So it started with our passion for family vacations.  I had resigned myself to the first summer in decades of no family — as in the whole family, as in all my kids — vacation.  (Bad News) Sarah is immersed in her first job.  Katelyn has a friend home for the summer and that combined with a summer job made her time with us iffy… so I figured it would just be Lynn and I and Jake and Josh.  

But then we came across a place on Hilton Head Island that we could get last minute for 9 days instead of seven — and a good price.  Which meant that maybe somewhere within those nine days maybe we could fly both Sarah and Katy in for enough days to make it worthwhile.  (Good News)

But it required Katy getting off a couple of days that she wasn’t sure she could and it required Sarah getting a vacation day her first couple of weeks in — neither of them thought that would work.  (Bad News)

But it ended up working for both of them — meaning both Sarah and Katy could find 4 days…the same 4 days to come to HH.  (Good News)

So I started working on flight details.  I found Sarah a round-trip ticket using frequent flyer miles — Pittsburgh to Savannah.  Left Pitt at 7:30pm so she could get in a full Friday at work.  Got into Savannah at 11:35pm Friday, meaning she would have all day Saturday with the family.  Then I found Katy a ticket leaving State College, — one way because she could go back with us — to Savannah.  It got into Savannah at — guess what — 11:35pm on Friday night.  In fact Sarah and Katy would be on the same USAir flight from Charlotte to Savannah.  (Good News — two in a row.)

The fun started Friday afternoon.  First call came from USAir.  Sorry flight 800 from Philadelphia to Charlotte is delayed.  (Bad News) Katy’s flight, delay of one hour.  No problem she can still make the connection in Charlotte. (Good News)  An hour later a second call from USAir, “Sorry Flight 800 from Philadelphia is delayed another 90 minutes.”  Wow Katelyn won’t make her connection.  She’ll be stuck in Charlotte.  (Bad News)  Wait, I just found a flight from Philadelphia to Charleston.  (Good News) It gets in at 11pm.  It gives us about 2 hours extra driving and it will mean that Sarah will have to wait in Savannah till about 1am, (Bad News) but we can make it work.  (Good News)

So Lynn and I ditched our eat-out-at-a-nice-place plans, (Bad News) grabbed a chicken sandwich at Chick-Fill and headed to Charleston.  On the way there, we received a third USAir call, Flight 1065 from Charlotte to Savannah has been delayed due to weather.  (Might seem like bad news but actually Good News because now Sarah wouldn’t have to wait at Savannah.  We could pick up Katy — two hours away in Charleston and drive the two hours back to Savannah and end up at the Savannah airport just minutes after Sarah landed.)

We picked up Katy at Charleston and headed toward Savannah to pick up Sarah.  Meanwhile we had a series of calls from Sarah letting us know that her flight was progressively getting pushed back.  Latest report her flight would leave at 1:15am and get into Savannah at 2:15am which meant we would beat the flight by about 90 minutes.  Oh well, not quite bad news yet.  About an hour from Savannah we received a final call from Sarah.  The flight has been cancelled.  USAir is given nothing for food or lodging — as it’s “weather related” — and the earliest they can get her out will be 2:55pm on Saturday.  (Bad News)   (Actually the flight ended up being delayed on Saturday to 3:55pm.)

So Lynn and I made an immediate decision.  We’re headed to Charlotte to pick up Sarah.  Not real interested in having her spend the night in the airport and ultimately spend almost 20 hours of her four day vacation in the airport.  So we headed to Charlotte — three hours away.  At 3am we picked up Sarah in Charlotte and headed home.  At 7am after 11 hours of driving, we made it back to our apartment in Hilton Head.  At noon, the whole family was headed to the beach on our bikes.  (Good News)  

The last two days have been excellent family vacation days and tonight we go shark-fishing.  (More Good News.)

Moral of the story.  If the story ends with good news…it’s all good.  If it ends with bad news, even the good that was good doesn’t hold up.  The really really super good news?  When it comes to the story of life with Jesus…no matter what happens now, I know the ending will be good news.  Which means bad news will never be the story of my life.  That’s good news!