standing by

We spent a dreamy week out on Chincoteague Island, VA. It was a mix of beach and woods and marshlands. It was a blur of wild ponies and bald eagles and dolphins and snowy egrets and fiddler crabs. It was sunshine and Junior Rangers Badges and painting and quirky museums and classic movies and giant ice cream cones.

But none of it was supposed to happen. We were supposed to all be in Hawaii visiting my parents. I'll try to make a really long story short-ish. All the years we have flown out to Hawaii to see the grandparents have only happened because of the incredible generosity of my pilot friend Shannon. She generously gives us her friends and family passes whenever we ask and all we need to do is fly standby and pay the tax on the flight. Considering tickets to Kona from the east coast would be over $1000 each, we have always been very grateful for her help. Flying standby is more art than science, but all of the years past it worked in our favor and not only did we have no problem getting flights, but we only got stranded maybe twice and both times it was just for a half a day or so. Well, our luck ran out. The Cliff Notes are that we spent a couple of very long, frustrating, starting at 4am and dragging two kids through busy airport check-in and security days only to never get on a flight. Here's the kicker. Our bags went to Kona without us and spent nearly a week there.

I was tired and frustrated and angry at the universe and sad for my kids who haven't been out to see the grandparents since Zach was 5 years old and Naia was in my belly. I hate that they don't get grandparent time unless these monumental feats of finance and distance are tackled and I felt like I failed them in my parental duty to give them some family time with someone other than mom and dad. So since our carry ons were packed and we were in travel mode anyway, we pointed the car east and started calling around for a cabin to rent out by Assateague and lucked into a beautiful, spontaneous get away.

Sometimes you just gotta add that sugar and make that lemonade.