It was Friday Jan. 21st - I couldn't believe 2 weeks had flown by so quickly. Jared was set to come home on the 11:15pm flight from Oregon. He would be on the Intel shuttle which meant that it would be landing at the Williams Gateway Airport. I got a very kind visiting teacher to come to my house at 11pm so I could go and pick up Jared without having to wake up the kids. Good news, Jared was able to sneak on an earlier flight (which he won't ever do again because he can get in trouble and it's just not worth the risk) so he told me he would be arriving at 7:30pm now! I was stoked, I was going to take the kids and surprise them by picking up their daddy!
It was a long day that day. At the last minute I was asked to put together a funeral program which took most of the day to do (in the interest of time cause this could possibly be the longest story ever I will shorten everything), a friend picked up Emma early from school for me so we could head out to a dance convention in downtown Phoenix, we left late because I was working on the program, made it to Dobson and the 202 and decided to forget the convention, go home work on the program some more and then pick up Jared and then after he could hang out with the kids while I got everything ready for Saturday, cut up fruit for the funeral, etc (I had big plans you see).
To be a nice wife I thought I would quickly give the boys a bath so they would smell extra nice for their dad and put them in their jammies so they would be extra squishy when he saw them. We got in the car and followed the directions he gave me to the airport.
I was in the right area but it took me some funky way and I headed the wrong way and knew I was heading away from the airport so I called my dad and he told me to turn around and head back. I did just that. I didn't know what I was looking for but I saw a big hanger with a Greyhound bus in front of it and me and dad both knew that wasn't it so I kept driving for a minute and there it was - the departure and arrival terminals of the airport.
I drove ever so slowly past the front of the arrival gate to see if he was outside and he wasn't. The parking lot was weird and I couldn't figure out how to get in, but I did see another parking lot so I headed over there. In front of each spot were signs reading "Hertz 24", "Budget 8", etc - so I realized I was in a rental car parking lot. On my way out of the parking lot I saw one open spot with no sign above it - could this really be a vacant spot - sure enough, so I parked there and we hurried inside to greet daddy!
All these people were getting off the planes and we were standing there anxiously awaiting his big arrival. The people kept coming off and still no dad. My camera was in my hand, turned on and ready to snap that first precious picture. Still no dad. Now all the people had quit coming off the plane and they were all gathered around the luggage area. An announcement was made overhead to be patient, 3 planes all landed at the same time and your luggage would arrive. I thought, maybe because of that Jared's plane had to taxi for a few minutes. We waited. Waited some more. Now the airport was empty minus a few workers and us.
I checked my phone multiple times to see what time it was, I tried sending my friend a text to complain about how I was annoyed I was there at the airport with no Jared when I had a million things I could be doing at home. My text didn't go through. I couldn't figure out why when I had full bars. Oh well, no biggie.
At 8:20pm I had 3 texts come in at the exact same time...
Jared: Plane just landed, should be getting off in 5-10 minutes.
Jared: My phone isn't working, use my work phone.
Joel V: Do you want me to pick up Jared tonight so you don't have to load up the kids?
I tried responding to them, but they never went through, again, oh well I don't know why, but I had full bars.
Still no Jared. Now I was really starting to get mad. We had been there an hour and if Jared forgot to give me the right time because of the time change I was going to beat him, but of course I couldn't because he wasn't there. The kids are starting to go crazy now because we had been sitting at the airport for an hour and still no sign of Jared and it is now past their bedtime.
9:00pm now, yep you guessed it, still no Jared. Now the kids are really going crazy, Emma had to get up at 6am the next day and I am so frustrated right now.
9:20pm now and I am done. "Kids, lets go get in the car and wait for daddy and we can read books or something." We get to the car, they are roaming around everywhere inside and driving me nuts. I got this nagging feeling I needed to just get out of the airport and drive around and wait until he called me. I wasn't worried about him because I got a text an hour ago so I knew he had landed I just wasn't sure what the freak the problem was and why they weren't letting him off the plan, but he would get an ear full from me :)
9:30pm I finally pull out of the airport rental car parking lot and drive for about a minute when my phone starts ringing, I look at the name and it's Jared, I answer with a very annoyed sounding voice on purpose, "Hel-lo!!!"
Jared: "Where are you??????"
Me: "AT THE FREAKING AIRPORT FOR 2 HOURS LIKE YOU TOLD ME TO BE!!! WHERE ARE YOU?"
Jared: "I have been here for 2 hours and can't find you and now I am in Joel's car driving around trying to find you and your phone is going straight to voicemail"
(OK I will spare you all the pointless details and give you the run down of what happened)
Jared got off the plane at 7:30pm just like he was supposed to. Apparently there is some magical special force field around the Williams Airport so it looks like your t-mobile phone works because you have the full bars, but your phone actually does not work at all. Jared got off the plane and looked for me and couldn't find me. He tried calling me, but of course I didn't answer because unbeknowst to me, my phone didn't work. He started walking around looking for me and couldn't find me. He searched all the parking lots EXCEPT the rental car parking lot because why in the world would I park in there. He never went inside the arrival terminal because if my car wasn't there why would I be there?
(the rest of the details are how I know them, if they are wrong the parties involved are allowed to correct me)
At 8:30pm Jared called Joel and asked if they knew where I was and they didn't and then Joel said he would come and pick him up and they would figure out something from there. Jaime tried calling me, but again, I didn't answer. She went over to my house and got the code from Jared to make sure something didn't happen to me in there and of course once she got inside, the house was empty. She then tried calling Denise to see if she knew where I was. Denise didn't answer. She then called Lisa to see if she knew where I was and to get Denise's other number. Then she called my dad. He was not worried because he had talked to me and knew I made it to the airport. She then started driving to the airport while calling hospitals.
While the Votaws were each headed out to the airport separately, Jared decided to call Stephanie and Stephanie knew something had to be wrong because I was talking to her on the phone while I was driving out there. As soon as she hung up the phone she grabbed her cell and keys and ran out the door and told Blake she would tell him what was going on while she was in the car. She got in her car and took the route she thought I might have taken. She called Blake and told him what was going on while she was in the car and he became concerned as well when neither of them could reach me so he also got in the car and had taken a different route.
Denise was in the movies with her kids and when she got out she saw 3 missed calls from Jaime and knew immediately something had happened with me. She called her back and then Chad had called her right then and she said something happened to Carol! He told her to slow down and he would take the kids and then she was off on her way to the airport as well.
More time had passed now and now my mom was starting to get worried. She called my brother who was on duty at the time and he looked up the police reports and there was nothing about me in them, but he was about to head out and start looking for me as well.
Count them, 5 separate cars out there looking for us all while we were sitting inside the airport waiting for Jared.
I bet you are wondering how Jared and I missed each other aren't you?! Intel has a fabulous shuttle with it's own fabulous hanger. It doesn't share the airport terminal with the other planes, it wants to be its own thing. It's just this giant hanger - that's all - no sign on it that says Intel, no nothing. As I drove past it I asked my dad, would it be this big hanger looking thing with the Greyhound bus in front of it?! Nope, that was not the airport - it must have been a bus terminal (come to find out now that is the bus that takes Intel employees from work to the airport) - not even the bus said Intel on it!
As you can see, we just couldn't catch a break at all!! All the stars were aligned just right so we would miss each other.
Back to when Jared finally got me on the phone, he asked me my crossroads, Thistle and Avery. Luckily, Joel had GPS in his car so he pulled up the map and found me and they came to get me and while driving to me Jared called off the search party.
He never meant for 5 people to drop everything and hop in the car and come looking for us. Wow. What amazing friends we have. I can not believe the love they must have for us to do that. It meant everything to us. We love them all so very much.
Joel finally pulled up to us at 10pm and the kids were squealing with excitement! They couldn't get out of the car fast enough. Joel looked at me and said, "don't be mad, I know you are frustrated, but its not his fault and no one is mad that we spent the night looking for you guys, everyone was happy to do it!"
The kids excitement did make everything better. You would have thought they hadn't seen their dad in years. As we are driving home, Tyler says, "dad, you come home with us?" Yes! Dad is coming home with us finally!! (well, at least he did for 44 hours.)
I guess "brother" is their new word. I love it. I also dig the hand holding - I know I post these pics a lot, but they really just melt my heart. Brother. Simple. Sweet. Forever.
This week the boys are on a Spiderman kick. They keep watching all 3 movies over and over again. In Spiderman 3 the bad guy says, "What the he!!" and then right after that each twin repeated it, but Eli was quick to say, "boys, we don't say that word!" What a good big brother he is.
Ivan Koumaev - hip hop - Emma told me after his class (which all the kids loved because he was funny and super nice) "Mom, you know how I love hip hop, well you probably think I loved this class, I didn't. IT WAS HARD!" Jared and I ran into him outside and told him and he was cracking up and said it can't all be baby steps :)
Chebar Williams - ballet - she did an amazing piece to music from the new Alice In Wonderland and it was pretty cool to see that type of dance to that song - never would have imagined it
Anthony Morigerato - tap - this was great because he taught Emma things she hadn't learned yet and got her to be brave enough to get up in front of everyone and do it. He is going to break the world record this summer for the most taps in a minute
Travis Wall - contemporary - he was great - Emma knew him the most before coming to this competition just because of TV. He was really nice and sweet, but I have my own bone to pick with him about unfair judging, but I won't get into that on here cause I don't want to taint any one's opinions of him :)
Kim McSwain - jazz - my favorite of the whole weekend. She is a mom. She gets it. She worked with the kids twice this weekend and the 2nd class she spent half of it talking to them. She talked to them about crying after they lost the audition and how when they go out and see their parents and they start crying that all it does is break our hearts and there is nothing we can do to fix it, she told them when kids make fun of you - give them a hug and tell them they have nice shoes on because all it means is they don't have good self esteem so they are picking on you, and finally, when you are trying out and you mess up or forget the routine - own it, make it look like you did it on purpose and who cares! She really cared for these kids and wants them to succeed and it really meant a lot to me as a mom.
After it was over with we headed home and had an hour and 20 minutes to eat dinner and head out to take Jared back to the airport. Lucky for us, Grandma and Grandpa Rodgers came by and surprised us with a visit and kept the kids at home watching a movie and eating popcorn so I was able to take Jared to the airport with no tears from anyone!
Emma and Anna right before Hip Hop class...
Emma got brave in front of her group of 100 kids and thought she knew the new tap routine pretty good so her and 2 others got up and did it in front of everyone, I was so impressed she was brave enough to do that!
Sunday lunch break. We felt really bad for going to the convention on Sunday so that was our last time.
Stretching before "Money" from Cabaret! (this dance always scores high - we love it!)
"Neverfully Dressed" from Annie!
#2 - when you go into the boys room to get them out of their cribs and you see Tyler completely naked sucking on the tag of his blanket and his diaper thrown in the corner and weird yellow crumbly stuff laying all over the crib and you and Eli wonder what that is?! Well, that's just the inside of his pee soaked diaper that he decided to shred everywhere :)
