Written by Leah
If you know anything about us Benzick's then you know we don't do anything together but what there isn't a little craziness involved. So we shouldn't have expected anything different about our trip to Pennsylvania.
A few weeks ago, my brother, my mom and I decided to go to Penn for a quick visit. I was really looking forward to this trip because as much as I love my husband and kids and my other extended family members, I thought this trip would be really special and bring back memories of when me and Aaron were little and were in Penn with mom and the last time just the 3 of flew to Penn together was way back in 1989 when we were flying back to the 'mainland' from Guam.
We were scheduled for a Friday morning flight out of Dallas, but late Wednesday night my mom called me in extreme abdominal pain. She wanted to know if I thought maybe it was a kidney stone. Since I have gone through 3 of those myself I knew that it was something different since kidney stone pain is in the back. I told her that she should go to the ER and get it checked out since the last thing she would want to do is end up with extreme pain on the airplane. So she spent the better part of Wednesday evening in the ER and came home at 3:30 am with a diagnosis of Diverticulitis and they had just loaded her with lots of IV meds and sent her home with a prescription.
Another thing you need to know is that the women in the Moore line (me, my mom, and her mom Leona Moore) can't take lots of meds, not sure why but our bodies just don't handle them well and we usually end up even sicker than we started out. So around 6:30 am my dad had just left for work and my mom got up and knew she wasn't feeling real well so she grabbed her cell phone and called my dad and told him to call an ambulance because she was going to pass out. Luckily my dad was just at the gas station right around the corner and he raced home to find my mom laying on the ceramic tile floor with a pool of blood around her mouth. Sure enough she had passed out and fallen face first on the ceramic tile floor. My dad rushed her to the ER, which is just around the corner from their house, and they spent a good portion of Thursday at the ER and then to the dentist. She had to get stitches in her lip and when she fell on her mouth it had pushed back one of her front teeth and damaged two others beside it. X-rays showed that she had broken the roots to those 3 teeth and most likely they wouldn't be able to save the teeth. (recent update, after giving her teeth a little break and more dentist visits they've done more x-rays and they are going to give her teeth a go at saving them)
Her docter recommended that she didn't travel but even after all that pre-trip drama and the majorly swollen and bruised lip with stitches she still joined me and Aaron for our early flight Friday morning. Me and Aaron kept joking with her that she had 'a Botox appointment gone wrong'.
So, we all arrive at the airport on time Friday morning. Me and mom checked in our luggage and printed out our boarding passes which told us to go to gate B9. Aaron had to check in with TSA and his boarding pass said gate B10 ….. so we figured that since gate B9 and gate B10 are right next to each other we'd just kinda sit between the gates and we'd surely be able to hear when they called us to board our flight. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:50 am and our boarding passes said we'd be loading the plane around 8:20. So we get to the gates around 7:45 am. Aaron pulls out a book and me and mom pull out our gossip mags and get to reading all about Suri's big b-day bash and the latest in the Britney escapades. Around 8:10 me and mom decide that since we would be boarding soon we'd better go ahead and take a 'potty break', then we get back to our gate area and read some more.
Aaron must have really been enjoying his book and me and mom were enjoying a little down time to catch up on all the celebrity gossip. Around 8:42 Aaron looks up at us and we all realize at the same time that we should probably be on a plane by now. He goes up to the desk at gate B9 and asks them if they have already boarded our flight and the lady tells us that our flight is at gate B5 …….. I'm not sure how we were supposed to figure that out since none of our printed boarding passes said B5.
We start power walking the decent distance to gate B5 and were VERY happy to find that our flight had been delayed and would be taking off at 9:10 now. That was a huge blessing or else we most likely would have not made our flight. We laughed at ourselves afterwards about becoming so engrossed in our reading material …… Aaron said we were just anxious to get our vacation started with what better way to start than with some relaxing reading time.
But the craziness doesn't end there! As soon as we do get to gate B5 they call over the intercom for 'passenger Benzick' . Aaron goes to the desk to find out that he has to go to almost the other side of the airport to give TSA the key to his gun box. Even though you will not read it on any of the TSA instructions, nor does the lady at check-in tell you, but you have to tape the key to the box that you lock your gun in so TSA can check it out. I agree with Aaron, what is the purpose of locking the box if you have to tape your key to it?
Anyway, Aaron goes off and then mom has to go to the bathroom again. I decide to stay at gate B5 and wait. Mom comes back only to realize that now she can't find her boarding pass. Off we both go to the bathroom where she thinks she might have thrown it out with her paper towels after she washed her hands. Next thing I know, I'm searching through the trash in the airport bathroom, let me tell you I would only do this for my mother. Luckily we found the boarding pass, not in the trash but in her pocket!
When we get back to the gate they are now boarding our flight so me and mom end up on the plane without Aaron. Mom is getting nervous but for some reason I thought that if they are the ones holding Aaron up from getting on the plane then they would surely hold the plane for him. Not true ……. while Aaron was dealing with TSA he looked at his watch and realized it was almost 9:10 and he told the lady that his flight left soon so she looked up his flight number then told him to run because they won't hold flights for anyone. Right before they close the airplane doors Aaron arrived.
After all the craziness we were just happy that all 3 of us had made it onto the correct plane together.
Luckily our time in Pennsylvania went pretty smoothly. We enjoyed spending time with grandparents and Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. The weather turned out to be pretty good despite the prediction of rain the entire time we were going to be in Penn.
and our flight home was drama free! When we got off the plane in Dallas we were near gate B9 and we all looked at each other and laughed and said we should meet up there again sometime soon for some relaxing reading time!
It's fun to get away and catch up with family members that you don't get to see that often and to make memories, but I'm always glad to come home.