Bats or Fireworks?

            Happy forth of July! We were in Austin Texas this year for the 4th of July. We were planning on watching the fireworks this year but due to the dry weather in Texas there were no fireworks.  We decided to walk down to a bridge across the street from our hotel and watch the bats fly out from underneath a bridge instead.  There are around 1.5 million bats that fly out from underneath the bridge every evening around 8:30pm. They are said to consume between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of insects every night. 

            It was a pretty crazy sight, creepy if you think about it.There were so many of them you could hear the wind with flight.  Defiantly something I will never get to see, hear or smell again.  The crowds of people in the park and boats below faces all watching the sky and waiting, did make the evening feel a bit patriotic.  The bats take about 45 minutes to clear out from underneath the bridge.

Our first family flight!

              " Flight destination Austin Texas"  We got to the air port 2 hours early to get through security. Security was a breeze, leaving us 1.5 hours to wait for our flight. We waited an hour and then we were told our plane had mechanical problems and would not be going anywhere. We were able to get rerouted onto a different flight that landed in Houston and then on to Austin, but we were left with another 2 hours of waiting. I do have to mention my kids were being so good. On any other day sitting in an airport with 6 kids I would say "you are crazy, I would rather walk"  they were so good.  So we finally land in Houston rush across the airport to make it to our next flight. We make it with an hour to spare but then a huge storm hits. Apparently they have not seen it rain like this in 3 months. DELAYED AGAIN! We waited an extra hour for the storm to pass. After a really long day we arrive at our destination. We are all so exhausted and ready for bed. my 4 hours of sleep the night before had caught up with me. We wait for our luggage to come around in baggage claim. ( we only checked  Matt's bag) when the planes got switched we ended up on this tiny plane and they had to put my carry on and two others under the plane. So every ones luggage shows up except for mine.
I was so tired and proud of my kids I could not even cry at this point.  The airline said someone took it and they were calling her to tell her to bring it back. This other bag was left behind so she must have mistakenly picked up mine.
So long story short...I got my luggage back around 1pm the next day. So other than our bad luck we made it through 2 flights and 3 huge air ports without losing any of the kids. No one threw up or cried and no one was injured. I would say we did pretty good!  Crossing my fingers that our flight home goes a little smoother though.

Kids comments Tallon "are we flying yet"?  "when are we going to fly"?   Response "we are already flying"
      Avri "lets do this again" She loved flying

Abby looking out the window says "there is a storm ahead"!  Belle...She puts her stuff away as fast as she can and grabs my hand and braces herself.  I say "there is not a storm ahead we already flew through the patch of clouds".  Belle gets her book and crayons back out.   Abby "there is a big storm ahead" Belle puts all her stuff away again, grabs my hand and braces herself.  Me "Belle ...we are flying around the storm, you are fine"  Belle gets her stuff back out!
We did go through a storm on the smaller plane before Abby began to forcast. I thought I was going to get my arms squeased off between Abby and Belle.

Tallon " we are so high, are we going to get to see Jesus?"