We left on the 20th to fly up to North Dakota for Christmas, landing just before midnight. We were supposed to have a 3 hour layover in Minneapolis, which would have been nice, since we normally have to go from one end of the airport to the other to make our connection, and usually only have about 30 minutes to do it in. Delays made it an hour layover, but we had a close gate change. The challenge this time? We landed just as all the food places were closing and ended up spending $22 for 2 cookies, an apple, a muffin, 2 salads and 2 drinks. Bismarck was cold the first two days because of some really strong wind, but it was pretty nice after that. Wyoming wasn't cold until the last morning, where the -7 degrees came in. After 45 minutes of warming up the car, Rick still had to use the ice scraper on the windows and we had to drive slow for awhile when we started since the wheels had frozen into their parked shape. Flying back was also an adventure. We sat in the plane on the runway in Bismarck on New Year's Eve while Northwest tried to get all the luggage loaded and then tried to figure out how to get the weight balanced (the same problem they had leaving Houston on our trip up). In the end, we had our usual 30 minute sprint from one end of the Minneapolis airport to the other and got to our gate with just enough time for Rick to take Jacob to the bathroom while Brandon and I got snacks from the vending machine and then get on the plane. Yep, our holiday dinner was crackers and cookies. The boys certainly weren't complaining. We weren't even sure that our luggage would make it onto our flight but we hung out at the airport anyway (literally, since it took almost an hour from the time we landed for any luggage to make an appearance) and were rewarded with our suitcases. Yay. Then a drive thru for some food and home just in time for midnight.
