So after 3 long, but fun weeks away, the kids and I pack our bags to come home! We're so excited. Corben can't stop asking about seeing daddy, and I can't stop thinking about sleeping in my own bed. I'm nervous about getting on the hop, because I can't get a hold of the terminal to find out about seats. I have asked Tim to find out , maybe he can get a hold of them, no luck. No matter what connections we try, no on will tell us how many seats are currently available. No bother, this is the slow PCS season, we shouldn't have a problem getting on.
We say goodbye to our sweet little Tac, and everyone else. (by this point the girls are loving the dogs, just as much as Corben was!)
Roll call for the rotator is at 0610, but we can't get a flight in earlier than that, so we had to fly in Wednesday night. That's okay, I keep hearing about the wonderful USO, and the family room where the kids can sleep and relax the hours away. Umm...... Okay I get to the USO, it's crammed full. They tell me the family room is so full we can't be in there. There's not a lot of people, but it's VERY small, so it seems like there's a lot. We walk around a bit, and find half a love seat with no one on it. I park Corben and Lissa on there, find a chair, and sit next to them, with Tazers in the stroller. They watch movies, play game boy, but eventually they fall asleep. There's so many strangers here, I'm afraid to fall asleep. Yeah they're all military, but hey, that doesn't mean anything! Hours go by, and finally about two hours before roll call the lights in the family room come on, and what they call extra full, I laugh at. There were 6 people in there! 6! There were three couches, how could two adults and four kids take up all those couches so that there's no room for anyone else? My kids slept on ONE couch cushion all night, and they had three couches! I was very upset, but oh well, not much I can do now! We get downstairs to roll call finally, we're so excited. Corben's happy daddy is in sight, when we discover...... 28 seats. That's all they had. My heart sank, because I immediately knew, there's no way we're getting on this plane. They tell us to wait for two more hours, because some people might not show up. Two of the longest hours go by, and of course, we do not get on the plane. I'm dumbstruck. What do I do now? I can't stay in the USO, I don't know anything about Seattle. I knew this could happen, but didn't think it would. I'm stressing, Corben's screaming. I think quick, and buy tickets back to Utah. I might as well try another week in Utah before trying this mess again. We get home, and try desperately to reach Tim and let him know we're not coming. I've lost it at this point. Corben won't stop screaming for his daddy, and begging me to take him home. If I remember anything clearly about this, it is Corben's desperate pleas for his father. It broke my heart, and I will NEVER forget how sad it made me to tell him we weren't going home.Tim calls, and after talking to me, and hearing how scared I was to do the USO, and the hours of waiting all over again, with no guarantees, he decides we need to just buy plane tickets home. Somehow we found a decent deal, and a day later I would be flying home.
This is when we finally made it into the family room. You can see two of the couches. Life would have been so much nicer if we'd been in there the whole night, but of course.....
It's Friday, we've got a plane to catch later this night, so the girls and I meet at Chick Fil A for one last hoorah before I leave... again. I tell you it was a major stress reliever to just go out and have fun and smile. I felt like I hadn't smiled this whole week thanks to stomach bugs, and frustrating flights.
This is what I looked like going through the airports. I'm VERY happy I only packed one check in bag. It made the traveling so much easier. I highly recommend packing light! When we checked in at Delta, they printed out all the boarding passes we'd need through Okinawa, so I was very happy. I was worried about the lines I'd have to stand in with the kids.
Here's Corben and Rylissa staring at the plane crews. Every time someone drove by they'd wave, and hope that they'd wave back. It was very cute.
So we get to LAX, and of course it's not easy getting to a connecting flight that's international. We had to actually leave the airport, to get to the Tom Bradley International Terminal. It took about 10 minutes to walk there, along the street with scary people at about 11p.m. We finally get there, and there's THOUSANDS of people. I could barely get through the people with my stroller and bags. We get to security, hand over the boarding passes to discover..... when they took them at the baggage check in SLC, they gave me the baggage receipts, but not the passes. No, they gave me Tayzia's passes, all the way to Okinawa, but the rest of ours were GONE! So we had to go to the China Air bag check to print new ones. It took over an hour and a half of standing in line to get the passes printed up. AAAAARGH! So here are the kids after all of that, passed out waiting for the plane to board. There was a very nice man who offered to carry Corben on board for me, but I had to wake up Rylissa to get us all on. There were issues on the plane as well, but none that were so bad that I need to report them, it all worked out and 14 hours later (endless hours........) we arrive in Taipei Taiwan.
The waiting area for the flight to Okinawa was a ghost town, so I let the kids run around. We were down there for about an hour before anyone else showed up. They loved the freedom, and soon we were boarding our last flight of this horribly long trip. An hour and a half later we were landed, through customs and hugging daddy! What a terrible time we had getting here, but.... WE'RE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is when we finally made it into the family room. You can see two of the couches. Life would have been so much nicer if we'd been in there the whole night, but of course.....
It's Friday, we've got a plane to catch later this night, so the girls and I meet at Chick Fil A for one last hoorah before I leave... again. I tell you it was a major stress reliever to just go out and have fun and smile. I felt like I hadn't smiled this whole week thanks to stomach bugs, and frustrating flights.
This is what I looked like going through the airports. I'm VERY happy I only packed one check in bag. It made the traveling so much easier. I highly recommend packing light! When we checked in at Delta, they printed out all the boarding passes we'd need through Okinawa, so I was very happy. I was worried about the lines I'd have to stand in with the kids.
Here's Corben and Rylissa staring at the plane crews. Every time someone drove by they'd wave, and hope that they'd wave back. It was very cute.
So we get to LAX, and of course it's not easy getting to a connecting flight that's international. We had to actually leave the airport, to get to the Tom Bradley International Terminal. It took about 10 minutes to walk there, along the street with scary people at about 11p.m. We finally get there, and there's THOUSANDS of people. I could barely get through the people with my stroller and bags. We get to security, hand over the boarding passes to discover..... when they took them at the baggage check in SLC, they gave me the baggage receipts, but not the passes. No, they gave me Tayzia's passes, all the way to Okinawa, but the rest of ours were GONE! So we had to go to the China Air bag check to print new ones. It took over an hour and a half of standing in line to get the passes printed up. AAAAARGH! So here are the kids after all of that, passed out waiting for the plane to board. There was a very nice man who offered to carry Corben on board for me, but I had to wake up Rylissa to get us all on. There were issues on the plane as well, but none that were so bad that I need to report them, it all worked out and 14 hours later (endless hours........) we arrive in Taipei Taiwan.
The waiting area for the flight to Okinawa was a ghost town, so I let the kids run around. We were down there for about an hour before anyone else showed up. They loved the freedom, and soon we were boarding our last flight of this horribly long trip. An hour and a half later we were landed, through customs and hugging daddy! What a terrible time we had getting here, but.... WE'RE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know what the strangest thing of all about this? The kids were AMAZING. I look back at all the problems, and all the time spent waiting. All the airports we sat at for hours, and really, the worst behavior the kids let loose was Corben's tantrum for his dad. It was very understandable, and I couldn't be mad at him, because if I could have, I would have done the same. My kids were truly so wonderful. I heard over and over people telling me how brave I was to travel with three little ones alone, but really the hardest part of it, was just the sitting and waiting. They were so well behaved, and I couldn't have asked for better kids. Will I ever do this again? Probably not, it was hard having fun on a trip without Tim. The experience however has made me stronger, I know that I can handle really really really tough situations, and come out making the right decisions.
1 comment:
I'm glad you made it home finally!!!
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