Air Travel

So, we are far less than seasoned fliers. In fact, we are terrible at it! Let me share the experience with you:
From Dulles to Austin: We arrived an hour and a half before the flight and printed our boarding passes at the kiosk, as we had decided not to check our bags to make things quicker. So we get into the security line, Thom with two luggages and his man purse, me with a stroller holding toddler and a sling holding infant, with a backpack on the stroller. No, we weren't travelling very light. I realized at this point that we did indeed have liquids in our bag and had to get the baggies, dig through the luggage and bag the liquids. We then were selected to go through the very slow line, where we were sniffed, everything, including stroller, went through the x-ray machine, then everything was hand checked. At this point our plane has begun boarding, but we are through security and almost there so no biggie, right? Wrong, we have to shuttle to our terminal and run to the gate where they have already closed the plane. Luckily after a few choices words to us and one other passenger, they got us on. And the kids behaved fairly well.
From Austin to Dulles via New York: We got to the airport an hour and a half early and breezed through security, so we sat around for an hour. Everything was going smoothly until about twenty minutes before landing in New York when I realized they hadn't given us boarding passes to get to DC. Well, not a big deal, except that we only had 40 minutes between flights and 20 of those minutes we spent flying around New York waiting to land. So we ran in the direction of the terminal they sent us. Well, we obviously can't read signs well, while at a dead run with a stroller and sling holding to babies and two pieces of luggage at about midnight, because we ended up outside the secure area. So we ran to the ticket counter to see a line of about 150 people. Luckily, a lady who was getting off, walked us to someone who said we had been bumped from the flight, but was able to print us boarding passes anyway. We ran through security, jumped on the shuttle to our terminal, which the driver thankfully sped immediately to our terminal, where we arrived at our gate at the final boarding call. We arrived safely home at one in the morning.
Round Two:
DCA to Austin via Houston: We left home two and a half hours before our flight. We arrived at the airport and parked in thirty minutes. All is going very well! We had decided to take one luggage, no stroller, one baby carried, one baby in a sling, one diaper bag, and one man purse. Much lighter this time. So we get out of the car, begin getting babies and bags situated and it hits me: I never put the luggage in the car! So we are headed out for the weekend with only the clothes we are wearing.
What a bone headed move! Although getting through the airport was much easier! We went to the Watermelon festival where it poured and had no dry clothes to change into. We did wash our clothes that night and wore them the next day. Of course this meant we wore shorts and t-shirts to church.
Both flights went off without any problems, except for a bit of cranky children (and parents) and a terrible lack of camera(it was the other thing in the forgotten bag). During take-off the views of DC were awesome!
From Austin to DCA via Houston: All went well through Austin. Upon getting to our gate in Houston, though, we look out the window to see the mosquito that we get to fly to DC in.

So, flying is not our thing.