3: our reunion story

As I mentioned before, Craig came home on leave earlier this week, and I was down in the city to pick him up at the airport.

Unfortunately, the day didn’t go by without a few glitches!  The following will probably be kind of confusing, especially since I can’t share dates or specific locations over there because of OPSEC.  Just remember that time in the middle east where he was coming from is 8.5 hours ahead of us and England (Heathrow airport) is 5 hours ahead.

Glitch #1: Craig was supposed to fly out of the middle east at 1:45AM local time, but his flight ended up being delayed by an hour and a half.  As a result, they arrived at Heathrow airport with only an hour to go before their next flight.  More than enough time, right?  Wrong!  Supposedly it is the Air Canada/Heathrow/European policy that they stop checking in for flights one hour before take off time, and the gate closes half an hour before.  So by the time the soldiers arrived, they weren’t allowed on the flight they were booked on.  Even though it sat there at the gate on the tarmac.  For an hour. 

Glitch #2: Craig tried to get a hold of me to let me know he wouldn’t be arriving at the airport at 11am as originally planned.  Unfortunately, his call was coming through at 4:30am here in Canada, and I was in the middle of trying to sleep through a hot, humid night in T.O. with the AC cranked and didn’t hear my cell phone, so he had to get a message to me through a family friend.  Since he didn’t know how long it would take before he could find a flight and I wasn’t able to talk to him directly, he wanted me to just go home and he would take a taxi or limo home when he got in.  I’m not good at following directions, and I was already in Toronto hanging out at my Grandpa’s house, so I decided to stick it out for a while.

Glitch #3:  Craig was eventually rebooked on a flight that would arrive in Toronto at 6pm, however it was connecting through Ottawa with an hour layover, adding even more time to his trip.  Unfortunately, Ottawa was having severe thunderstorms that day and as a result his flight was redirected.  To Toronto.  Awesome, right?  Nope!  Despite what Air Canada told me (causing me to drive to the airport to pick him up and walk around panicking for an hour when I couldn’t find him) they made everyone on the flight sit there in the plane in Toronto airport while they refueled and waited for the weather to clear up in Ottawa.  They then took off again for Ottawa.  The problem?  The weather and diversion to Toronto meant that his flight BACK TO Toronto had been cancelled.  So by the time he got back to Ottawa, he had to wait for an 8pm flight to Toronto.  Somehow, despite the Ottawa-Toronto flight being less than an hour in length, the flight didn’t get to Toronto until 9:40pm. 

I had managed to stay in contact with Air Canada throughout the day and with his eTicket number was able to find out the changes to his flights.  I was still nervous waiting their at night – after a day of so many mess ups, I was worried that someone along the way had gotten their information wrong!

So my poor hubby was travelling from 5:15pm (our time) one day until 9:40pm the next and came home pretty exhausted.  Not exactly the reunion I was picturing, but sweet nonetheless.  The second he walked through the doors, I ran up to him and hugged him (and started crying – it was an emotionally frustrating day for me) and we just stood that way for awhile while people continued to pass by us.

As I was walking around the airport looking for him and trying to figure out why he wasn’t there when Air Canada had distinctly told me they were letting them off the plane AND Pearson Airport then paged him over the loud speakers to have him call me, I was getting a lot of cramping in my abdomen.  I don’t think it was contractions – just strain on my tummy muscles from so much tense walking around!  Wouldn’t it have made for a crazy story though if we had met up at arrivals and then my water had broken?  Maybe not a good crazy!

So I am still pregnant and waiting, but we are just enjoying our time together in the mean time.m  We’re slowly putting the finishing touches on the baby’s room (between trips to auto dealerships to look for a new (to us) vehicle) and hopefully will be able to do a final reveal in the next few days.  Unfortunately a few items will be missing from the room as they haven’t come through yet (Do not order anything from Cymax!  They have the worst customer service and I’ve been waiting for an item I ordered in May – I just checked their site and they don’t expect it until after September 30th!  Not that they’ve contacted me to tell me that or anything).

Tonight I’m making some muffins with my mix, so hopefully I’ll have a recipe for you tomorrow!