we stopped at or called. We got into our room at about 8:30pm, maybe it was 9. Sydney fell asleep quite easily, John not so much. The poor little pumpkin, he was completely inconsolable, and just cried and cried. He'd go to sleep, then 40 minutes later wake up screaming. I think it was about 2am LA time (so 4am for him) that he finally settled for the night.

And that was just the FIRST day!

We were slightly rested when we all got up the next morning. We had a very nice buffet breakfast at the hotel, packed up the car again and started making calls to straighten out the key situation. Our rellies suggested they go up to the house and open it up for us, making sure they had the right key (good idea, we said). In the meantime, we decided to go down to Thousand Oaks, since we were halfway there, and visit my grandparents before heading to the house.

We had breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen on the Wed morning.

Sunday we spent a few hours with my grandparents in Thousand Oaks. My grandfather was diagnosed mid-August with pancreatic cancer that has already spread to the liver. He was rather quickly moved to the Health Clinic which is part of the retirement village they moved to a few years ago, and he now has round-the-clock care. I'm sad to say that Hospice is also involved in the palliative care, as the outlook is quite grim.

We initially made our reservations to CA with the hopes of spending some time with my grandparents at the beach (these reservations were actually made only 6 weeks before the trip, and 2 weeks prior to our emergency trip to LA following my Uncle's sudden death). So as you can see with the timing, a lot has been happening, and not much of it positive. Instead of being at the beach with Nana and Gramps, we would drive down to Thousand Oaks to visit with them in the Health Center; my wonderful grandmother spends her entire day down at the HC sitting on a couch next to Gramps' bed.

It was not an easy trip for any of us; we were filled with a lot of different emotions, and even Sydney could tell something wasn't quite right and she had a hard time dealing with her emotions as well.

We did get a break from the "high emotion" part of the trip to visit our favorite playground - Disneyland. We drove down there on the Monday afternoon and were able to enjoy the pool facilities. We also went into Downtown Disney that evening and had a good look through the shop and walked around a bit.

Tuesday was D-Day and it just so happened that a good friend of mine from college, Lis, and her family were in SoCal that same week, so we planned our family trips to Disney to go together. We had not seen each other in 7 years, maybe longer, and had never met any of each other's kids (between us we have 5). We met at the Tram, bought our tickets and spent the day watching the kids faces all aglow at every ride, site and sound. It was great to catch up with them. The day ended with the Disney parade, which was actually a "Street Party" theme to go with their yearly theme of Celebrate. The kids were invited into the parade to dance and congo line - it was a lot of fun. (note: I have some great photos of Lis and the kids, but I haven't asked if I can post them yet, so I haven't done that; yet).

We had breakfast with Goofy on the Wednesday and then back to the Beach. Do to my first strike, going to the wrong airport, and learning from the fact that we flew later in the day, we decided to give up the return section of our frequent flier tickets and we bought one-way flights on the Sunday morning. As such, we had an extra day (Sat) which we were grateful for as we really didn't feel like we were on a restful vacation at all.

We spent Thu, Fri & Sat just lounging around the beach house and unfortunately the tides were not in our favor, so we hardly had any sand time at all. What was really nice, however, was how cool it was - about 73F - which was a 20-30 degree difference from Houston. There was also NO humidity - so we opened up the house and let the breeze and cool air come through. We also got out the Weber grill one night and had us some BBQ and then taught the kids how to roast marshmallows and make S'mores. They really enjoyed the roasting part, but when it came time to put it with the chocolate and cracker, they just dove into the chocolate. Like father, like son/daughter.

We were able to catch up with some other relatives for dinner one night, not something we had thought about previously, so that was good. We couldn't align our schedules with some friends from Santa Monica, so hopefully we can catch up in the future. There were some people staying at the beach house next to ours with a friend and her little girls, so Sydney had a playmate for two days straight - which was awesome. Again, have great pics but haven't asked permission to post them yet.

The rest of the trip in and of itself wasn't nearly as eventful or haphazard as the first day, but that was fine with us. The shadow of Gramps not being well put a bit of a damper on our overall mood and enjoyment, but we tried to look at the little moments and the fact that we were on vacation without the internet - so we played games, cards, bounced balls off the seawall and watched the waves crash up over the steps.

We did have to fly back into Hobby, so we arrived at 4pm and then had to get the Super Shuttle to George Bush to get our car. This wasn't so bad except that we were tired and just wanted to get home, so it made things a bit longer. We got home about 7pm and the kids were wired. Everyone was settled by about 9:30 (not so bad as it was 7:30 LA time) and we had to jump right back into things the next day - work, first day of school, laundry, grocery shopping, etc.

Definitely felt like we needed a vacation from our vacation, but in the end, we told ourselves: no one was hurt, so we'll all be fine! The lessons we've learnt:

1. Fly in the morning, even if it means we don't use frequent flier points and buy tickets instead. That said, we've cancelled our FF tickets at Christmas to WI and bought new tickets with early morning flights.

2. HOU stands for Hobby Airport, and IAH stands for George Bush Airport. (this despite my logic that IAH doesn't make any sense for George Bush and HOU should really be for Houston, the largest airport of which is George Bush (yes, I do know now that Houston Hobby Airport was the first airport, hence the HOU).

3. Rich will be checking the tickets before we leave to double check if we should go to HOU or IAH

4. When a car rental company is called Payless Car and you're only paying $200 for a weekly SUV rental, you should really think hard about why its called PayLESS and it's only $200!

So, anyone want to go on vacation with us sometime?