"i heard seattle gets alot of rain"

trying and failing to get home for the holidays.

our flight was at 4pm. we left our apartment at 10:30am, because of the roads, and we were relying on a bus to get us there. we had to drag our suitcases through the snow. we even put them on garbage can lids to push them down the hills.

apparently, seattle doesn't understand the concept of "plowing" and "salting" roads.


waiting for the bus, which surprisingly showed up!

the bus was jammed with hopeful travelers.


the bus pulled in to the airport at noon, just as it started to snow.
and it never stopped snowing.


at this point, the magical board of info is saying that our flight is on time, so we are still happily optimistic that we will get to nj.. despite the fact that other airlines were cancelling the rest of their flights that day.
since seattle never gets much winter weather each airline had 1 de-icing truck. as their trucks were breaking down or running out of de-icing fluid, they were calling it quits.


then they start changing the gate on us. three times. b11 to b3 to s12 (the satellite gate that we had to take the train to) then back to b9.
this is not a good sign.

contintental started cancelling flights, too. people who got stuck on friday were still stuck. however, they kept telling us that OUR plane was going to leave. we were told our deicing truch broke, but they said a new de-icing truck was showing up at 7.

meanwhile the giants game came on. we were third in line for the truck. then got bumped to second because another flight was called off. it's now 7:30 and we're going to be loading because the truck is working on the plane ahead of us. tie game! giants force overtime! we'll be boarding in half an hour. giants win! we're getting on the plane!

so we get on the plane. it's around 9:00.

buuuut.. how come we aren't going anywhere? where is that deicing truck??
we were told it went back to the shed for more fluid. bad sign. they put on the tvs, passed out water. then 10:50, our flight gets shut down. everyone out!

there's announcements in the airport that if you live in seattle to go home. there's already people camped out. our luggage doesn't come out until 1:00am.
they're dumping the luggage of the last eight flights on one carousel. there's no flights out until the 27th. by cancelling us so late, i think they killed our chances of getting home before christmas, as anything that was open got snatched up by people that got cancelled much earlier.

after the scariest taxi ride ever on the unplowed roads of seattle, we make it back to the apartment.. 16 hours later.

at least someone was happy that we were still in seattle.

and that is our long, dramatic way of saying see you after xmas nj!
we will be home the 27th and hope to see
as many friends and family as we can!!!