Carter's First Plane Ride

We are currently enjoying sun and fun in beautiful Florida thanks to Ty's parents who paid for all of us to fly down here for a family vacation. I didn't pack my computer so I'm limited to the use of my phone for typing blogs. It works really well but for some reason always posts with the wrong date which irritates me. I will fix it when I get home and have a computer, but it still bugs me. I also can't write captions and tend to made more typing errors, so bear with me!

We made the trip here on Tuesday. With a flight to Houston, a short layover, and then a flight to Orlando where Ty's brother, Paul, and sister-in-law, Amanda, live. Ty took a half-day off work on Tuesday and arrived home around noon where Carter and I were eating lunch and anxiously awaiting his arrival. He quickly ate, loaded the car, we let the dogs out to potty, and then we headed to the airport. At the last minute I decided to take the baby carrier in case Carter fell asleep while I was holding him in the airport. We haven't used it since Carter started walking, but I thought it might come in handy. We parked and I strapped him in as we loaded a shuttle to the airport. He was so excited looking at all the parked cars and not being in a car seat.

Going through security was easy peasy. They took us through a metal detector rather than the big thing you stand in (does anyone know what that's called?). I didn't want to take Carter through that and didn't even have to say anything because they took us through the metal detector without even asking. They even let me go through while wearing Carter. Once through security and at our gate Carter enjoyed watching airplanes through the windows, playing with a toy airplane Ty bought him the night before, walking up and down a ramp, and going down stairs so we could come up escalators. I wanted to keep him as active as possible in the airport so he would hopefully sleep on the plane. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 2:20, an hour and a half past his nap time. As we boarded he was sucking his thumb and playing with my hair so I knew sleep would come soon.

Playing with his plane in the airport.

Watching planes get ready for take off.

Carter loved watching the planes and the cars!

Once on the plane Carter was exhausted, but intrigued by the newness of it all so he wasn't interested in sleeping right away. When the plane began to taxi down the run way I opened the window blind so Carter could watch. He loved waving bye bye to cars and watching the construction going on beside the airport. Since he was tired he sucked his thumb during take off which no doubt helped keep his ears from hurting. He was in awe as we flew through the clouds and waved bye bye to them as we flew through and above them.

Saying bye bye to everything we flew over.

Carter loved the view!

Once we were flying above the clouds Carter got tired and fell asleep in my lap. He wiggled around some in his sleep until he had his legs stretched across daddy too. He looked pretty comfy. I tried to sleep as he did, but just couldn't get comfortable so I closed my eyes and rested. He slept the rest of the flight until we landed. Once we touched down he woke up looking confused. Ty guessed he slept for at least an hour.

My precious sleeping baby!

Thanks to family boarding on Southwest we got to sit together.

He sprawled out with his legs on daddy.

Leina timed our flights nicely so we just had a short layover in Houston. We had enough time to use the restroom, walk around a little bit, and change Carter's diaper before we boarded for our next flight which would end with seeing Paul and Amanda! Carter was so cute standing and waiting to board the plane with the family boarding group. I told him we had to wait our turn so he just stood there and waited. Once on the plane Carter remembered how the window worked and was desperate for me to open the blind. I did once we began taxiing the runway. He had a blast looking out the window until we had a couple bumps and he got scared. Then he wanted me to close the blind. During the rest of the flight we played with the Cheerios book, finger puppets, our homemade silly putty, read books, and ate snacks. His favorite was reading and playing with the Quiet Book my mom made me when I was little. We played with it for the longest, probably around half an hour. Carter did great on the flight and only fussed a little bit toward the end when we had a little bit of turbulence. When we got off the plane and headed to baggage claim we were excited to be greeted by Uncle Paul. Amanda was in the car ready to pick us up.

Waiting to board our plane in Houston.

Reading all about the safety features of the plane.

Playing with his Cheerios book.

He loved playing with the Quiet Book!

Staring out the window at clouds!