I Have Hijacked My First Blog

Alright, so for the first time, this blog is not being written by your usual host, instead I, J-Man (btw, I hate that nickname) will be giving you a few thoughts.

Yesterday was my beautiful wife's 29th birthday.  I have only known her for six of those years but I can say, without a doubt, that she is the most amazing woman I have ever met.  She is more beautiful today than the day we met.  She is my number one encourager and my best friend.  She is a woman after God's heart and she is the world's greatest mother.  Many of you read this because you love her.  That is why I read it too (also I am checking to make sure she only says nice things about me).

My beautiful Princess, I love you with all my heart and I am glad to be with you on this adventure.

Happy Birthday.

You pay for what you get..... Air Travel

After being gone for a weekend with my husband to a place up north {more info to come on this later}, without my children, I might add {thanks Nana Dee}, the kids and I headed to Malibu for the week! Looking forward to getting out of the snow, and dreary days we've had at the Ranch, a change of scenery was much anticipated... Little did I know the adventure would begin at the XNA airport before even boarding our plane to California!

So this is the reason I blog today, to process my thoughts on a particular discount airline {read on only if you're willing to hear my rants and raves about our experience}.

First off when flying to LA we are currently purchasing tickets for three people {kids fly free until age two} so of course, we needed to take advantage of our opportunity to see Nana and Grandad before adding ticket number four {Big Guy turns 2 in June} and the arrival of baby number three. So for the first time I purchased airline tickets from Allegiant Airlines for two reasons alone. First off, they have the only direct flight to LAX you can get from our area and secondly, I thought I'd be flying alone {until Nana came last minute for the weekend to fly back with us}. And let me add this disclaimer, having flown for most of my life and experienced all sorts of different carriers, I decided years ago, Southwest Airlines is my airline of choice, thus I compare every flight experience to them {and their great with families, so that has just added bonus points over the years}.

Upon our arrival to the airport, the check-in guy offers so kindly to check my extra carry-on bag, free of charge... so thinking to myself, "wow, I have low-expectations for this experience, I am now impressed," I respond with "that's so kind, sure we'll do it." Only to overhear the other check-in person say, "we're looking at about 10:30 right now."  "10:30, is that our plane he's referring to, it's been delayed till 10:30," I say to our guy. "Yea, but I checked your carry-on bag for you, so you won't have as much to haul around with you while your waiting," he responds... "Oh, how friendly..." I think.

So, the time is currently 7:05, we were supposed to be leaving at 8:00, arriving in California at 9:00 {11pm our time}, but now, we won't be getting to Cali until well after mid-night... not a lot of fun with two toddlers...So we head through security and begin our 3.5 hr wait for that cattle-herder in the sky to arrive.

Alas, our flight arrives and we board {only to wait 35+minutes on the tarmac...}. Now, upon finding our seats, Peanut unfolds the tray-table only to discover a nice sharpie written note by the lovely lady who was there before us, expressing her desire to meet us {so please call her for a good time...}. As we get situated I begin to observe exactly why our flight may have been as cheap as it was.

- the seats don't recline {not just ours...  no ones seats}

- there is mashed cookie and trash in the aisle

- some one on the last flight decided in frustration to pick off her fake nails, and the evidence is left scattered on the floor in the neighboring row

- the bathrooms, were less clean than a gas station... no, let me be clear... it looked as though a boy just beginning potty-training had used the restroom a dozen times with no one giving him instruction on exactly how to "make it in the hole"

- did I mention that the lavatory broke half way through the flight, so then it turned into only ONE being available for the 270 victims of this airline

- the flight attendants are less than chipper to be man-handling any customer... hints the reason why I wouldn't even take the time to complain to customer service {instead I'll blog about it}.

So I digress... we have now proudly flown the "gas-station-in-the-sky." In the end, I guess I should have known that with the price tag it was more like purchasing an ice cream cone from McD's {a place you only want to spend a few minutes in} vs Chick-fila where you wouldn't mind hanging for the 3.5 hours you had to kill...  and at least it would be "their pleasure"... which for Allegiant, it was not theirs nor was it ours!