A Short But Long Trip to Minnesota.

Thursday night our friend Nikki flew into Denver for a wedding....how ironic that the weekend a MN friend comes here we had to fly to MN for a wedding as well. We did however get to spend one night with Nikki and took her to one of our favorites Forest Room Five for dinner.
Friday started our "short but long trip." We ended up sitting on the plane in 85 degree sun waiting for the wind to leave Minnesota. After 2 hours of sitting on the plane, we got to go back into the airport for an hour "break" and then we reboarded and were off. Mike's parents picked us up at the airport to head to dinner at Il Vescovino. Just after we ordered our food we heard some unmistakable giggling coming from the doorway...Mike's sisters and their friend Shalee had stopped by to entertain us for a few minutes. Following dinner we each got to spend some "alone time" with our parents as I stayed with mine at a hotel and Mike at his parents house.

Saturday morning we got up for the drive to Alexandria for Jen's wedding. Jen and Lisa are two of my best buds from graduate school at UMD. The three of us had some great memories and was really excited to make some more. It was also nice because I got to congratulate Lisa in person as she and her Fiance got engaged over Memorial Day....looks like there may be a 3rd Annual Minnesota Wedding Trip next year! Jen's wedding was beautiful and even better it was over so Mike and I could race to a bar to catch the Belmont Stakes horse race, Big Brown didn't get the elusive Triple Crown, but I did fall in love with his 115 lbs jockey :-) We made it to the reception and enjoyed the sunset on the lake and got some quality dance time in too.

Sunday we headed back to the cities. We had just enough time to stop by and visit quick with Jeff, Tiffany and their little one Ben! So much fun watching your friends little ones grow. I can't believe Ben is almost 2. I also got some much needed Lego's building in and Mike played a little "catch/fetch" with Ben. After that we went back and had lunch at Mike's parents house and played in the pool. Then we were off to the airport again!
Round 2 of delays on this trip was about to begin. Mike and I were taking 2 different flights as he had to fly to NYC(@6:45) and I was coming back to Denver (@ 7:10). The flying Gods were not shining upon our flights. It all started with me having a "2 hour delay." So I waited in the United line for an hour trying to just check my luggage, while Mike charged my phone and headed through security for his flight. Shortly after Mike boarded his plane the pilot announced that they had the "dreaded" ground hold in NYC and they would reevaluate in an hour...so he sat on the plane and waited for their clearance to leave which came at 9 pm...only 2:45 minutes late. While he was sitting on the plane waiting I was sitting in the bar having dinner and reading a magazine waiting to find out how many more "delays" I was going to have. Every half hour they were posting another half hour out and soon it was an estimated departure at 10:30. So I headed over to the gait to figure it out. Weather in Chicago had cancelled 400 flights already and was the reason the plane we needed to fly back to Denver wasn't able to leave. So we all got mats and waited and kept hoping they wouldn't "cancel" the flight. (The next flights out of MSP to DEN were not until Tuesday on ANY of the carriers). Finally at 11:30 after a new crew boarded the plane in Chicago, the plane was able to take off now our estimated departure was 1:40. In the mean time Mike had made it to his hotel just after 1:00 am NYC time and was off to bed. Until he got my phone call at 1:15 that the pilot "was too fatigued to fly to Denver." Which meant that we may not be getting back to Denver until Tuesday. So Mike's mom headed over to the airport to pick me up at 2 a.m. We got back and I was fast asleep by 3 am to wake up and try all over again today. United ended up adding a flight into the schedule today so all of us from MSP to DEN could make it home....they also had over booked 2 flights on Monday to Denver by 25 plus people, so they were happy to have a flight too! I made it back to Denver today at 2:45, just 3 hours short of a 24 hour "flight delay." Yikes, is all I have to say is traveling isn't like it used to be....and it might be getting worse! Keep your fingers crossed that my flight to meet Mike in NYC on Friday goes a bit better :-)