blessing day

We had decided to head up to Virginia for Memorial Day weekend to bless Beckham while Quinn's brother Miles was in town from LA. Then last week Quinn got really busy at work. He had to work late on Friday and needed to go in on Monday as well. So we canceled. About 5 minutes later we decided to throw caution to the wind and go anyway. We left early Saturday morning to catch a flight up. No problems. Quinn and Asher sat in coach...Beckham and I were in first class. Heaven!  Once we landed that is when things started going to hell. Beckham had a total freak out and was screaming so loud. I've never seen him like that. We finally made it to luggage after a serious hike (I'm not a fan of the layout of Dulles..why can't every airport be like DFW?). We saw our car seats right away but no suitcase. Quinn and I started searching. Picture me with screaming baby attached via baby bjorn. We looked and looked but saw nothing. A lady saw me looking and I showed her my bag claim ticket. That is when I noticed that it did not have our name on it and that the claim ticket was for a flight to Chicago. So right away I understood what had happened. Obviously, our suitcase was mis-tagged and was sent to Chicago by mistake. Notice how easy it is to come to that conclusion (this ease at which the conclusion is made comes into play later). I stood in lost baggage line with about 4 people in front of me all the while Beckham screamed and screamed. Quinn and Asher headed out front to find Cara (our ride) and install the car seats. Finally I couldn't take it anymore since everyone was just looking at me so I headed out to the car as well. Cara took Asher, Beckham and me home while Quinn went back to the lost luggage counter. Beckham finally calmed down and we made it home. Maybe 20 minutes later Quinn called and someone went to pick him up.

Now the chaos begins. First, let me state that I realize the airlines deal with thousands of bags a day and probably hundreds of lost bags, but seriously people, it shouldn't be this hard. The guy at the counter gave Quinn the impression that we wouldn't get our bag until Sunday at the earliest. Now mind you we were in town for 2 1/2 days and our bag was packed with Beckham's blessing outfit, Asher and Quinn's brand new suits for the occasion as well as my cutest post-partum church outfit. So I was really hoping they would get it back to us late Saturday night. It couldn't be that hard right, we knew what flight it was on? That flight hadn't even landed when we discovered the bag was mis-tagged. So I called back later that afternoon and talked to someone on the phone, it was like they hadn't even heard the part about Chicago. All that info about the flight, the name on the bag claim, etc...was no where to be found in the file. So I gave them as much info as I could since they had taken that claim ticket from us at the airport. Later that night Quinn and Miles decided to go back down to the airport to check on it again. Once again, it was like it was the first they had heard of it. But they left the airport feeling like they had made progress and that we would probably get our bags the next day. Miles even put in another phone call later that night and was told that the bag had been located in Chicago. So first thing Sunday morning (still holding out hope that we would get our bags before church) I called for a status update. I was told on the phone that our bag had been scanned in Dulles this morning. I told Quinn this so he and his dad when to the airport to find it. It was not there. They talked to a lady who once again acted like this Chicago info was news to her. She called Chicago and located our bag that was in unclaimed baggage. No one had ever been looking for it. She said it would be on the next flight out and arriving at 4 that day. Well, that was too late for the blessing. I cried (I have to say, I'm proud that I only cried once). Around 5 o'clock that evening Quinn went to the airport to get the bag. Guess what? Yup, not there. It didn't make that flight! It will be there at 9 pm. One more trip back to the airport and we finally get our luggage around 10:30 Sunday night. Just in time for our return trip at 8 am on Monday. Ridiculous.

In the midst of all this chaos, Beckham was given a name and a blessing by his father. That was what was really important. It was a very sweet blessing and a special day for our family. We owe a big thanks to all our extended family who clothed us. Both of my sister-in-laws Cara and Linnea gave me a church outfit. Linnea even went out and bought a cardigan for me to wear. Quinn's brother Jason loaned him a suit. Cara dressed Asher and let Beckham wear the blessing outfit all of her boys have worn. It really was a fantastic day. I don't have any pictures of my own but I'm depending on my bro-in-law Jason for the shots he took. I just don't have them yet. In the meantime, here is one that Cara took.