newark new jersey

we have been very excited about our vacation to see adam's family for quite a while. my parents dropped us off at the manchester airport at around 3 on tuesday. we were scheduled to arrive in ft. myers at 11:20. we knew it would be kind of a long trip, but in real life, had no idea how long it would really be.
it started off with the lady at the desk checking in our bag, and forgetting to give us our boarding passes. she had handed me something, and then handed adam something, so we both assumed that the other had it. not a good start. the screens said that everything was on time, so we just went to our gate to wait. it was supposed to leave at 4:15. at 4:17, we had not even started boarding, but the screens still said - on time!! weird. we knew that things would be tight, because we had a connecting flight in newark. we were supposed to have about a 2 hour layover, so we thought we could possibly still make it.
the boys did good at the airport, and played a little football with daddy. we were in pretty good moods about the whole thing. we arrived in newark, which was PACKED and it was raining. we got off and rushed to the screens to see that our connecting flight had already left for ft. myers. at this point, there was not a whole lot of other options for us. we found a flight going into tampa (3 hours from adam's parents) that was scheduled to leave at 9:05. we talked to the lady at the desk and she said she would call over to th at gate to see if they would hold the flight for us. while on the phone, and with adam asking twice to be positive, she again confirmed that they would indeed hold the flight. we were at gate A and needed to be at gate C which involved taking a bus over to the other gate. another problem with continental airlines, is that they charge you 15 bucks for every bag you check. so we only checked one, and were carrying on the rest.
we had the boys hold their blankets, pillows and each others hands, and adam went in front, i went in back, and we RAN alllll the way to our next gate. i mean RAN. fast. i was pulling one suitcase on wheels, and carrying 2 other bags. adam was doing the same. we finally got to our gate at 9:08. the guy behind the desk said (with no sympathy or care in the world) "this plane just left" WHAT?!?!?!?!?! we were beside ourselves!!! i could not believe it! there were no other flights going out at all until the next morning, and we could not believe it!! i started praying for every single person i saw around me, because i was like...why in the world would God want us to get stuck here? i will pray for everyone i see, maybe this girl next to me just needed some prayer! :)
adam went to find out when the next flight was leaving (6:29am) and we went to that gate. got the boys on the floor, and put their little pillows down, and i layed down in between them and sang to them, and told them a couple of stories. they were out pretty fast. me and adam didn't sleep much, the floor was pretty hard, and it was really cold. and we weren't sure that all of our stuff would be safe if we fell asleep!! but, the morning came, and i used the food vouchers we got to buy one of everything on the dunkin donuts menu! the flight that morning was fine, and we got into ft. myers safely. it's funny how these things happen, but it all worked out. one amazing thing, was when we first got to newark, i had put everything down to wait for adam. when he came back, we grabbed everything and started running...a girl came up to me and said "excuse me, is this your bag?" it was our laptop bag!!! it had all our passports in it, adams wallet, our laptop, our tickets - EVERYTHING we needed! does God take care of us or what??
so i will be blogging a little at a time, so as not to bore everyone. here are a few pictures of our airport experience!!