I was going to start with, "It's been a long time since I've written on here" and then had a bad flash back to writing in my diary when I was 10. So, we'll skip that intro.
So far 2010 is proving to be a most memorable, busy and altering year we've had in some time.
Just after Christmas break, the kids and I got to go home to Indiana for my grandmother's 80th birthday. It was a great, though short, trip.
Grandma Waters, Daeglan, Mac and Uncle Morgan
The trip started on Wednesday, or it was supposed to, when we got up at 3 am to get to the terminal on base and hopefully catch a military hop to Kansas where I had a friend waiting for us. We were turned away, the flight had been rescheduled, please come back at 7:30. We came back, waited for nearly 2 hours and then were told the flight was full. I'm not gonna lie, I walked out of the air terminal in tears. I had to go home and call my dear friend, Traci, I wasn't coming to Kansas.
The next day we tried again and were successful. It took nearly all day for check in and then
sitting and waiting for them to ready the plane, but eventually, we boarded a C17 (click
here for a look at the C17) and were on our way to Delaware. Yes. I said Delaware. The flight was.... an experience. C17's are cargo planes and this one was loaded with jet engines, 2 huge jet engines. See?
We sat in jump seats that folded down from the sides of the plane. We enjoyed our in flight meal of ham sandwiches, snickers and pop. We drank lots of bottled water. We broke the toilet.... seriously, my kids broke the toilet. Ever fly on an overseas flight with a broken toilet?
Good thing the crew was so nice. The pilot took the kids up the cockpit and let them fly the plane. It was a great treat for all of us, especially for me since he keep them entertained for a whole half hour. Here's a picture of the boys lounging on the floor of the plane, another great benefit of fly military flights :)
After nine hours of flying and spending the final two hours calming my sensory overloaded child from the noise of the plane (cargo planes are very loud), we finally landed. We got a taxi to the hotel. All was good. Until we found out that our hotel room was actually about 2 blocks from where we had checked in.... and I had already sent the taxi away. So we loaded our luggage on the bell hop trolley and walked in the dark to our room. My kids cried the whole way.
"Daddy should be here, he'd protect us." "Mom, you should have never made us come." "Someone is going to jump out from those bushes and kidnap me." Finally, we made it to our room!
The rest of our trip, actually followed this crazy, unpredictable pattern. The rental car company charged me $800 for my $150 car rental, making it so that I couldn't use my card to get gas when we stopped two hours after taking off for Indiana. Driving on the right side of the road kepy me on edge all day and I did, in fact, turn into the wrong lane (only once!) when getting off the highway for dinner... it was dark, leave me alone. Our time in Indiana was too short, but we got to see all the grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins we'd been longing to see.
On Monday, we left Indiana for Texas with Mackenzie and Emma. The drive was long, but actually went well... oh wait, I was sick and throwing up for some of it... well, it went mostly well. While in Dallas, we got to go to the Dallas Aquarium, a Butterfly house, Chuck E Cheese, Applebee's and Old Navy! It was a great American fix.
The cousins, minus Sophie Jane, at the Dallas Aquarium
Leaving was bitter sweet; the kids and I were more than ready to be home and with Geoff, but it was hard to say goodbye to family and our dear America. We took a rental car up to Kansas and got on the first flight we tried this time, thank goodness. This time we were on a KC135, a refueler. (click
here for a look at the KC135)
This flight was... even more interesting. We broke the toilet, again. Yes, we did. This time before take off. It took them 3 hours to fix, during which we sat patiently on the plane. The kids stayed awake the whole flight, finally giving it up at hour 9. Unlike the flight on the C17, there was no room to stretch or lay out, so it was a bit trickier keeping them happy. And, believe it or not, this plane was louder. Good thing I had gone to Walmart and bought Brody a nice set of hunter earmuffs to block out the noise. The boys got to go into the belly of the plane and see all the refueling equipment... again a nice treat, keeping my kids entertained for a half hour. Air Force flight crews, you rock. So we were finally all asleep and someone wakes me to tell me we are emergency landing in Ireland. Ireland? Yes, our navigation system went out hours ago and we are flying with a hand compass!!! Thanks for not telling me hours ago. YIKES. We landed fine. But since most of the flight was U.S. military flying on military orders, next to no one had passports. Me and the kids had ours, but not one other person did. We sat on the plane, on the tarmac for 4 hours while the U.S. and Irish governments decided what to do with us. After 18 hours of being on the plane--which of course, by that point we had eaten all our food hours ago and were thus starving--we finally descended the steps and got straight on a bus. They took us to a nice hotel, that I paid $240 to stay in. We ordered room service for the first time and slept all day, 13 hours solid.
Our room in Ireland
Our Irish room service. Yes, those are elf-sized bottles of 7up. Not Tolken elves, Santa elves.
We made it home, and in one piece the next morning and ran into daddy's arms. And I am tired now just remembering this trip. I'm not sure we'll do it again.
More adventure updates to come :)
