I must be crazy for taking three children, by myself, halfway across the country with a layover in the busiest airport in the world. Actually, at first it was quite doable. People were watching me in wonder, knowing that I had my hands full. I felt empowered, doing things that I know were near impossible. Then, during our layover, I learned that I was at the wrong gate and had to go back to the way I came. It had taken me 45 minutes just to get to the gate we were at and the plane was already boarding, and we had 25 minutes until take off. Panic! It was ugly. The next twenty minutes of my life were full of sweat, adrenaline, tears, panic and several shouts. We barely made it, but we did. Eli was incredible, running when I asked and Morgan stayed in the stroller. When we finally made it, Morgan crashed.
Update: On the return flight from Atlanta to El Paso, the flight attendant would not let us sit together. Every leg of our entire flight experience the attendant would allow us to until now. The reason being because they had 5 wheel chairs on the flight and it was too difficult to rearange seats around them. They told me that I could ask the person sitting next to us if she would mind changing, but that person was not obligated to. I was so worried and so I said a prayer in my heart to allow us to sit together. I finally went to enter the plain and the attendant told me I would have no problem switching with the passenger next to us because Eli somehow got bumped to first class. Of course, the passenger didn't have a problem switching. It is amazing how the Lord watched us every step of the way on the trip.
Grandpa goes on this hike atleast two times a week. He was all too happy to share it with Eli and Riley. Eli did a good time of keeping up and did a great idea of exploring in the woods. Rilely did ok, but fussed after a whild and Grandpa carried her on his shoulders. We put a hat on her becuase I thought it would be sunny, but not with all the tree cover. sometimes it gets so thick in the summer that the locals don't even go too deep in the woods. Grandpa told her that there is a bird might poop on her head and she took it to mean that a bird will poop on her head. She wouldn't remove the hat the entire time. 
It was quite a pleasant hike (about 1 mile loop) eventhough there are ticks and all the critters are larger than usual, hence the large daddy-long-legs. Eli had 3 ticks (although I think they were all the same one and we failed to completely brush it off.) We didn't want to scare the kids and so we just told them they were little bugs that bite. 
