First Flight

It was a last minute decision, but Gabrielle and I decided to hop on a plane and fly to Colorado. OK, so it wasn't so spur-of-the-moment as it sounds, with Daryl down there for a conference and her passport all ready to go...but it sounds COOL! She was an AMAZING first-timer, all the flight-attendants said so, and even our fellow passengers. One lady said that she never saw a baby travel so well, and she is a very frequent flier!
Our way there starter off so well. We left the loops on Sunday night, as our flight to Denver was leaving at 7:30am from Vancouver. We spent the night near the airport and were up and ready to go at 5:30 (yikes!) to go through security. No problems so far, and we had a very happy baby! Once on board, and after being awake for 3 hours, things started to go south. Unfortunately, not literally. With Gabrielle getting fussy and squirmy and not wanting to be pinned down anymore, and our plane not moving back from the gate yet, I decided to feed her and hope she would nurse again at take-off. I was told this is what I had to do to prevent a melt-down as the cabin repressurized. Anyhow, she ate and ate and ate, and passed out. OK, so now I had a sleeping baby in my arms, and we weren't moving. But at least she was sleeping and quiet. Then the announcement from the captain. The fire-suppression system in the cargo area was faulty. We would have to deplane. The flight was cancelled and we would all be rerouted to our destinations. Crap. So we waited for everyone to deplane and let her sleep a bit more and then had to move. She woke up, but was such a little trooper! At least she wasn't at the age where I would have to explain that we didn't actually go anywhere and we were in the same city and airport were we were an hour ago. As Daryl was in line trying to get us to Denver, we played and made smiley faces at everyone. She was so happy - it was NUTS! I was one happy mama too!
Finally, we were rerouted through Seattle (a 30 minutes puddle hopper) and then on to Denver. That combo would get us there by 4pm. Not so bad - we would still have time to play before bath-time and bed. Our next worry was for our baggage. But there was nothing we could do about that but hope and pray it would all arrive. Amazingly, we arrived with no further problems and with all our baggage! A $80 cab ride to the hotel and we were settled.
Gabrielle and I did lots of walks, went for swims in the pool and entertained everyone in the HUGE lobby while Daryl was in his conference. It was a great trip, and I'm so glad we went! We went to a butterfly pavilion, and I didn't realize that when you dress your baby in flowery pants and pink tops, butterflies think that they are food and might swarm. At one point, she had 4 giant blue butterflies on her pants. She didn't quite know what was going on, but was aware enough that these flying things were on her. She would just look up at me from her stroller and back at the bugs. I wish I had a camera!
Thursday was our travel day home and with Daryl's free time we took a road-trip to Boulder where I got to visit with Monica, an old friend from Montreal who now lives there with her husband and kids. They have been living in Europe for 6 years and in Boulder for 1 now - and they just love it. I can see why. I told Daryl that if Ledcor ever transferred him to Colorado, we would certainly go so long as it was to Boulder (or to Telluride).