July 10--It always takes a first step...or flight.

After a whirlwind of a few days of getting things together for the trip and getting ready to be gone from home and from DANI, we were packed and ready. Forst and Louise, Joyce’s parents, drove to meet us in Lafayette and we took our car together to my brother, Brian’s in Brownsburg, where the car will stay for the time we are gone. Brian dropped us off at the airport. As we walked in, Joyce’s sister’s family, Sandi, Jon, Paul, and Sydney were just finishing checking their luggage, so timing couldn’t have been better.

Getting through security was a little bit of a hassle. We had ordered wheelchairs to help Joyce’s folks get through the long distances between ticketing and the gate more easily, and it had the nice side benefit of getting us to the front of the line for security. Forst is currently wearing two heavy knee braces while waiting for an evaluation from his doctors, and the metal detectors didn’t like them! Of course, getting in to look them over meant that they had to go to a “private” area to check them out. It was a bit of a hassle, but the eight of us survived and made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare.

Paul and Sydney were pretty pumped about getting to see the Grand Canyon from the air and got some pretty good pictures. They were both busy trying out their new cameras throughout the first few days of the trip.

The first leg of the trip was to LAX in Los Angeles. It was our first time through there and we understand why people tell us they don’t fly through there if they can avoid it. We had to change planes as well as terminals, which meant that we had to go through security again, and we’ve already explained how fun that was. Again we survived, and needed to get something to eat. Lines were long and slow, and the prices were high. Even though there were 2 hours between connections, we had to wolf down our food to make the boarding time for the next plane.

The final leg to Seattle to visit Joyce’s brother, Darrell and family was pretty easy, and we landed a little early. We found our luggage and the shuttle to the Hilton pretty quickly, and soon were standing in very nice accommodations, courtesy of good bidding at Priceline.com! This Hilton is very large, has an outdoor pool and hot tub and was a great place to spend the next few days. It was only about 20 minutes from downtown Seattle and Darrell and Kathy’s condominium. By 12:30 or so, we were in bed and ready for the real fun to begin. We tried hard to get our bodies to forget that it was 2:30 in Indiana. The important thing was that our family group of 8 would now swell to 12 the next day.