Flying out

July 21, 2020

In true Ethan fashion, he didn’t pack until Tuesday morning. We did a load of laundry and he packed and we still had a ton of time before his 1:10 flight from St George. 

We played games, ate breakfast, talked, and waited to go to the airport. When it was finally time, we loaded up and drove out.

Bryan dropped us off at the front and I took the airport picture while Bryan parked the car.

Ethan went in and got himself all checked in. Thanks for the suitcase scale we borrowed from Grandma and Grandpa Oman, his suitcases were under the weight requirement and he had no problems. He had his ticket for St George to Salt Lake and another for Salt Lake to Denver.

Then we had to wait. We took pictures, chatted, and got ready to say goodbye.


A nice woman took a family pic for us. And then we had to give final hugs and say goodbye. This was tough but he is going to be an amazing missionary and he is so ready and prepared to go.


Ethan went through security. I think he would be glad he only had to do it once because he had to take off his belt, shoes and suit coat, he also had to open his bag for his phone charger. Then he had to go through the scanner and do everything in reverse to get dressed again. It took a while.

Here he is getting everything out of his pockets.

Here he is after he got through and was put back together.


He is on his way to his gate. I tried to get his attention for one more photo but he was so focused on getting to where he needed to be that he didn't notice us.  That's okay he is a man on a mission... literally. ;) 


He gave them his ticket and loaded on the plane.  We went to the observation deck (which is a great one in the St George airport) to watch his plane take off. There were 2 sister missionaries on the same flight going to Salt Lake to catch their connecting flights. So he wasn’t the only missionary.  And we were able to talk to them a bit too.


His plane left 7 minutes late but, when we got home we checked his progress, it landed in Salt Lake City 20 minutes ahead of schedule. So he got there before we got home. That is so crazy to think of.

We watched until his plane was far from sight then we headed home. 

We watched the progress of his plane. He landed in Salt Lake and then was supposed to fly out at around 3:15 pm for Denver. But as we watched it became apparent that his plan wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, about 90 minutes behind schedule, it took off and they were in their way. There were a bunch of missionaries on the plane. Ethan’s travel plans included 10 missionaries (one was his MTC companion so he was pretty excited to see him in person) and we don’t know how many more were going to Denver as a stop before continuing on. 

We got an email at 10:55 pm at night from Ethan saying he had made it, was with his companion, and would be heading out to his area on Wednesday. 

Yeah! Here to the start of his adventure.