ORLANDO — As many Utahns enjoyed spending Christmas at home, one family is doing whatever they can to enjoy the holiday while stuck in a Florida airport.
"Life throws you curveballs and you've got to go with it," said Keya Tesch.
It's all about rolling with the punches this weekend for Tesch, her fiancé, six children, including a six-week-old baby, and her mother. The family from Enterprise was all bright smiles and fond memories during more than weeklong trip to Orlando.
"Every two years we go on a family vacation, and this year we decided to come and go to Universal Studios," she explained.
The family was scheduled to fly out of Central Florida on Saturday afternoon, but quickly were told that their flight had been delayed an hour.
"Then they let us know that it's because they were waiting on the captain and a co-pilot to show up, and it was around 5:30 p.m. that they told us our flight was canceled due to understaffing," said Tesch.
Tesch received an e-mail from Southwest Airlines last week saying the massive storm affecting the country may interfere with her family's return to Utah, so she prepared to be delayed a day at the most.
However, that delay has become much longer.
"The earliest we can get home is Wednesday, December 28 and our flight leaves at 7:20 a.m.," Tesch said.
According to FlightAware, the flight tracking website, there have been more than 2,000 flights canceled and nearly 5,300 flights delayed within, into or out of the U.S, so far, on Christmas.
"Our biggest issue was we don't have any of our luggage or car seats, and we have three kids under the age of 2 who are in car seats," said Tesch. "The extra diapers, I had all their clothes, extra formula, we had on the plane because I only packed for about a 24-hour delay."
Tesch says she and her family have tried to make the best of the situation by setting up an area by their gate where they slept Saturday night.
The hope is the group will be able to get out of the airport and stay at a hotel, where they'll remain for the next few days until they are able to fly to Las Vegas on Wednesday and eventually make the drive back to Enterprise.
Tesch adds that the silver lining to it all is that the family was able to spend the Christmas holiday together.
"Be appreciative of what you do have and the fact that you can be with your family and everybody can be together, maybe a struggle, but it's something that in a few years we're going laugh at."
