We MADE it + My Brother Rocks.

We made it to Kentucky—>  Just 25 hours later than we expected and a few hundred more dollars than we planned on;).  We originally booked with Frontier because the flight was so much cheaper (luckily we booked with Southwest to come home) but we learned our lesson about them the hard way on Friday, ha.   I posted our situation on my IG stories and I can’t believe how many of you replied that you had the exact same experience with them!  We would have actually spent less money if we just went with southwest/delta (and bought our tickets a few months ago) in the first place and arrived on time:)

This is one of my favorite life quotes and I should have used it more on Friday (I was so emotional… I’ll blame it on the mastitis;) but I’ll try again next time to try to laugh more because somehow it always all works out.

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Mastitis hit me hard Thursday late afternoon (I had already written most of my Friday post which is why I didn’t talk about it) and got on antibiotics right away.  I can definitely say that was one of the most painful experiences I have ever dealt with… I don’t recommend it.  It took until Friday night/Saturday morning to feel good again.  I put my running clothes out and was going to run if I woke up and felt good and since I did, I went out for a few easy miles when I woke up.

Oh PS Andrew’s parents live near the airport so we just stayed there which was SO nice because we didn’t have to add on a big drive to get back to the airport.

I love running around their area.

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Andrew’s dad woke up early to make everyone pancakes.

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And then we packed up really quick and left for the airport.  I noticed in Andrew’s bag he had my favorite lip gloss inside and I asked him about it and he said he put it there just in case of an emergency if I lost mine.   He will always have one with him too.  Now that is love.

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I have to say these two handled all of this flight stuff really well (Brooke cried when they canceled it on Friday night because she wanted to see her cousins so bad)..  These kids teach me a lot.

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We flew on Delta (not sure why I wrote American Airline yesterday) and the day was the opposite of Friday.

Skye rocked the flight

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We had a layover in Minneapolis and they officially are our favorite airport now.  There was a huge play place for our kids and they ran around on that thing for about an hour.  They also have a Chik-Fil-A which is another reason it is our favorite airport now.

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On our second flight Skye slept the entire time and this KIND bar is the best.

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We made it!!!!  That was a good feeling to finally get there.

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Skye was very happy to be away from the airplane/airport scene.

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My brother has 7 kids and his youngest is three months older than Skye.

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My brother loves to cook and makes the most amazing things!  When we got there he had fillet mignon wrapped in bacon waiting for us.  It’s going to be hard to ever eat a restaurant steak after this one.

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Our kids are amazed by the lightning bugs here… we definitely do not have these at home.

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Any crazy flight stories?  Have a favorite airline?

What is your Sunday going to be filled with?

Do you like KIND bars?  Which one is your favorite?

Anyone from Kentucky? Who has been to Kentucky?

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41 comments

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We tried to fly Frontier once and lost thousands of dollars because of unused hotel rooms and the need to buy seven more tickets for another flight. Not the greatest day! The worst experience by far was with United, though. My mom and I were flying home from Vegas when I was 7! Somehow, the flight got overbooked and she was kicked off. They wouldn’t let me change flights, so they made me fly home as an unaccompanied minor when I was the shyest kid in the world. I cried the entire flight home and was terrified to fly for years after that.

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I cannot believe this. Courtney, that is terrible. I’m amazed none of the other passengers offered to take a later flight so that your mom could be with you! How could united do that? And thousands of dollars… frontier is the worst!

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Any crazy flight stories? Have a favorite airline?
I love Southwest! They are pretty incredible with their customer service. Delta and American Airlines are also good. Qatar Airways and Etihad are also outstanding for international flights. I don’t eat airline food because I have a good allergy, and that’s the last place I want to have a reaction. The flight attendants on Qatar were so concerned that I wasn’t eating, they brought me extra pretzels and soda! Our flight to Las Vegas (from DC) was with Frontier and it was so uncomfortable. They also charge you extra for everything. Bags, sodas, snacks, etc. United is pretty terrible too. We had an awful experience flying home on United from Las Vegas and they had to give me a voucher, which I’m not sure if I’ll use because United is just that terrible.

What is your Sunday going to be filled with?
It’s been raining here for approximately forever. Not much to do when it’s pouring down rain!

Anyone from Kentucky? Who has been to Kentucky?
My husband is actually from Kentucky so we have been there! Lexington is beautiful horse country and Louisville is a lot of fun! I encourage you to check both of those places out if you can.

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Holy cow, is that legal??

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Ugh so sorry you had that experience with Frontier – we LOVE Delta – we used them in October to come out to Utah to see my stepson and fam who live in Logan :) We flew them out here last week to be with us, too and they had a great flight experience.

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So glad you guys finally made it! How stressful, especially when you weren’t feeling 100%! I don’t fly much, but the last time I did it was on Delta, and we enjoyed it! Seeing lightning bugs is on my bucket list! Someday! I would also love to visit Kentucky! Hope you get to see some beautiful horses! That’s what I think of when I think of Kentucky! But mostly, enjoy an amazing time with your family! :)

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Hi Janae. I fly Southwest ALL the time. They are rarely late, I’ve only had one cancelled flight (due to weather) in the 25 yrs I have flown with them. I travel a lot for business. Make sure you log in for boarding passes 24 hrs in advance to get best seating choices. I flew Frontier only once and never again. It was terrible. Base air fare seems cheap, but after all the add ons, not so cheap. Air Canada is also good for international flights.
That choc chunk Kind bar is my favorite also.
I’ve never been to KY, but I hear it’s beautiful!

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So happy to hear that you made it!! Flight delays and cancellations are the worst! Although, luckily I personally have never had to live through a complete cancellation. We love Southwest! Their flight attendants are awesome, and I swear they’re all comedians on the side. Never have we had any issues with them ?
Did your brother get those steaks at Costco by chance? We bought some from Costco and they are so amazing!!!
This weekend has been full of graduation parties in our neighborhood. So, today is the last graduation party, but first my hubby and I are going to put in our landscape lighting in the front yard. I can’t wait to see how it all looks.
Enjoy your time with all of the family! Reunions are so fun.
Side note…. I have not run in a little over 2 weeks ?. Between being really busy and then getting a nasty cold, running has not happened! Any tips for getting back out there? I think I need a motivation reboot.

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Oh Janae, I’m so glad yesterday was smoother for you. I can’t imagine being at the airport for so long, let alone with an infant and 2 5 year olds, and then on top of that with mastitis, that is the worst! It sounds like the kids were real troopers though and now you can soak up family time!

My family took a trip to visit our cousins in North Carolina and Washington DC when we were little and I still remember how enchanted we were with the fireflies. Enjoy your trip!

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I’m so happy you’re all in KY safe and sound! AND that you felt good enough to run the other morning. yay for progress in the right direction!
My favorite KIND bar is a tie between the caramel, almond, sea salt flavor and the dark chocolate, nuts, sea salt flavor.
And KY–yes! Tom and I went to Lexington last November for a weekend getaway. If you are anywhere near Lexington and you and Andrew can get out for a date night in the middle of your family reunion week, there is this AMAZING restaurant called Middle Fork Kitchen & Bar that is teeny-tiny and slightly hipster-ish but SO INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS. If you were to find yourself there you MUST get the bread boule (it’s warm and fresh from the oven and served alongside a candle made with melted brisket marrow and juices and as the candle heats up and the congealed juices melt, you dip the bread in and it’s the best thing in the universe.) Their plate of locally made sausages is also outstanding!
And if you’re in or near Lexington and want an amazing breakfast place, you have to go to a restaurant called Doodles. It is outstanding. I was never a believer in biscuits & gravy as a necessary thing in life until I went there and Tom and I got an order along with our omelets (that were so dang awesome), but man alive it is all so good. You must!!! Pricepoint at doodles is also family-friendly!

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I live in Lexington and you hit the nail on the head with those two recommendations! I would also add Crank and Boom for dessert after Middlefork, best ice cream in town!

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What an awful experience! Huge credit to the children especially – I’d have been a mess! So sorry about the mastitis too :( I got it once when my lb was 11 months old. We were in London at a mums’ meet up with lots of lovely mums I knew from online but not in real life. I spent most of the party outside on the phone to a medical advisory line while my baby slept inside! Thankfully it subsided a bit so I could manage to get us home and then I got to the out of hours doctor for antibiotics. Not a fun experience.

My Sunday has been pretty chilled. It’s nice and sunny so we had a BBQ and then lots of playing and housework. But I also managed my first tiny run in ages after bruising the cartilage around my knee. There’s a long way to go yet but I’m so happy to have got out there again!

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We were stuck in Toranto for 48 hours with a 2 year old. Our first night there were no airport hotels so we stayed downtown for $450. The hotel was amazing, but …..um…..yeah.

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I hate southwest I stick with delta. You are lucky you had funds to buy that last minute ticket

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I’ve never had that kind of nightmare experience!! But stuff like that is exactly why my husband loathes flying. He says he feels like he is a prisoner. Haha! I feel like that may be a tad dramatic but there is truth in it.

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I’m so sorry your travels were, um, challenging. My worst trip was trying to get home from Tampa. Original flight delayed to the point where I missed my connection in Raleigh. Then the next flight to Boston was cancelled so I had to quickly find a hotel room for the night and then fly to NY and on to Boston. Flight in the morning delayed so that when we arrived in NY I had to literally sprint what felt like a half mile to the gate to make my flight to Boston. Arrived just seconds after the gate closed. At that point I gave up, rented a car and drove the 4+ hours home. Way better and enjoyed some pretty backroads in CT thanks to Waze. Not a Frontier story, though. I think it was American.

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Ugh….flying is the worst….I am so scared to fly….
No lightning bugs out west? Never thought about it. You are in my neck of the woods! (Tennessee)….happy running in the humidity and heat☺

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So glad you guys are in Kentucky! Favorite airline? United now, but before they were bought out Continental. We’ve never had a flight canceled thank goodness, but I am SO fearful to fly frontier or spirit because of the stories I’ve heard. I just sent my husband an email from spirit that we could fly from Cleveland to Orlando for dirt cheap this summer and we decided to pass on it because we figured we’d be delayed so much that it wouldn’t be worth the savings. Lol and I scrolled up to look at your other questions and caught the comment about the unaccomplished minor on a United!! Holy Toledo, horrible! Maybe I’ll change my answer and say I don’t have a favorite airline, however I chose United because they are a direct flight from Cleveland to Orlando and that is the only place we fly to.

Oh and the last time we flew a few weeks ago Kenny Loggins was sitting in front of my husband and I’m so lame that I didn’t realize it was him until baggage claim in Cleveland where a couple guys had albums he was signing!

No lighting bugs in Utah huh? Glad the kids are having fun with them!

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I only fly Southwest. I flew 4 times while pregnant and twice with a baby (once to move here to Louisville!) and they rock!

My husband thinks it’s humid here now. I’m from Charleston and, since it’s less than 80%, I beg to differ ;)

Y’all have fun and welcome!

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For many years my now husband and I did long distance (Nebraska to England) and one trip we went to Toronto together where he ended up proposing to me. The flight home for me was horrible! It was going to be a 3 hour flight to Omaha and I was leaving before my husband left for England. Long story short, my husband got back to England (a whole ocean away!) before I even landed in Chicago for a connecting flight. Only thing that kept me going was knowing that was the last time we would have to do a horrible airport good bye.

Today was lots of grown up things like cleaning and organizing as well as a lot of re-potting of many plants around the apartment and meal prep for the week!

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I’ve got more horrible flight stories than I can count. Most recent was being stuck in Chicago on Thursday for ten plus hours. Far best two airlines (I’m not counting Southwest in this bc we don’t have them at my home airport) are American and Delta. Have had a lot of negative experiences with United. Glad you finally got there!

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That stinks about your travel experience. I just flew without Frontier a few weeks ago and had a similar experience. Our flight was delayed 2 hours and there was no explanation as to why and the flight attendants were very snarky with passengers who had connections. The flight attendants on the return flight were super kind to my little girl though. My favorite airline is Southwest! I have flow with them countless times. My favorite Kind bar is the Almond Coconut one!

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First of all….yay for MSP for being best airport. I 100% agree. We almost missed our flight from there to the DR in February but a nice lady who worked for an airline escorted us to the front. Amazing experience. And my hometown?
Our not so great experience was trying to get to SanDiego a couple years ago and United left us stranded in Denver for 24 hours. It was awful but very thankful I didn’t have kids with us at the time.
Never been to Kentucky but I have an aunt from there. Also my husband’s grandparents went there last fall and talked high of creation museum and Noah’s ark replica. My kids would love that!

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So glad you finally got there! The Minneapolis airport sounds awesome. Today I’ll be baking cookies and going for a walk.

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This is going back several decades, but we once took a Mexicana flight (I don’t even think they fly in the US anymore?) from Chicago to Cancun. We were delayed for hours for repairs, and when we finally took off, the plane wasn’t getting altitude and was tilting drastically from side to side. We ended up having to make an emergency landing back at O’Hare – they had us brace for impact and everything . We did land just fine and as it turns out, a mechanic had left his wrench in the landing gear which was sending an error message to the pilot and preventing the landing gear from going up after takeoff. Of course no one knew that until we had safely landed – the whole experience turned me off of flying for a long time!

We took our horse-loving girls to visit the Kentucky Horse Park 2 years ago and just loved it. Such beautiful country and the horse park is a must for anyone remotely interested in horses – my girls had a blast!

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THE very best airline is Alaska Air by far. Great customer service always. Oh I had to laugh. Look at the small sign behind Knox at the Welcome to Kentucky picture!

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Wow. How did I miss that?!? Ahhhh mother of the year;) Well, we won’t do that again!! Hope you are having a great day!

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Hey Janae!!! We moved to northern Kentucky a year ago. Pretty close to the airport. What part of Kentucky are you staying in?! I’m from Greenville South Carolina and thought running hills there was hard but I have found some big ones here!!! If you are close and need a running partner I love running and talking!! Hope you have a great time with your brother and his family!!
Joanna

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Sooooo cool! Emailing you now!

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Flight story – well, we had a 14 hour layover in LAX :(. My sister and I were coming home from Costa Rica years ago – and the irony is that LA is only a couple hours flight to hour home in BC :).

My Sunday was filled with trail running! Ran a trail marathon yesterday and then another run today so my legs are fried but heart is happy.

My favourite Kind bar is a coconut chai – at least that is what I remember it as. I saw it in Starbucks once!

Glad your trip home was much smoother! Hope you have a great day!

P.S. Skye is so sweet:).

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My husband and I were supposed to fly Allegiant from Austin to Las Vegas. The flight was scheduled to leave some time mid-morning. The plane arrives, passengers get off, but they don’t start boarding. They announced one of the flight attendants’ ears wouldn’t pop, so they were waiting to see if they could get it to pop. We waited for a good while. They made separate announcements — they were waiting on medicine to kick in, they were working on another plane for us to take, etc. Finally, in the afternoon they cancelled the flight and re-scheduled it for 6am the next day. We eventually made it (lost out on one night of hotel $$$), but we to this day are amazed they didn’t have an attendant on stand-by or something.
We also got stuck in Istanbul on out way home from our honeymoon in Europe. Our 5am flight from Rome to Turkey was delayed and re-scheduled after we had already boarded because of mechanical issues. By the time we made it on a new plane to Istanbul, our connecting flight to Houston had just left. They have only one of those each day. So the airline put us up in a hotel for the night, but they had our luggage. So we spent two long days in basically the same clothes. We were so ready to get home! At least Turkish Air hooked us up with the hotel and took great care of us!
Glad y’all finally made it to KY! Enjoy your family time!

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For work I fly United, but for personal, we fly Southwest. We have their CC and have companion pass through it, so my husband basically flies for free when we travel together! I’ve had bad days flying with both, but I’ve never had a cancelled flight on either… knock on wood! When I first started traveling for work, I would fly Frontier back when they were awesome and would hand out free warm chocolate chip cookies. Being in Denver, we don’t get as many cancelled flights with Frontier, but their service and seats are awful.
We just had our first baby, a little girl, on Memorial Day, so no workouts planned for a while, just light walking for now. Looking forward to getting cleared to workout at 6 weeks though! Until then, I’m enjoying all the baby snuggles!

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Glad you made it safely to KY! I’m a born and raised KY girl, moved away at 29 but go back frequently to visit my family there (Louisville.) Catching lightning bugs in the summer is one of my fondest summertime memories! Not sure what part of the state you’re in, but it’s a beautiful place, so enjoy!

We are flying with our 2.5 year old and 5 month old in a couple of weeks…hope the baby does as well as Skye did and hope we don’t have any of the problems you did. I try to fly Southwest whenever I can because I find them to be the friendliest and most flexible, but try to avoid United!

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If you go to Heber in the summer someone released lightning bugs in the north fields on the way to midway a long time ago and they’re still around not a lot, but enough to be exciting! One of my favorite things when we visit home in the summer.

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Born and raised KY gal here!!! Lived in my same little town all my life. I am about 2 hours south of Louisville. However we travel to the Ville several times a year. Our state fair is in Louisville in August, you would have loved it! Sites you need to visit, the Ky Derby Museum, Keeneland in Lexington, the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville. Have fun and keep us posted on our adventures!!!

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I am from Ohio and it never occurred to me that other parts of the country don’t have lightning bugs! One of the ways you know summer is here!

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Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry about the mastitis!! I had it 3 times (my body did not like making milk), and it was the WORST pain of my life each time! I gave birth without pain meds – which let me tell you did not feel great – and I would rather do that again than have mastitis again. Each time, the first symptom I got was bursting into tears at the slightest provocation – isn’t that weird?? It’s like my body knew what it was in for and was preemptively emotional! Hopefully you’re through the worst of it, but one thing that helped for me was wetting a disposable diaper (with water haha) and heating it up in the microwave, then using it as a heat pad for the breast. My lactation consultant recommended it because moist heat is supposed to help, and it seemed like it did!

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Woohoo! I’m from Minneapolis! Our airport rocks!

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Delta is my favorite. Although I don’t fly much these days, when I was in college far from home they were always the best.

The best flavor of KIND bar is the apple cinnamon pecan! It’s so good.

We get so excited by lightning bugs also! We don’t have them where we live and it’s such a treat when we travel in the summer. Random fact: when I’m speaking of them in plural I call them lightning bugs but if I’m talking about just a single bug I call it a firefly. Isn’t that weird?!

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Oh, oh, oh I forgot to say that mastitis is the WORST! I had it multiple times with my second child (during 11 months of nursing). It would come on so fast and miserable. Luckily if it hit me during a 24 hour shift at work I could get an ER doc to write me a quick prescription.

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so many airplane stories. once had the big baby/toddler throw up on me, and pee on me during the same trip. i was so thankful she did not poop on me. i didn’t have a change of clothes on me, so we just smelled. i did the best i could to clean up at the airport bathrooms. i would say our airline of choice for a long time is American – but it always depends on what city we are visiting and what time.

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