saying goodbye

we said goodbye to lexi at the beginning of january. she wanted to take some pictures of her with her sibs.

i am nothing if not obliging.

awwwww.

those five.

and then it was time to say goodbye. this was after she'd had a tearful photo shoot and goodbyes with ami and eric.

laney was annoyed with the whole thing. bless.

that face just screams "let's go in now so i can finish my programs."
ps - nice mullet, lanes. nice mullet.

group hug!!!

again, laney with the heart of stone remains unfazed.

they love each other and that makes me crazy happy.

someday i'll do girls trips with my girls. and hopefully they'll do some without me too. (i guess) there's nothing better than being friends with your siblings, it's such a gift.

after this, lexi and i left. we gave ourselves lots of time because you never know about the beltway. we had enough time to do some shopping before getting to the airport. and then when we got there the real fun began. duh, duh, duh!

we tried to check her in at the kiosk but it said she needed to see an agent. the agent was like "ooooh yeah, okay. so because of the crazy weather all around the country, your flight leaving bwi is late and you probably won't make your connection in denver. you'll be on your own to find a hotel because it's a weather related problem, not the airlines problem." ahhhhh!!! i took the butter 'em up tactic to try to see if they would cover a hotel room (because i know they can). i told him all about our loooong trip to the airport and how she was in a little bit of a bind because of her ride from slc back to rexburg. she called tito (her friend at school who lives in baltimore, and also her ride from the airport back to school) and we all agreed it would be best to stay put in md for the night. 

then we had to figure out if we should get a hotel room, stay at tito's drive home, or figure something else out. i swear our lives have so many moving parts it's enough to make your head spin. after a few minutes of consulting with matt and looking at hotels, tito showed up with his parents and now they had a different idea. of course, this was after we'd had them change lexi's ticket. tito's parents didn't want him driving at night (understandably) so they preferred them to take the original flight and stay the night in denver. then we had to decide if she should stick with tito (her ride) or if we should do what we felt best and have her take the shuttle. only she'd need the shuttle on sunday and i seriously doubted they even ran on sunday. then, if they did have to stay the night in denver, uncle james lives there, so they could stay there, stay at the uso at the airport, get a hotel room, etc. see head spinning comment above. 

we finally decided, after quite some time, to send them on their original flight and we gave lexi uncle james number to call if she needed him. tito felt more comfortable staying at a hotel, and his parents own their own business so they've got the $$$.

turns out all the planning and debating and hair pulling was all for naught. their connecting flight was running behind as well and they made their flight to slc. ahhhhhh. all's well that ends well.