This post is about a week overdue, so in case you have been wondering...we did make it to Bucharest! Thank you for your prayers throughout our travels. The trip went relatively well. We had a few rough patches, but I think that is to be expected when traveling overseas with two small children and a pregnant woman!:)
We arrived at the Vancouver airport with plenty of time and got all our suitcases checked in without any problems. We checked 12 bags (8 suitcases and 4 footlockers) - we had 4 suitcases that were over the 50 lb limit (just under the 70 lb cut off) and we were planning to pay the overage charges instead of trying to get rid of 80 lbs of "stuff". After getting everything checked in, the attendant gave us our boarding passes and sent us on our way. We realized as we walked towards to security that he didn't charge us the overage fees - what a blessing from God! We had dinner and then stumbled upon a little kids play area in the terminal, so Carter & Kamryn were able to climb around and burn off some energy before boarding the plane (another blessing from God!). We got settled on the plane and the kids did really well. Carter was excited to have his very own TV screen, so he watched Cars 2. By 11pm, Carter had finished his movie and was fast asleep...Kamryn, however, had a little more trouble getting to sleep. I think she was to distracted by all the flight attendants and they didn't turn the main lights down until after midnight. Once the lights went down, she finally went to sleep. They both slept about 4 hours...not bad for the flight, but definitely not a full nights sleep! Ryan and I slept a little on that flight, but were feeling pretty tired by the time we arrived in London.
Our time at the London airport was probably the most difficult leg of the trip, mostly because we were all tired and cranky by that point! We didn't have to change terminals, but we did have to go through security again and that was a difficult process! They identified "suspicious" items in two of our carry-ons, so those two bags were completely unpacked by the security officer and then re-packed by me. The suspicious items, you ask? A stick of deodorant in one bag, and a bottle of Benadryl in the other. It could have been much worse, but this was about an hour-long process. We finally made it through and were ready to find our gate and settle in for a few hours. It turns out that they don't give the gate assignments until about an hour away from departure, so until then everyone just waits in main seating area. This was also a challenging time...trying to let Kamryn be free from her seat, but then having to chase her through the crowds... Anyway, we survived, and it probably wouldn't have seemed so bad if we had all gotten a bit more sleep!
We finally boarded our plane to Romania and were excited to have reached the final leg of the journey. I'm pretty sure we were the only Americans on the flight, so we enjoyed talking with some of the Romanians around us. They all seemed to know each other, so it was a very "social" flight! Carter was able to sleep almost the entire flight, so that was great. Kamryn slept a little, then wanted to be part of all the social activities:). She did pretty well...we had about a 20 minute period (that seemed like 3 hours) where she screamed and wiggled and was just generally unhappy...somehow we recovered from that and finally made it to Bucharest!
By the time we got off the plane and made it through customs (which was no problem), our luggage was already on the carousel. We were so thankful to see that everything made it! We loaded up 4 or 5 carts and had several people eager to help (and earn a tip) wheel it out for us. The team leaders here in Bucharest were waiting for us, we loaded up the vehicles and headed to our new home! It was after midnight (Bucharest time) and we were exhausted from the flights, so we were glad to get home and go the sleep!
Everyone went right to sleep, but by 5am here, both kids were up and ready to start the day! We tried in vain to get them back to sleep, but finally got up, had a early breakfast and were back down for naps by 8am:). Overall, the kids have done exceptionally well overcoming the jet lag. The first several nights had many interruptions, but after the first week, they have been sleeping through the night and napping well. I don't want to speak too soon, but it seems like we are "back to normal"!
That about sums up our traveling experiences...I will write a separate post with highlights from our first week. Thanks again for all the prayers!
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