We have had quite an adventure over the past two days!
It started when Apa picked us up at home on Saturday morning. We drove to the airport and realized we were WAY too early, even earlier than the three hours we had budgeted for the airport. So, we made a detour to get coffee and fuel up for the trip ahead.
Then, he dropped us off at the airport and we were on our way. After stops at the check in counter, where the agent printed us out about a million boarding passes for all of our flights (five people times three flights equals a LOT of boarding passes!), and at the play structure before security, we breezed through security and set about waiting for our first flight.
We were first flying to Salt Lake City, then to Paris, and then to Barcelona from there. Our first flight was a breeze, except for the incredibly large woman that sat next to Rosie and me. Sacha and I mostly divided things up
so that I was with the baby and she was with the big kids, although there was some switching around.
Rosie, in keeping with the rest of the trip, was somewhat difficult on the flight, testing out her screeching voice at top volume and not wanting to be wherever she was. However, she finally fell asleep and things were relatively peaceful until we landed. The big kids did really well, reading and playing and watching videos with next to no fighting. They were champion travelers the whole time, really.
We got out at Salt Lake and headed for our Paris flight, expecting to have almost an hour to wait at the gate. Not so! It was boarding as we walked up. We didn't know if we would have time to gate check our stroller, but luckily we did, although we would find out later that that didn't really matter.
We got on to the plane and settled into our bulkhead row, with me and our squirmy "lap" baby across the aisle. In a great bit of luck, the guy behind us offered to switch so Rosie and I would have an extra seat next to us. We said yes!!
We took off and commenced the 10 hour flight. Overall, it went really well, although we all had our moments. The kids refused to sleep for a long time, thanks mostly to the huge, bright screen playing movies right in front of our seats. The baby had the hardest time sleeping, and spent a lot of time wailing when I wasn't able to be up and walking her, which was a lot of the time because there was a lot of turbulence.
Also, Sacha had some problems with a medicine she took to sleep, making her really shaky and landing her on oxygen (the airline's solution to everything!) for the rest of the flight. While she was out of it and the kids were fighting sleep and it was 11 pm our time, I had some moments iof wondering what we had been thinking!! But, eventually, the kids all slept and Sacha started feeling better, although by that time I was much too wired to sleep. I think I slept about an hour of the whole trip.
Finally, finally, finally, we landed in Paris! I was so proud of us, I just about burst into tears. We had done it! Who would have thought that we could fly for 2 hours and then 10 hours, along with another two hour flight later, with a 5-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a very wiggly 1-year-old? We did it!!
Mateo is about to go to bed and will need his music from the iPad, so I will continue about our flight to Barcelona and our first day and night here later. Suffice it to say that we have had a magical first day and night here, complete with a 3:30am wakeup on the part of the kids, and lots of fun sight seeing already, and now we are wiped out and hoping to sleep though the night. More later!
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