Airport snafus

So our latest family airport adventures were enough to keep me away from an airport for a while. Let's just start by saying taking two kids on early morning and red eye flights sounds like a good idea in theory, but carrying a toddler and dragging a sleepy kid across airports when they want to sleep is not ideal or enjoyable in any way. Our flights were all good, but from our trip we learned a few things.
1-Arrive at the airport early - very early. We arrived at the airport for our first flight about an hour before take off, but we had to park in long term parking, take a shuttle in, and find the gate (which was confusing because we flew with US airways even though my itinerary said United). We honestly left our house at 3:45 am to go to Pittsburgh to catch a 7:30 flight. It is about a 3 hour drive, but with John's driving less. We arrived on the outskirts of Pittsburgh by about 5:30 or so and hit traffic - seriously why would anyone head to work so early? Long story short when we got to the gate it was about 35 min until our flight and we were not allowed on. They would not issue boarding passes or anything. We figured that they sold our seats or over booked so they had no seats for us to use. They rebooked us and we flew in bit later, but had a 5 hour layover instead of a direct flight. We arrived 6 hours later then originally planned, but it wasn't the end of the world. Just proves that dreams are not irrational because I had been having nightmares about missing our flight.
2- John may be on the terrorist watch list. I know this isn't something to joke about but he had his pocket knife confescated, and was detained for a while becaue of his rifle gear. This almost caused us to miss our last flight, so again I almost had my first heart attack at 29 (The first was when they wouldn't let us on our flight). I think I need to take up meditation, or start taking anti-anxiety drugs to cope.
3- Don't fly at times your kids will want to sleep unless you take a stroller. I think my kids are too old for strollers and we don't even own them anymore, but I am not about to carry C across an airport sleeping for a long long time! Just as a note nearly all of our gates were the last in the halls - which made the walk long and tiring with her in my arms. For those of you wondering why J didn't carry her, he was in charge of the bags.
4- H is a trooper. Seriously considering the situation he did so well. The only time he started to melt down a little was when we were waiting for J to get free from security and get on the flight. I think he could sense my anxiety and he kept crying and saying: "Mom I just want to sleep." I was thinking me too (mind you it was 11:15 at night and we were still operating about 2 hours behind that.
5- C can sleep anywhere. She slept almost the whole way home from about 10pm Mountain time to about 1pm Eastern time. She did wake up for a little while in between (switching planes, taking the shuttle, etc.), but mostly she just slept. What a nice child.
6- There's no place like home. While I love to go and visit family. There is a calm when you finally make it home. We are going to bed early tonight!