Traveling to LAX. All by Myself. With Two Kids

Read my Pre-Trip Report here.

When the day finally arrived for our trip to California, I was ready to get out of Kentucky and into the California sunshine.  Rob had been in California for a week with the Air Force, sending daily weather updates.  The bags were packed and we were set to go!

Except this was your typical stressful non-rev travel day.  There is a daily direct flight from CVG to LAX that was showing open seats, but it is never a guarantee.  Since I was outnumbered by the kids, I was anxious the whole time that we wouldn't be all together.  This isn't the end of the world, they are good flyers.  But mommy has a little more relaxing time in the air if I have all my chicks with me.  

Our travel day was a Sunday and the flight is in the afternoon, which is nice because the kids and I were able to attend Mass, drop off the dog, and take our time getting to the airport.  If we didn't make the direct flight, my plan was to fly to SLC, get a hotel, then take an early morning flight to California from there.  

6 going on 16.

I don't know if I've shared this, but there is etiquette surrounding non-revving. We dress up and act respectfully (that's a given) but we also try to not talk about waiting for seats in the gate area.  This is a challenge for Ryan, who gets anxious about knowing when we will have seats.  Our solution has been to come up with a code word.  He isn't allowed to ask me if we have seats yet, but he is allowed to ask me if I packed "the code word."  For this flight, he was asking if I had "packed the Mickey ears."   Luckily, we got three Mickey ears, I mean seats, right next to each other.  Woo-hoo! We were off!

I didn't have a hotel booked for the first night, because we weren't sure if we would make it.  As soon as they turned on the wifi, I got busy looking for a relatively inexpensive (doesn't exist in LA) room for the three of us.  I found a room in Anaheim, close to the Disneyland Hotel, with free breakfast.  Score!  About two minutes after I booked the room, the wifi on the plane went down, never to return.  Luck was on my side that flight!

Every time, a selfie with my girl.

Actually, the most stressful part of this journey was the Uber ride from the airport to the hotel. I'm not a seasoned Uber rider, and Rob is usually the one who orders them.  The kids have ridden in an Uber once before, in Paris, with Daddy.  I know I should be more confident, but being the responsible parent is out of my comfort zone!  Of course everything went fine.  We had a lovely experience with LA traffic, but besides that, we were soon safely at our hotel. I'll spare you my stress about checking into hotels.  Seriously, for a world traveler I have anxiety about almost every step!

Our first view of the blue California sky.

The plan was for the kids and I to stay in the Anaheim hotel until the next morning, eat the free hotel breakfast, then Uber over to the Disneyland Hotel to meet Rob, who would be arriving from Northern California on a mid-morning flight.  Luckily, we were all very tired from traveling.  Otherwise we might have been too excited to sleep!

Continue reading about our journey here.