One sure fire way to get out of your comfort zone is to travel with kids because all of the planning, prepping, and praying isn’t going to guarantee a smooth ride. 

For our trip since it’s off season there was no direct flight available. Our agent at AAA found us a flight with Air France departing LAX and arriving France, mthen a short 2 1/2 hour lay over until we departed France to Rome. This was my second most terrifying part after packing. I made sure to buy some new items for the girls to play with as well as the kindle just in case and load those items into our carry on bag. 

Here’s some pics of us heading to our gate and the sweet spot we found where the girls could play and let out some energy Here’s some pics of us heading to our gate and then the sweet spot we found where the girls could play and let out some energy before boarding. 

Oh, so one thing about the flight. A couple days before departure, my husband paid a little extra so that we could reserve our seats. The plane was one of those that sits 3 then aisle then 4 seats then aisle then 3 seats. So he chose the seats by starting with the window and then reserving every other seat down that row (one seat for each of us) in the hopes that the flight would remain empty enough that we just might get one of the 3 seater rows and the 4 seater row all to ourselves. 

As we made it back to our aisle the moment of truth…argh! Two people happened to end up in the empty spots in the four seater row. Not bad though because at least we managed to get 5 seats to ourselves which worked a whole lot to our advantage. 

Here we are before take off


So there’s the 3 seater and then I’m right across with an empty seat next to me that became a total blessing. The girls were super excited, especially when they realized they had a tv all to themselves to watch shows to their little hearts content. Can you believe I didn’t have to pull a single toy out of our carry on during the entire flight?! 

And the first flight was amazing. The girls did so great. No meltdowns and they both managed to sleep for about 4 hours. I wish it would have been more but at that point I was just happy to take what I got. 

We arrived in France and after our lay over we finally got to board and as we were heading down the runway, one of the passengers had a seizure.