With less than four weeks to go, and so much to do,we have kicked into gear and weekends are filling up with trip preparations. Today's activity was to meet with Patty, Martha and Maya, (our friends from Connecticut who are joining us on this venture), and get all of our gathered and donated supplies packed. International flights now have a restriction of 50 lbs per traveler. We have collected medical supplies and infant clothing that we must somehow get to Vietnam. Singapore Airlines will not guarantee that we can pay for weight overages, they are stating that we can be made to just "dump" our belongings until we get down to 50 pounds...Noah, Jesse and Maya did a great job sorting and packing. We had to pack some boxes that we will ship to the head office of catalyst to be distributed among other participants who may have some extra pounds available to pack stuff.
Guess we should have known that if two of us have to drag the bag to the scale we are most likely over! Yup, this one weighed in at 68 pounds - the size of two of the kids together! Maybe we should check the kids through as luggage and put the bags in their seats.....okay, you can't fault a Mom for dreaming. Anybody who says they would not at least think about this when traveling on a 24 hour flight, with an 8 year old and two 9 year old kids, is lying! We removed 16 lbs. of ointments and made up bag number 2, weighing in at 42 lbs...
Don't panic, we WILL find 8 more pounds of supplies to fill the space! Watch out Singapore airlines, we will prevail and use every ounce of our poundage.....I am talking about the luggage people....not ourselves, that is another whole topic, not to be discussed on this blog! All in all it was a successful day. We have two completed bags of supplies and the kids on board travel bag
packed with many items to attempt to keep them occupied.
Our day ended with a visit to Trader Joe's for some comfort food to bring along and dinner at Red Robin.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's activity...making "fun bags" with the families from ALIVE (our Vietnamese school group at Yale). More details and descriptions tomorrow.
Bag number 2 - 42 lbs - 8 more pounds to go!!!!
1 comment:
Hey! Is that Billy's hockey bag? Glad it worked for you! What wonderful people you all are to give of your time to help these poor people. Best of luck in your travels and help to others. Cindee
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