A World of Pure Imagination

Immediately upon hearing Mom and Dad's decision to finish their mission in Texas Britt and I bought tickets to fly out to Utah. So on April 19th at 7 am Riley, Britt, and I started on a grand adventure to Utah. Let's just start by saying I never would've survived this trip without Britt. We got to spend a week in Utah which seemed much too short, but our hosts flew the coup just a few days after us so we couldn't have stayed much longer. 

What's with the title you ask? I thought a land of imagination described Utah on many different levels. Riley got to play with so many fun toys that I could just see her ability to use her imagination and play on her own grow just in that week. I rediscovered some beloved toys of mine and was thrown back into the good old days of playing pretend with Britt. Lastly, I witnessed countless people out and about using their imagination and pretending that COVID doesn't exist. Britt and I had fought tooth and nail to get a vaccine appointment the day after they opened to us so that we could have a little protection by the time we travelled and these people were just living life without a care for anyone around them. 

Anyways, let's start at the beginning. After purchasing our tickets (which was a whole ordeal to begin with-airlines are not in a good place right now.) I couldn't really get excited about the trip too much because I was so nervous about the plane ride. I've flown with Riley plenty of times (by myself half the time), and that was before a screen would effectively distract her, so in some ways I hoped this plane ride would be easier. The big hiccup was that Riley had turned two in January and planes, unlike most public places, expect two year olds to be able to keep a mask on for 3 and a half hours. To make my anxiety even worse, while Mel was visiting she told me about a friend of hers who was headed to a funeral, but her two year old wouldn't put on their mast and they got kicked off the plane. Thanks Mel! But, it wasn't just getting kicked off that worried me. We were going to see Mom and Dad and while they were fully vaccinated I want to lowest risk factor possible, so the more Riley could tolerate the mask the better. So, weeks before the trip I started talking to Riley about going to see Grandma and Grandpa on a plane and that we would have to wear a mask the whole time on the plane. That became our new mantra. Every day I would ask her how we were going to see Grandma and Grandpa and she'd say, "On the plane!" Then I'd ask her what do we do on the plane? "We wear our masks the whole time on the plane." Still I barely slept the night before. Waking up at 4 am, unable to fall back asleep. Instead I started reading a potty training book I'd recently checked out. (More on that later!) Around 6:30 it was time to wake up Riley, as Britt said upon seeing the sleepy little face, "You look like I feel." Soon our uber arrived to take us to the airport. We had to lug Riley's giant carseat to the check bag area and Britt got to see how fun it is to travel with a child. While we were checking her carseat we overheard the person next to us be told he couldn't check his bag because his flight was leaving in 25 minutes and they stop accepting bags 30 minutes before a flight. It wasn't a huge bag so he decided he could take it as a carry on, but she told him that he would have to hurry to make it because the doors to the plane would close in 10 minutes. I was too focused on our stuff to really get too invested, but Britt was really feeling for the guy and we both wondered if he ever made it to Los Angeles. (FORESHADOWING)

So, I didn't just worry about the upcoming trip. I also prepared my little heart out. Anything that I thought could improve the chances of a successful flight I purchased. I had surprise after surprise planned. A quick funny story about this. The night before we took off I started downloading Mickey Mouse episodes to the ipad. Riley saw Mickey on the screen as she was headed to bed and we told her she'd get to watch Mickey tomorrow. When Ben opened the door to get her up the next morning Riley the first thing she did was throw her arms open wide and say, "Watch Mickey now!!" She's got a perfect memory for things she's been promised. Anyways, back to the airport. One of her surprises was a new face mask with Olaf on it. It was the kind that ties behind your head and not your ears. I thought maybe it would bother her less if it wasn't tugging on her ears. Well she definitely had a different reaction to them than I expected. I busted them out right before we were going on the plane and she wouldn't even let me get it around her neck. She had a specific expectation of face masks and she was not okay with any change. Eventually, she did come around to the Olaf mask, so it did get used on other flights, but she never loved it. So glad I spent $20 on a mask. Overall Riley did a good job with the mask. She was snacking a lot so she got plenty of breaks from it and usually was okay with me saying we needed to put it back on. I did learn that they must have been a lot more strict in the beginning of the pandemic or maybe it's just certain flight attendants that will kick out a 2 year old because no one even gave Riley a second look. Riley did try to make friends on the plane. Every time we got on she would hold out her Rocky and Sky paw patrol pups to people and tell them their names. The two guys sitting behind us on the flight would regularly be shown the dogs. It was pretty adorable. 

Once we arrived in Salt Lake we were picked up by Mom and Britt and I could finally breath some fresh air. We had double masked with an N-95 so we were very relieved to take it off after about 10 hours. We were all exhausted from traveling, but no one showed it as much as Riley who started hysterically crying and then immediately passed out once I started singing Baby Beluga. We let her sleep in the car for a bit once we got to Springville, leaving the door open in case she woke up, but she was out like a light. I had to wake her up eventually or I'm pretty sure she would've been down the the night! It was just an hour before her bedtime according to her body clock. 

The first night at the parents Riley was a little hesitant especially since she was in a new time zone and her body was pretty tired, but it was already a lot better than last August when she could only interact with masked people. She recognized Mom and Dad from their weekly sing-a-long with her so she didn't take too long before she started wondering around. She cracked us up when she wondered away from main area and started looking around the hall. She had been gone for a bit when Mom went to see what she was up. Mom saw her looking around and when their eyes met Riley said, "There we go!" Clearly she was trying to find her way back to us and was relieved to find a familiar face. When you are a little girl those big couches are hard to see around!

Mom and Riley became best buds on the trip. Britt was looking forward to showing how much Riley loved her and let her step in when her mom was busy. Well, turns out that Grandmas trump Aunts AND Mamas. Riley quickly wanted nothing to do with her typical caregivers. Often getting nervous whenever she saw us that we would take her back to her boring life. When I tried to follow her and Grandma outside she said, "Mama stay inside." I was basically back to single life in this trip! If only my body clock had let me sleep in better!

The real party started the day after our arrival when the Cooper clan got in on it. It felt so incredibly natural to be laughing and talking with Britt, Ana, and Mom in the kitchen, and since we live far away I could almost pretend like nothing had changed, but that was the first time in a long long while Ana had been able to do that. We had some good real talks and some great laughs. At one point I was telling them about what I was learning from the potty training book I'd read, telling them she recommends ripping the diapers away all at once instead of trying to do it gradually over a long period of time. I explained it's because she doesn't want the toddler to get in their head that it's okay to poop in their pants sometimes. Britt, who has been horrified by the idea of living in the same house as a potty training toddler, emphatically exclaimed, "Sometimes it is!" After a good long laugh Britt explained that if the choice is between messing up your digestive system from holding it too long and letting it out then you should just let it out. 

I just love being with family in person. There are just some stories people are willing to tell in person that never come up on zoom calls or texting because they are long or a little complicated to go through in a quick call. Well, we were treated to the full story (or at least all that Ana could remember at this point since its been a super long saga) of Ana trying to leave Sprint. We all thoroughly enjoyed Ana's hilarious story telling, but really lost it on her desperate, passionate plea to the Sprint customer service to know, "HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE IN THE FRAMILY?" A question that literally no one could answer for her. And no she isn't saying family plan! It's the framily! You people came up with this plan name okay...someone had to know it would be confusing! 

Britt and I didn't tell anyone we were coming to Utah since we didn't want to let any unnecessary germs into the Messerly house. So, other than one lunch trip, we pretty much spent the entire trip in the house. One night we successfully got Mom to sit down and just enjoy herself, which everyone nows is quite the feat. We did a puzzle and watched some classic Monk episodes. That night was nice and peaceful, as you can see in the photo below.

Now, the next night Ana came and joined us for nighttime puzzling and it looked a little more like this:

Dad definitely noted the change in decibel level multiple times. We really tried to be quiet, but some of the things that were said were just too much. Like when we discovered that Britt has thought her entire life that the monkey in Might Joe Young was how big gorillas could actually get. "Gorillas are terrifying!" Well, yes, but not quite as terrifying if they aren't actually 15 feet tall. 

Unsure about her rambunctious cousin, but they did share a love of dinosaurs

Just trying to get in on the book reading, but her cousin wanted none of it.

I won't show you the picture after and pretend they just hugged sweetly.

Riley LOVED Matt's book collection. Totting 5 of her favs with her all around the room.

Two cute girls!

The start of her modeling career.

Blown away that people have swings in their backyard!

I wanted Emmitt to show Riley how to use her strider bike. This wasn't exactly what I meant.

My biggest contribution to Ana's family pictures was the cute picture of Andrew I caught at the end!

Gotta have a photo shoot whenever we are in the same state!

Our adorable parents!

None of the picture turned out perfect so I'll just put the one we look the best in. :)

Riley loved all the dolls she had to play with. We only have one, apparently she'd care about it more if we had more??

Grandma read and read and read to this girl, and as you can see she LOVED it. 

Future doctor? 

The sandbox! Man Riley was covered in sand EVERY DAY.

Starting her t-ball career

If you look at Elena's face it's evident that I captured the exact moment Riley destroyed her creation.

One of the fun parts of the trip was watching Riley and Uncle Matt's relationship evolve. She started off a little unsure of him because she only saw him for a minute in the morning and few moments in the evening. Once he had some time off to stay home she learned that Matt is definitely a fun uncle. By the end he stole her heart by gifting her Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls. She was SO excited. She held onto those things the whole way home. 

Speaking of the whole way home...oh boy. To be honest, it's very hard to write this story. That morning was so stressful I had residual anxiety about it for DAYS after. So, it already wasn't gonna be a great return trip because our flight left at 7:05, so we were going to try and get to the airport at 5:45 am. Which meant leaving around 4:45 am. Obviously, none of us were thrilled about it, but we could just rest on the plane, right? Well we did arrive around 5:45. Most of the airport was dead, but American Airlines was hopping! 

Because of the way I bought mine and Riley's tickets (using a voucher) her ticket wasn't attached to mine so I needed to check her in at the airport. I figured it wouldn't be much of an issue because I also had a carseat I'd need to check. When we arrived there were empty self-service kiosks, but I knew from past experience you can't get the carseat checked without help from a worker so we just got in the line to speak to the people at the desk. The line moved pretty quickly right when we got there so I figured we'd be fine even though there were a lot of people in front of us. 

Well, after that initial movement the line came to a stand still. I kept telling myself it had to start moving. That surely other people in this line had to have a flight in the next hour that they were trying to make, right? (We found out later that the hold up was apparently for a bunch of international flights, which makes sense why no one else was freaking out as much as Britt and I. They were probably all 2 hours early.) Well I don't remember the exact timing, but I think around 6:10 we decided I had to hop over to the kiosk area which now had a line. The kiosks were no longer moving quickly because everyone realized that the line wasn't moving and no matter what issues you had you just had to use the kiosk and force the one worker that was manning all of them to come and assist you. 

Us trying to be patient waiting in line...

Once it was my turn I walked up to the kiosk and as if a gift from above the worker man came up to me and asked if I needed help! I was amazed, did I just emanate helplessness? Well I found out later that he had been walking away from the kiosk area and passed Britt still waiting in the huge line and she had stopped him and told him to go help me. That was one of many little things that save our life. If any single happening in this chain of events had taken a few minutes more we would've been toast! 

The guy finally finished helping me and then I had to wait in another line to drop off the carseat. I finally got to the front of that line and nearly died when the lady gave me a little push back that I was checking something under Riley's name and only had my ID. She asked if she was under 16 yrs old, I assured her the person I was checking a toddler car seat for was under 16. I was terrified she was gonna ask me to go retrieve Riley, but she let it go and threw the carseat on the conveyor belt. Looking back, I'm extremely glad we got that carseat on the plane! Remembering the man we overheard on our way to SLC being told that they can only check things up to 30 minutes before the flight because we were probably RIGHT on that deadline at that point. 

So I book it out of the line expecting to find Britt waiting for me. She is no where to be seen. I look around for a few seconds and figure the only place she would go was downstairs to try and get to the security line. What I find when I get to the bottom of the stairs can only be described at pitiful. I had left Britt with both our carry ons and Riley in her stroller. Britt is trying to move the stroller a few inches and then going back for the suitcases and moves them a few inches. I had assumed Britt would wait for me and I'd help her get down to security, but she had taken it on herself to try and do the impossible. 

The other site I saw immediately after noticing Britt could only be described as hopeless. The security line was snaked all the way out past the baggage claim areas. It was ridiculous. At that point it was probably around 6:25. Another thing that was killing us is that I had never cut it close enough to really care about the whole doors close 15 minutes before take off thing. I had been thinking of 7:05 as our deadline, but Britt pointed out that we should really consider 6:50 as the real deadline. I joined that security line with very little hope, but I just couldn't allow myself to think of other options. The only reality I would accept was that we were going to make our flight. I wouldn't entertain any other scenario yet. The only thing that went our way was that the security line was moving crazy fast. We weren't really standing still at any point, we were just walking through it. We weaved through all the different aisles and just as I thought we were arriving at the security point the dang remodel got me and there was a whole other part of the line that we couldn't even see! Luckily, they had a ton of security lines open so it was still pretty fast. The TSA had figured out what American Airlines had not...if there are going to be a lot of people in the airport maybe have more people working! 

We were getting through security okay and were going to have 15 minutes to book it to the gate...but then the stroller and diaper bag got pulled. I was about to lose it!! I was like pacing back and forth waiting for someone to check them. Finally a girl looked it over and gave it to me, but then she just went about her business. I was like...ummm I have another bag that was pulled! She is just chatting it up with a coworker. I'm FREAKING OUT internally, but then I look and see the bag got moved back into the normal line! So I quickly grab it, and frantically try to get everything situated so that we won't loose anything while Britt double-checked the gate.

"10 minutes. B16. Go." Britt's last words to me before the straight up sprint was on!

Another thing that didn't go our way is that our gate was changed from A25 to B16. Now let me tell you. Since the dang remodel whoever has to go to terminal B gets screwed! There is no quick way to get there, you just have to huff it all the way down there. If our gate had stayed the same we would've had a nice leisurely walk just around the corner from security. Instead we had 10 minutes to run a mile with bags on our back. (I'm making up the distance, but I swear it was at least that!) I had my backpack, diaper bag, and pushed the stroller. Britt had our two carryons and her backpack. Before we started sprinting Britt gave Riley the Mickey and Minnie doll she had been holding this whole time and said, "Hold on tight." To her credit, Riley didn't drop those dolls once. If she had I would've been running with a screaming child in my stroller because there was no going back at this point. 

We were weaving in and out, around all the slow people. We'd sprint when it was normal ground and then just sort of jog or speed walk on the moving sidewalks. In and out, in and out. As we were following the signs to terminal B we saw above our heads a sign that said "10 minute walk to Terminal B". I looked down at my watch and saw it was 6:47 and just think, I'm gonna hope this is like a Gilmore Girl situation. Where they made the crossing walk the time it took the slowest person in Stars Hollow to cross the road. It was a generous estimate I was sure. This was probably around the time that Britt said she would've given up had she not seen me running in front of her. She said she nearly threw up, sprinting on an empty stomach after getting just a few hours sleep. I had laser focus and would not accept defeat so she used me as her motivation. She also figured she had a few extra minutes from when I arrived, since I probably was going to let the airline know my sister was coming. 

As I got up the escalator that pointed to Terminal B I was SO relieved to see it wasn't starting at B1, but was B12 so we were nearly there! I could see a line of people still boarding at our terminal so I stopped running and caught my breath a bit. At this point I was just dripping in sweat. Good thing I wasn't sitting by a stranger. I ended up using Riley's blanket as a sweat towel. (Don't worry I washed it before I put her to bed with it that night. I think...this was a while ago...) 

Riley was unmoved by this whole thing by the way. She thought it was great fun to be running through the airport. She probably thought I was doing it for her amusement. When we finally sat down we were both too wired to fall asleep, so we just ended up being exhausted, sweaty messes when Ben picked us up at the airport. 

The calm after the storm. Riley learned to love planes because that's where mama lets her control the ipad as much as she wants.