28 Hours

So, it was 28 hours door-to-door. By now the early contours of our travels should be known: the forgotten key (and busted carrier), the carsick Eli, the backpack left behind (nothing serious, just some snacks), Sam of the deep sleep and confused bowels (enough said). Packing came down to the wire, but got done. Someone helped us check in at the airport and none of our baggage exploded (they did check it, and even left notes inside that said essentially "sorry if we broke all your locks--here's a website telling you how not to have it happen again"). Everything made it with nothing lost or broken. We confiscated Randy's luggage, for which we remain grateful. While it would seem we should be pros at this, this was actually only our second time travelling the whole trip with the three kids, and it perhaps showed. I feel like we're still in our rooky season on this. 

I hope our travel did not traumatize Barb and Randy too much, because the packing and transport were doozies. HOWEVER, we are on the other side of it now and things are seeming better. Next time it may be that we should fly to Emily's family first and have my parents pack us out. I think we probably have different family travel traditions, with Extreme Packing Events on my side and with more ordered packing on Emily's side (although she does remember Alan sometimes ended up with no clothes, just stuffed animals). Anyway, there are some lessons to learn here, but I'm still not sure what they are. 

There were some hits and misses on the plane. Sam's into a superhero kick, and I got him the cheaper wonder woman (has a sword, fully clothed), but he was sad that it was not the iconic outfit. On the other hand, we also got the kids iron man toys which were a hit and Eli played happily with some of Sam's toys while Sam slept. Tablets and notebooks have all been used (angry birds is a hit), but sound was a problem (airplane headphones were really cheap; none of ours were kid sized; the cabin was pretty loud).

It was a productive last week before we left. I saw two of my favorite congregations, Emily met with her advisor, and I got further into proofs stage on my current book. All in all, great things got done. On this side, we now have a working phone and the children have all done a morning at school and seemed to like it. Sam is a little awkward around people. 

At school all of the kids received extensive praise. Eli hid between my legs at first and just beemed. He really liked the play area and had a pretty good morning. Eva also was pretty social at school. Emily says "I'm not worried about them; they're very maleable." Sam looked happy with the attention at first but then had a period where he looked concerned Emily stuck around to help them acclimate. No tears from anyone, but I know also they'll go through phases where they don't want to go. 

Anyway, we're back on our feet.