Grin and bear it...;)

5:45 pm - Planned on leaving our home for the airport. (This gave us plenty of leeway)
6:10 pm - Actually left the house. No pressure at this point.
7:00 pm - Arrive at airport. (Thanks to Dean for "airport money" he slipped us as he dropped us off!)
7:45 pm - Find out the flight from SLC to LA is delayed one hour. Start to sweat the connection a little. We will have to leave security, go to China Southern ticket desk and clear security again in LA.
9:30 pm - Find out the flight from SLC to LA is now delayed 1.5 hours. Starting to get quite nervous.
10:40 pm (PST) - Arrive in LA. Ask several personnel how to get to the international terminal. Directions are not clear. Man, is LAX a beast!!!
10:55 PM - Find shuttle to international terminal. (Flight leaves at 11:50 PM)
11:10 PM - Arrive at China Southern ticket counter. Our flight is listed on their display, but there is no one there at all!
11:17 PM - China Southern agent arrives and lets us know the flight is closed. We beg and plead and play the adoption card, but she will not budge. She tells us we can catch the next flight to Guangzhou - 48 HOURS LATER!!! We know there's an Air China flight leaving for Beijing at 1:50 AM. Can she re-route us on that flight. Of course not. We will have to BACK to the United terminal and talk to them because it was their flight that was late. Ticket counter for Air China flight will close at 12:50 PM. RUN!!!
11:40 PM - Arrive back at United terminal. Wait several valuable minutes as three agents help one group of people and another agent cooly stares us down and decides whatever she's doing is more important than helping us.
11:52 PM - Christi goes way outside of her comfort zone and approaches an agent with a plea for help.
11:53 PM - Agent informs us that there is nothing he can do since these are China Southern's tickets. If they were United tickets, he would gladly re-route us on the next available flight.
11:54-12:20 PM We plead, agent tries very hard. Agent calls China Southern who refuse to let United change the tickets. United agent continues to try. We realize we are not going to make the 1:50 AM flight.

to be continued...