Little Ones

The best part of this trip....the little ones. I've had sooo many little kiddos on our flights and mostly sitting in the last row. They usually behave soo much better than adults. I've always said I would rather have 76 five year olds rather than 76 adults. Sounds crazy to many but it would be the most well behaved flight ever in history I think.

The first round trip we did was to Reno and on the way back I had two small ones (5 years and 2 years old) non revs traveling with their mom who works for Delta. The little two year old girl sat next across the row from her mom and brother all by herself. We strapped the baby doll in next to her and had her all settled. Not once did she take her seat belt off. It was her first time flying and she was soo excited when we took off and kept repeating, "we're flying away!". So dang cute. She even sang twinkle twinkle little star to me!

That same night we had an Indian family sitting in the back. The two little kids were sitting on one side with the parents on the other. The little boy was 6 and the little girl was 4. They were soo smart! She was sitting there looking over the Safety Card making up rules and the little boy was asking me tons of questions about the aircraft and the flight. Well then we had this baseball team on board. I really dislike when we have teams on board and they are all sitting together because then they play off of one another. They had a hard time with rules of the seat belt, phones, and keeping seats and tray tables up. Even during the safety announcement I had to stop because they were being too loud. It's disappointing when they set such a poor example for their team and school. Well one young man decided to tell me that his phone doesn't turn off. RIGHT! So this little Indian 6 year old boy sitting right behind this kid says "All electronics have a power button. You need to listen to the nice flight attendant.". LOVED IT. His parents didn't but he got told by a 6 year old!!! Poor little sister threw up on landing though. They were awesome!

This morning coming back from Las Vegas I had another 5 year old sitting with his mom. They were connecting to SLC to MCI (Kansas City!). Although he loves flying he didn't want to go to Kansas City because that's where all the tornadoes are! His mom says he watches the storm chasers show too much. Funny how they pick up on little things like that. He was worried a tornado was going to hurt them while they were there. I told him that I lived there for 25 years and had never seen one. It seemed to help a bit.

We now have the Delta plastic wings for the little ones and they love them. They get soo excited about having them on and being like us. I normally, once we have landed let them talk on the interphone system so they can hear themselves over the speakers. They love that. Unfortunately, it's been really bumpy so a lot of them have gotten sick on landing the last few days. Now we have to fly United and they have nothing for kids. Kinda sucks, but those kids made my first two days of my trip. Ready to go home soon though!

A New Sweet Tea

One of the best things about Texas....SWEET TEA!!! LOVE IT! But I don't love the sugar and nor does my body. It definitely doesn't go well with Weight Watchers!

But there is this new commercial for this water enhancer called MIO.

I don't do well with plain water. Infact, I can't even stand for it to be room temperature. I like it to be flavored and ice cold.

And since you have to squeeze the little bottle you get complete control over just how flavored you want it. It's like the new best thing compared to actual sweet tea....and easier on my waistline!

So they're are in the drink selections by the crystal light and kool-aid and they are about $3.48.

Happy Drinking!

Allergies?!

Last weekend I wasn't feeling well. I thought I was just getting worn out from flying all week and then working at DSW. We had a full weekend from the time I landed until going back to SLC. I was starting to get a small cough and it just progressed from there. By Tuesday morning when I woke up in Cleveland I was feeling awful. I called in giving SkyWest PLENTY of time to get a flight attendant there to finish my trip and I started working my way home. I sat in the CLE airport for 4 hours before getting on a flight to MSP. Rushed from A to F in that airport and made it on the wide open flight to AUS. Josh picked me up and home we went. Well first he made me eat dinner at Cheddar's to make sure I had SOMETHING in me before taking meds and getting in bed. He was nice enough to bring me medicine and vitamins and even some green tea. Yesterday, I was still feeling pretty crappy. Although last night I started getting better. I still went to the urgent care center here to get something to make me feel better and a note for work so it won't count against me.

And they tell me I'm probably allergic to Oak and gave me a script for steroids. Eewww! I've never in 29 years been allergic to anything. Well there was that one medicine that they gave me after one of my surgeries that knocked me right back out instead of waking me up but besides that.....NOTHING. Apparently, even according to the pharmacist it's an Austin thing. So I'm considering getting an allergy test just to make sure that it is Oak for sure and not anything else that is in season! So I'll carry on with my coughing, headache, achiness, sore throat, etc.....

SouthWest Airlines

Watch Video: HERE  and HERE and HERE


What can we learn from this?
1. Listen to the safety announcement! Regardless of how often you fly the information is important every time. There are many different airplanes and airlines and all operate differently. Knowing where your oxygen masks fall from and locating that spot above your seat is vital! Knowing what you need to do with the mask is vital is as well. Some are different. Some you pull down firmly, some you have to remove a clip. This is important to know so that you can get it on quickly and start the flow.


When there is a rapid decompression like this it's vital to get your masks on immediately. You have less than 30 seconds of usefull conscienceness. The 30 seconds needs to be about you. Worry about the person next to you AFTER you have your masks on. This is also why it's very important that there is an adult next to each child. If not then I always make sure to take the demonstration masks and show them one on one how it works and what to do.


2. Keep your damn seatbelt on! Yes, it's uncomfortable. We realize that. But keep it on but just loosen it. That way should something like this occur you aren't scrambling to find your seatbelt and simply just need to tighten it. It's soo important. It's not just for turbulence. Many flight attendants have been hurt or even killed because they were sucked out of an airplane (see 2nd and 3rd video)


Common sense. If your plane rips open you have to understand that your crew is doing things behind the scenes that they have been trained on doing. If something like this happens your pilots are going to get down as fast as possible to a safe altitude where you won't even need the oxygen mask. When you have a rapid decompression such as the one that Southwest Airlines experienced the pilots did exactly what they are trained for and went from 36,000 feet to 11,000 feet, which only takes a couple of minutes. Yes you will have that roller coaster feeling in your stomach but it's not you crashing. It's you making an emergency landing quickly.Yes we have training on this and we're prepared for the unexpected and while passengers are not it's soo important to listen to us. While you thinkIt's not about power it's about safety. Some of us just care more than others but yes I will pick on you until you follow instructions because in the end I would rather have that then your dead body being pulled off of my airplane.

Barely

All 3 of us in my last crew were commuters. Me from Austin to SLC, the captain from Pocatello, ID, and the first officer from Cedar City, UT (granted it's still Utah it's still a 3 hour drive or a short flight).

It was day four and I just wanted to go home sooo bad! I was constantly thinking about how I could get out of my trip! Hahaha but I just sucked it up and continued flying. We got up early from our haunted hotel in Rapid City, SD and flew to Minneapolis. We got to the runway and had some error messages pop up that they had to reset. It took another 15 minutes or so but we still landed on time. We had a short layover before our nest two flights home and of course it included a swap of airplanes. We got all boarded up and the first officer realized that his crew oxygen mask in the flight deck wasn't working properly so we had to call maintenance. I was really getting nervous. We were suppose to land in SLC at 2:20 PM and the flight to Austin departed at 2:35.....

ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE AIRPORT OF COURSE!!!

Well this was only pushing us further back on time. I was thinking at this point that there was no way that I was going to make this flight and I would have to sit in the airport for SIX hours before leaving SLC and arriving at midnight. I wasn't excited. We were able to make up some time and still landed early back in Rapid City. I asked the ground crew there if we could quick turn our flight and they were supportive of that! So we ended up making up soo much time that we landed in SLC 22 minutes early!!!!

My crew was awesome and understand the importance of getting home when you're a commuter. So they did my seat belts and trash for me to that I could run to the other end of the airport. Only to find out that my flight was delayed 20 minutes. It was nice to get a chance to catch my breath before getting on the flight. I had been up super early so it was a chance to catch a small nap as well.

It's nice when you get a crew that understands that you commute and help you out. It's harder than what most people think. It doesn't get any easier each time you do it but a bit more stressful. I'm definitely looking forward to hopefully some day not having to commute this much!