Kermit is King: #186 - Goodbye, girls!

Cool thing from the last 24: I said goodbye to my girls. And saw the Uni-ball in person. And a Mercury capsule. And the Lego Store at Rockefeller Center.

This morning started early, again. My 4th 4am wake up in a row. We rousted the kids, realized I had made an arithmetic error the night before, and left the house at 4:30 to drive to LaGuardia. We got there at 5:40, enough time, but not much extra. The girls and I got out of the car, Katrina switched seats, and as I'm closing the door to the van, we figure out that we should meet at the Hall of Science in Queens at 9:30, in the parking lot. As she drove away, Jake asked her, "Why did you forget dad, mom?"

As we walk into the terminal, we have 70 minutes before the plane is due to depart. Aria has a rollaround suitcase, so does Libby. They also both have backpacks/handbags that are HUGE and STUFFED to the gills.There is no line at the ticket counter, so we walk up, and as I'm standing there, trying to figure out what to do, the ticket agent asks, "Can I help you?" I stumble through that I'm sending my girls off today.

Libby obliges with a silly pic before they get on the plane.
Aria is too grown up.

What ensues is half an hour (I kid you not) of the ticket agent not knowing what to do, printing documents and ripping them up, and not speaking to me. I just stood patiently as the minutes ticked by. Eventually, we had a packet with bright red stripes on it with their boarding passes and ID, and they had hospital-style wristbands. As we left the counter, Aria turned to me with a huge grin and said, "I feel so grown up now!" And then she giggled. I didn't blame her. I would have done the same thing.

We walked to security, waited in a the short line, and finally got to the gate with 20 minutes to spare. We walked up to the gate agent and asked about the flight. They took the boarding passes, reassigned the girls (they were in an exit row, which doesn't work for kids), and they walked right into the plane after I gave them a hug.

I waited until the plane got in the air, and then I left the gate, possibly the only non-employee in the nearly empty airport without a piece of luggage. I waited for the bus to take me to the Hall of Science, but once I figured out that Google Maps did not have the holiday bus schedule loaded, I checked it out by walking, and found it was 3 miles. So I walked.

I'll spare all the details. Suffice it to say that Flushing Meadows is beautiful, and once I met up with Katrina and the kids again, I had walked 5 miles on a lovely hot summer morning. We spent 2 very leisurely hours at the Hall of Science, and then rode the train to Rockefeller Center. The boys had a blast at the Lego Store and spent much of their hard-earned allowance. We headed back to Queens to pick up the car and drove home. We got back around 4. Awesome day. No more girls in the house for a few weeks, and having an easy and awesome time with my boys.