an airport story.

On Thursday night, the Gilbert siblings hopped on a flight to Washington.

Mom and Dad Gilbert drove out a few days before us, and they were nice enough to buy all of the kids plane tickets so we didn't have to drive! ;)

After parking our car in the airport parking lot, we jumped onto the shuttle.

As soon as we stepped on, I turned to Taylor frantically and asked, "Tay, did you grab the camera bag out of the car!?"

He gave an exasperated sigh and answered, "No..."

Then he quickly grabbed our suitcase off of the shuttle so we could jump back off before the door closed.

Seth (Taylor's brother) stayed on the shuttle and went on ahead.

As soon as we jumped off of the bus and the bus doors closed, I noticed that the camera bag was on my shoulder the whole time! haha!

I burst into laughter, held it up, and said, "Found it!"

Taylor just stared at me.

He didn't think it was very funny....hahaha.

I kept telling him not to worry--we had 45 minutes until our flight left!

Plenty of time.

When we got to the counter to check our bags, the desk attendant nervously looked at our ticket and said, "They already finished boarding.  I don't even know if this bag will make it on the flight."

What!? There was still 35 minutes until our flight took off!

How could they have finished boarding!?

Taylor gave me the "I-can't-believe-you-forgot-your-camera-bag-and-put-us-behind-15-minutes" look.

You know the one?

He turned to me and said, "Not so funny anymore, eh?"

The attendant took our bag, gave us our tickets, and said, "Run. Now. You might not make it."

So off we ran.

Of course security took forever.  The lady in front of us was trying to jam her stroller through the bag-x-ray-checker-thing.

It kept spitting it back out, and she kept jamming it through.

At this point, Taylor and I were both stressed.

We kept trying to call Seth and Regan who were already through checkout, but neither of them would answer their phone.  

Did they really already leave!?

Finally, we got through security, and we started booking it.

I, of course, was in flats that made it extremely difficult and painful to run through the airport in.

I thought that I was being smart wearing them--you know, because you have to take your shoes off when you go through security.  But apparently, my foresight wasn't quite good enough.

We got the funniest and most sympathetic looks running through that airport. haha

My bags (camera bag included ;)) were ramming into my body with every stride I took, I was constantly telling Taylor to slow down through my huffing and puffing, and I had a pained expression smeared across my face due to my newly forming blisters.

Taylor finally got ahold of Seth, who told us to hurry--they had already finished boarding.

So we ran even faster.

And my feet hurt even more.

We finally run up to our gate, and I run straight to the ticket lady, completely out of breath, and held my ticket out to her.

Then I hear Taylor behind me saying, "Kelli, stop! Kelli!"

I turn around to see Seth and Regan, calmly sitting in the airport chairs, and dozens of people staring at me.

Regan and Seth burst into laughter and say, "We were kidding! They have barely started boarding!"

I just stared at them, with my hand still holding out my ticket to the ticket-lady, and said, "I'm going to kill you guys."

Everyone at the terminal started laughing.

While I am glad we could provide everyone with entertainment for the night, my feet nor lung capacity will ever be the same.

We still don't know why the check-in lady told us to run--I knew they hadn't finished boarding!

But regardless, it turned into one crazy experience and one very good exercise.

So, if you're wondering, we did safely make it onto our flight.

With time to spare.

I guess I should thank the camera bag for this one. ;)