another day, another airplane ride

since we did almost no traveling in 2014, we were apparently attempting to make up for it and more, all in the month of july.  i'm certainly not complaining, since travel is one of my most favorite things to do.  and so we found ourselves here once again, for the second time in two weeks:

this time, we were heading out to dallas to reunite with the bean and hang out with the ILs for awhile.  i was sad to be saying goodbye to the old lady yet again, as she had opted out of coming with us on all of our trips thus far.  although i suppose "opted out" isn't quite accurate - it was more like she didn't want to take that much time off of work, which i totally get.  still, i was missing her a lot and wished she were coming to join us on some of our adventures.  oh, well.

while LAX is my least favorite airport to fly in/out of, it's usually the most economical, airfare-wise.  and LAX offers us the chance to fly on virgin america, which is only my most favorite airline ever.  it's just a fun airline, with silly things like this:

we'd gotten another early start, so this was our first stop after dropping off our bags:

and the timing was such that we didn't have to wait around a lot before it was time to board.  although there was time for a quick selfie, of course.  there's always time for a selfie!

time to board!

instead of a boring monotone delivery of the safety instructions, we were treated to a fun video.

the screen also offered shopping, drinks and snacks:

and a map of our journey in real time.

i dig the "mood lighting" in the cabin, too.

while i was enjoying all of the onboard amenities...

the hub was enjoying something a little different.

so i grabbed my retractable remote:

peered out the window at the view:

and settled in for some quality time with friends.

before i knew it, we were here:

then, finally...reunited.

back at the IL's house, she was excited to show us her new acquisition from her lunch date at the american girl cafe with grandma:

and with us safely back in her presence, she went back to bonding with grandma, who's always willing to bust out the board games.

that was totally a-ok with me and the hub.  after a long day of traveling, we were more than happy to kick back on the couch and relax.  we had some grand plans for our week with the ILs, and we needed to stock up on rest and sleep to prepare for what was coming next.