I will never forget...

I created this layout so my kids would know our story of what happened on this world-changing day. (Click on the image if you would like to see it a little larger.)

Our September Story

6 people. 2 countries. 1 world forever changed.

9/2001

We knew that September, 2001 would be a life-changing month for our family. But we never dreamed it would be a month that would change the world!

After 8 months on the market, our house finally sold. We had been living in Nova Scotia, Canada for 6 years and were ready to move back to the United States. We had purchased a franchise called The Little Gym. Our territory was Little Rock, Arkansas. As soon as we got to Arkansas, we were going to start making this new dream a reality. In August, Marty had gone down to Arkansas to find a home and a job and try to get things ready for when the kids and I came down. At the time, Nicholas was 4, Austin had just turned 3 on September 1st and Lauren and Mackenzie were only 15 months old. It had been a difficult month for me being alone with the kids and packing up the house all by myself.

Marty returned to Nova Scotia on September 5th. The plans were to close on the house on September 10th, stay in a hotel for 2 nights, fly to Dallas and stay with my mom for a few days and then drive up to our new home in Maumelle, Arkansas.

Things were going smoothly and we moved out of our house and sold our van in Nova Scotia on September 10th. Because we are U.S. citizens, our lawyer advised us to stay in Canada an extra day just to make sure everything went through with the sale of our house before we left the country. We feel very fortunate that he gave us this advice. If he had not, we would have flown out the morning of September 11th and to make matters worse, our plane would have gone through the Newark, New Jersey Airport (where one of the hijacked planes had taken off from). Who knows where we would have been re-routed.

Since we weren't scheduled to leave until the 12th, we rented a van on the morning of the 11th just to have a way to get around for the day. After we rented the van, we drove to the motor vehicle department to return our license plates for the van we had sold. It was there that we saw the horrible news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and realized our move would not go on as planned.

After we turned in our license plates, we went to the bank. Marty watched the kids and I stood in line. The bank had a television set up so everyone could watch the unbelievable news that was still transpiring. As I stood in line, I watched as the first tower of the World Trade Center fell. This was at 10:59am Atlantic Time. It is a moment that will stay with me as long as I live. There I was in the Royal Bank of Canada surrounded by Canadians, watching attacks on the United States. I couldn't have felt more alone. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt an overwhelming need to get back to the United States. I couldn't believe the patriotism I was feeling. To this day (5 years later), I still tear up when I think of that moment.

When we got back to the hotel, we immediately booked the room for a few more nights because we had heard that all planes were being diverted to Canadian airports. (In total, Halifax ended up hosting 8 to 10,000 passengers of diverted planes.) After that, we called the airlines to see what to do about our flight that was supposed to leave the following day. He told us all flights were cancelled and booked us on the next available flight ... September 16th! So what should have been a 2-night stay in a tiny hotel room with 6 people ended up being a 6-night stay. But we made the most of it. Nick and Austin slept on the pull-out couch, and Lauren and Mackenzie slept in playpens next to our bed.

We called every day just to make sure that our flight on the 16th was still on and every day we were told not to worry. So on the night of the 15th as we were packing for our flight the next day, I called to make sure it would be leaving on time and was told it was cancelled and the next available flight would be on the 20th. Many, many phone calls were made that night to try to get out of Halifax. But no luck with the airlines. Marty and I decided to find another way out since we were going broke (and a little stir crazy) staying in the hotel with all of the kids.

We called the airlines again to see if we could fly out of another city and after much argument and a few choice words, we were told we could fly out of Montreal on the 17th. But, of course, we would have to find our own way to Montreal, at our own expense. Believe it or not, one of the ladies we talked to was actually going to charge us $200 per person because we were changing the city we were leaving from!

So there we were ... 2 adults, 4 kids, and 14 bags of luggage in Halifax needing to get to Montreal. Driving was not an option so we decided to take a train. It was a 20-hour train ride but we thought the kids would enjoy it. We left Halifax on the 16th at about noon. The train ride was kind of neat and the boys loved running from car to car. Sleeping was fun. We had 2 sleeping cars. Marty stayed in one with the big boys. He had a bed, and Nick stayed in the top bunk and Austin was in the lower one. I had a sleeping car with the babies. This was interesting because the car was too small for playpens and Lauren and Mackenzie were too small to sleep in bunk beds. So we just put pillows all over the floor and had a slumber party. The rocking of the train actually made them sleep pretty well. No so for Mommy and Daddy! We woke up at about 5:00am. There was a shower on the train so at least we were able to get clean.

I think we arrived in Montreal at about 8:00am. Then we had to load all of our luggage on to a bus to the airport which was about 30 minutes away. We dragged our stuff through the airport and waited in line for a little over an hour. We wanted to go through customs as soon as possible so we wouldn't have to deal with the bags. We got through customs at around 10:00am but our flight wasn't until 5:00pm so we just hung around the airport for many, many hours. Finally our flight took off as scheduled. The flight from Montreal was supposed to go through Cleveland where we would change planes for our flight to Dallas. When we got to Cleveland and looked at the board to see what gate to go to for our next flight ... wouldn't you know it ... CANCELLED! Now what?! Well, it just happens that my Dad lives in Cleveland and knew before us that our flight had been cancelled. He had gone to the airport and tracked us down at the ticket counter. So we decided to stay at his house for the night instead of trying to find another route to Dallas that evening. It was a very short but nice visit with my Dad and family who had never seen the twins.

We got up very early the next morning and went to the airport, found our luggage that we had conveniently 'forgotten' to pick up the night before and were off to Dallas. My mom picked us up at the airport. We had planned on staying with her for a few days but with all of the delays, we only had time to eat lunch and then drive up to Little Rock. We stayed at Marty's sister's house that night and then closed on our new house the following day. The movers arrived on the 25th with all of our stuff so we finally had actual beds to sleep on.

September 2001 is definitely a month we will always remember. This is the story of how our family was impacted by the events of September 11th. We were out of pocket a few thousand dollars and had lost several days of getting adjusted to Arkansas. But we were lucky. Over 3,000 lives were lost that terrible day. We learned how precious life is and we learned just how much we can get through as a family. Our lives will never be the same. Our world will never be the same.