Well here we are, the equivalent of 9:000am Friday, March 21st in Connecticut, 39,000 feet above the ground and 20 hours later, with our in flight path map showing our plane heading toward Baghdad! As it changes, we may actually be going just a little north of Baghdad which I assume is a good thing......
We left the kids school on March 20th at 1:00pm, and arrived in Cheshire, CT to pick up our travel companions, Martha and Maya. Our first task was to fit 5 hockey bags weighing 70 pounds each filled with donations, 6 suitcase, 7 carry on's, 3 large adults and tress children into a Toyota Sienna......I know my
audience here, many of you can relate back to the 60's when a favorite past time was seeing how many people you could fit in a phone booth......for my younger readers, a phone booth was a tall square glass box, with doors that folded inward, that you would enclose yourself in and for a dime make a phone call. The glass prevented any air from passing inside while you stood dripping in sweat making your calls........please, not one comment from any of you asking why we just didn't use our cell phone's (I will have to block you from the blog).....AND we only got 3 channels on the black and white television.
Anyway, here are a few pictures of us crammed sardine style into the van. The important fact is that somehow to all of our amazement, we were able to do it and had a small bit of space to spare. Patty who was in the third row back may disagree, however Martha and I were quite comfy. It was a peaceful ride to JFK as the kids became absorb in the DVD "In Search of Dr. Seuss"....it even kept Patty quiet :-) Other than "Vivika", (my GPS) failing to work, we had an uneventful ride to JFK. Well, ALMOST uneventful, there was the small issue of getting into the fast pass lane in error. As I don't have a fast pass and could not get over to the cash lane, we had no choice but to drive up and wait. The toll booth officer did not think it was funny and after I made multiple apologies, as he yelled at me repeatedly while the line behind us continued to grow, he grudgingly took
our money and opened the gate.
We pulled out of Cheshire at 2:20pm and made it to JFK by 4:30. We had to be there by 6:30 but did not want to risk hitting traffic. Had to wait an hour for the counter to open to check us in, the kids pulled out games and did fantastic.
We left the kids school on March 20th at 1:00pm, and arrived in Cheshire, CT to pick up our travel companions, Martha and Maya. Our first task was to fit 5 hockey bags weighing 70 pounds each filled with donations, 6 suitcase, 7 carry on's, 3 large adults and tress children into a Toyota Sienna......I know my
audience here, many of you can relate back to the 60's when a favorite past time was seeing how many people you could fit in a phone booth......for my younger readers, a phone booth was a tall square glass box, with doors that folded inward, that you would enclose yourself in and for a dime make a phone call. The glass prevented any air from passing inside while you stood dripping in sweat making your calls........please, not one comment from any of you asking why we just didn't use our cell phone's (I will have to block you from the blog).....AND we only got 3 channels on the black and white television.Anyway, here are a few pictures of us crammed sardine style into the van. The important fact is that somehow to all of our amazement, we were able to do it and had a small bit of space to spare. Patty who was in the third row back may disagree, however Martha and I were quite comfy. It was a peaceful ride to JFK as the kids became absorb in the DVD "In Search of Dr. Seuss"....it even kept Patty quiet :-) Other than "Vivika", (my GPS) failing to work, we had an uneventful ride to JFK. Well, ALMOST uneventful, there was the small issue of getting into the fast pass lane in error. As I don't have a fast pass and could not get over to the cash lane, we had no choice but to drive up and wait. The toll booth officer did not think it was funny and after I made multiple apologies, as he yelled at me repeatedly while the line behind us continued to grow, he grudgingly took
our money and opened the gate.We pulled out of Cheshire at 2:20pm and made it to JFK by 4:30. We had to be there by 6:30 but did not want to risk hitting traffic. Had to wait an hour for the counter to open to check us in, the kids pulled out games and did fantastic.
When the counter opened we could see all of the agents secretly praying that they would not be the one to pull the short straw, causing them to be the "unlucky" one to check in the 6 six of us with our 11 oversize check through bags taking up 
three full luggage carts. The agent was so confused getting us seats together, her machine giving trouble that she waved the weigh in process, slapped tags an our bags and said "just go"....Yeah, so far we still have ALL of our donations, still praying that we can say the same as we make our way through customs in Vietnam....
three full luggage carts. The agent was so confused getting us seats together, her machine giving trouble that she waved the weigh in process, slapped tags an our bags and said "just go"....Yeah, so far we still have ALL of our donations, still praying that we can say the same as we make our way through customs in Vietnam....Had some dinner in the terminal and boarded Singapore Air flight #25 to Frankfurt, Germany. Okay, Singapore Air is wonderful for people of my culture....the food obsessed culture that is. A seven hour flight and w
e received dinner, breakfast, lunch, AND snack! Think back to my carry on bag photo, this is my kind of service. Not to mention the food was actually very good for airplane food. We had a very annoying "gentleman" seated behind us who, although having two empty seat next to him, decided that Noah and I could not put out seats back and he was yelling like a child "I can't eat, I can't eat, they must sit up". Okay, I was tired and just not in the mood for that, I am crowded also, that is part of flying cattle, I mean coach. Well, he was kicking my chair, banging Noah's seat back to make it go up, while Noah had finally fallen asleep, Patty told him to knock it off and not dare wake him and he called her the "B" word....all bets were off, a fight ensued, words only of course, and the flight attendants had to come over. The "Gentleman" was told we could keep our seat however we wanted them so he kicked the back of my seat the rest of the flight. Fortunately he got off in Germany so we are done with him. Much better "neighbors" on this flight. We spent an hour in Germany and re-borded the same crowded flight for an 11 hour flight to Singapore, 3.5 hours into flight, 7.5 to go..... 
It has been 21 hours since we started off on our journey and the kids have slept a total of 4-5 hours each, Maya has only done an hour or two....yup, I can feel the tired crankiness creeping upon us and am expecting the fall out any moment..Oh, just looked over and Jesse is sleeping, go Jesse. Now, I will go try to persuade Mr. Thing to do the dame as we have shopping plans on the agenda when we land in Saigon and dinner with our old friend Anh Tuyet who cared for all three children as babies.
e received dinner, breakfast, lunch, AND snack! Think back to my carry on bag photo, this is my kind of service. Not to mention the food was actually very good for airplane food. We had a very annoying "gentleman" seated behind us who, although having two empty seat next to him, decided that Noah and I could not put out seats back and he was yelling like a child "I can't eat, I can't eat, they must sit up". Okay, I was tired and just not in the mood for that, I am crowded also, that is part of flying cattle, I mean coach. Well, he was kicking my chair, banging Noah's seat back to make it go up, while Noah had finally fallen asleep, Patty told him to knock it off and not dare wake him and he called her the "B" word....all bets were off, a fight ensued, words only of course, and the flight attendants had to come over. The "Gentleman" was told we could keep our seat however we wanted them so he kicked the back of my seat the rest of the flight. Fortunately he got off in Germany so we are done with him. Much better "neighbors" on this flight. We spent an hour in Germany and re-borded the same crowded flight for an 11 hour flight to Singapore, 3.5 hours into flight, 7.5 to go..... 
It has been 21 hours since we started off on our journey and the kids have slept a total of 4-5 hours each, Maya has only done an hour or two....yup, I can feel the tired crankiness creeping upon us and am expecting the fall out any moment..Oh, just looked over and Jesse is sleeping, go Jesse. Now, I will go try to persuade Mr. Thing to do the dame as we have shopping plans on the agenda when we land in Saigon and dinner with our old friend Anh Tuyet who cared for all three children as babies.
1 comment:
Glad you made it safe and sound. That's my Patty taking care of problems :)
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