Come Fly With Me

You know, being missionaries, we have a lot of flight mileage!  I was thinking the other day, if I had a euro for every kilometer I've flown, I could build my dream house, furnish it and live awhile on the rest of the money!  Flights used to be enjoyable...sort of...but nowadays, they are a royal pain!
Today, I'm going to tell you about a few of our more interesting flight moments!  Starting with when the kids were little tykes!
We were scheduled to make the long haul flight to the States and for some reason Cris, who was probably about 8, saw the movie "Airport".  I am NOT a fan of disaster movies, so why or how he saw that, I don't remember, but the fact is, he did.  We were about 2 hours in the air, and they had served us our lunch when the plane just simply dropped.  There is no other way to describe what happened. For a split second trays were suspended in air and then every thing came crashing down on the tray tables, spilling food and drinks everywhere.  The plane started jerking around choppily and, I have to admit, it was pretty scary!  Cris was sitting by me.  He grabbed my hand and was hanging on for dear life.  I just squeezed his hand back and said, "Let's just pray!"  So we did, and shortly, things smoothed back out, the plane started gaining altitude again and we all relaxed.  About that time, Cris looked up at me with huge eyes and whispered, "Whew!  I am NEVER watching a disaster movie, ever again!"  Gotta say...I kinda agreed!
Several years later, when Lyndee had become diabetic, and we were having a dreadful time getting her blood sugar in control, she and I made an emergency trip to the States so she could see a specialist at George Washington University Hospital in DC.  Unfortunately, it was at Christmas time.  Don was in France with the 2 boys and Lyndee and I were in the States.  To top it all of, the specialist decided Lyndee needed more time to get her diabetes under control, so we changed her ticket, but I needed to get back.  So on New Years Eve, my parents, my sister and her family, and Lyndee were sitting with me in Dulles airport.  This was back in the days when people could still go all the way to the departure gate to see you off.  The time came for me to catch the shuttle flight that would take me to NYC where I would catch my overseas flight.  They called for boarding, and I walked straight through, got on the plane, sat down and waved out the window to all the family.  They all had these puzzled, worried looks on their faces.  I looked where they were looking and saw them closing the plane...and I was the ONLY passenger on it;  Now, I was feeling a little freaked out, and was thinking to myself, "Wow!  This is like something on "The Twilight Zone!"  Not a split second after, the stewardess looks at me and says, "Wow!  This is like something on "The Twilight Zone!"  I really, really wanted to get off that plane!  The last glimpse I saw of my family, they looked like I was feeling!  When I got home and called them, they said....you guessed it... "Wow!  That was like something on "The Twilight Zone!"
Years later, when Kelsey was 14, we were on our way to Washington State and when we were eating, Kelsey took off her friendship ring from her besties, and a ring from her boyfriend.  She fell asleep before the flight crew picked up the trays, and her rings got taken along with the trays.  When she woke up, we were already close to Chicago and she started crying because her rings were lost.  Kudos to that stupendous flight crew!  As we were circling Chicago waitng for a landing slot, that crew and myself were digging through all the garbage containers trying to find her rings.  Kelsey...she was standing there watching!  One of the male crew members looked at her and said, "Girl!  Get down here and start digging if you want to find those rings!"  Now Kelsey refuses to even touch the garbage can.  We have had war over this many times!  So she was ewwwwwing and yuuuuukkking throughout the whole ordeal...and barely doing anything!  Finally the head crew member came up and told us she thought she was the one who had taken up Kels' tray and she thought she had emptied it in the 1st class cabin's bin.  We made our way back up to the front of the plane and sure enough!  There they were, practically on top!  We landed a scant 5 minutes after finding them!  I will never forget what a great group that flight crew was.  Things changed, shortly after, and now, service is difficult and attendants tend to be not very attentive!  Oh!  For the good old days!
Happy flying to all!  I bet most of you have stories, too!  Would love to hear them!