I know my local airport shuts down overnight but it's small and doesn't get flights all day/night. The trips I'm looking at are all connecting through international airports (in the US) so I'm assuming they are big enough they are running on a 24 hour schedule and not booting people out so they can close at night. Does anyone know if that assumption is correct? Just trying to make sure I'm thinking through all the possible pitfalls.

So what is a piece of chicken in a hamburger bun (aka Chick fil a or Mcdonald's)? I think of both of those as a chicken sandwich but then it would be a sandwich because it has chicken but not when it has beef and that doesn't quite make sense to me either.

Honestly, my kids are very high already, the boost they would get from mine is very minimal. Their scores are already high enough to qualify for the best mortgage or auto loan rates.

Charlotte is "close enough" to friend that if DD was faced with being stranded there, I think friend's mom would drive to get her but too far that I don't want to ask her just so DD doesn't have to have a layover. Winter weather is a possibility on our end but I'm thinking the risk is much lower at the time of the trip there. It's not deep winter time period for sure. I admire your DD and your trust in that situation. My DD would have been spending the night in the airport. I'm not that trusting.

I'm sure this varies greatly with kids personalities and family habits but with my oldest three there was zero issues with them getting their own card and handling it responsibly without prior experience. But then again, I already have the login information for all their accounts so they know I can see everything and they pay it off twice a month (just so they are in the habit of closely monitoring their spending versus their available money to pay off credit card). So far in 8 years of kids having their own credit card, there has been zero missed payments, zero overdrafts, zero "mom I'm short of money", zero interest paid and honestly zero reminders from me to pay their card. All three of them already have excellent credit scores. So for our family culture I'm not worried about that. But I can see where for some families that would be a useful strategy.

I hadn't really thought about that. I'm not willing to put her on my credit card but I can definitely look into getting her a prepaid card.

Unaccompanied minor is an option for her age on all the carriers we looked at. Once we determine which airport she is flying through, I will let her decided if she wants the service or not. It's about what makes her most comfortable. I'm definitely hoping she is going carry on only but we haven't addressed that hurtle yet. No experience with public transportation of any kind.

I wasn't actually considering the 30 minute flight just reporting what options it gave me. I thought it was unreasonably short and was surprised it was even listed as an option.

There are no direct flights anywhere near friend. Even if I drive 3-4 hours to a bigger airport, she still needs a connecting flight if she wants to land anywhere near friend. Friend is very rural. I can't in good conscience ask friend's parents to drive 3-4 hours each way to the airport (twice) to avoid the connecting flight. Especially since they are paying for a big chunk of the ticket as well as hosting her for the duration.

I'm not worried about the originating airport. We only have 16 gates and DS has gone through it enough times that he can give her every little detail she could possible want. It's the BIG airports that we are concerned about.

That was just the choices google flights gave me. I wouldn't pick 30 minutes even if it let me. But glad to hear 2.5 hours sounds like a good choice.

The reason for the possible minor thing is because of the anxiety. I "think" she can handle it on her own but if the anxiety kicks up too high she might not and I want to give her options to make choices that she can handle.

Charlotte is either 30 minutes or 2.5 hours. We would go with 2.5 hours. Atlanta is 2 hours.

Leaning towards Charlotte based on comments here, and looking at a 2.5 hour layover. Seem reasonably long enough?

No Southwest, closest location is 3 hours away from friend. But it's starting to sound like Charlotte might be the better choice of the group.

This is all good to know. She didn't mind being stuck in the room as she didn't have to worry about who else is around and she could keep herself occupied. One of the airlines said they would accompany you out of the room to purchase food so I assumed they all did it that way. but I guess not. My home airport is small so going in and waiting is not a big deal but will have to check about that on friend's side of things. I thought they would bring you to the exterior door and didn't realize the pickup person needed to come inside.

No direct options from either of the two closest airports to me to the two closest airports to friend. I think it's because friend is more rural than us so there isn't a lot of options.

No it's a domestic flight and she can go through on the same carrier but does have a layover no matter what airline she uses.

That's what I was afraid of. We thinking we might pay the extra fee for the unaccompanied minor for the trip there just so she has someone to show her the way and then see if she can handle the trip home by herself. I think she can handle approaching staff for directions. Glad to hear CLT is "slightly" better as there were a lot of choices going through there and to be honest I had never even heard of that airport so didn't have any sense of it.

Didn't realize it was the busiest but knew it wasn't great. Delta was our first choice for airlines and unfortunately all of their flights were sending her through there. But yes, I'd love feedback if he thinks one is easier to navigate than others.

DD wants to take a trip to visit a friend. She will be 17 but has never flown and does tend to get anxious about things. There are no direct flights and all the connecting flights go through what I'm assuming are huge airports. Are any of these less intimidating than the others? Atlanta Dallas/Fort Worth Charlotte Douglas Ohare (not sure about this one as she would have to fly into an airport further from her friend) I haven't flown in 25 years and never to these locations so I'll take any input I can get. We know there is the option of purchasing the unaccompanied minor assistance and are still considering that option as well.

That is the way my mom always did but I can never get it right. Either I don't put enough flour in with the liquid to adequately thicken the amount of juice I have or I don't whisk well enough and it gets lumpy. I have to have the roux first and slowly add the juice so I can control the ratio and amount of thickening.

I can't help but wonder if the principal knowing you were planning to move and also not wanting A in his/her school made a point to keep checking if you had moved yet knowing he/she could insist you move A then. I find it hard to believe otherwise that they have so much extra staff time to be checking all their students that frequently to determine they live in the district.

For the longest time it was gravy. My mom always made it by pouring the juice in a pot. Put flour and water in a leak proof container, shake and add to juice, boil and wah lah perfect gravy. Except when I made it, it was always a lumpy running mess. But I could always make a perfect roux style sauce. So I skipped mom's method, start with flour and butter in the pan and then slowly add the juice. Now I can finally make good gravy. But I ruined way too much gravy before I figured out it still tasted like gravy even if I made it in a different order.

In this house EVERYTHING goes into the dishwasher, pots, pans everything. If it can't go in the dishwasher it doesn't belong in my house. Dirty dishes are put in the sink until they make it in the dishwasher. DH likes to pile them next to the sink which drives me crazy because then half my counter is covered. I prefer them in the sink since they take less space and the yuck can fall into the sink. I don't quite understand why the yucky soaking water going down the drain is gross. I'm not sure where else you would want it to go? But anyways, I have to run my dishwasher 2-3 times a day to keep up and there is always something left in the sink because it didn't fit. And sometimes yes something sits for several days until it fits because other dishes are higher priority to get in the dishwasher. This system works for me because I absolutely HATE handwashing dishes and I would far rather deal with dirty dishes in the sink than handwashing. But it sounds like that system isn't your thing. Is it possible to put some of the pots and pans in the dishwasher to move them through faster? Only other options I can see are either you wash them yourself when he gets behind or somehow find a way to accept the mess (admittedly I'd find that very hard to do but when you can't change the situation all you can change is your reaction to it).