For anyone who is new to my blog and is following along on our trip, the blog is a combination of things…a creative outlet for me, sometimes a place for me to vent, and most important, a family chronicle. I have always felt that old photos had much more of a story to tell, but without being able to sit down and chat regularly with family members, those stories aren’t being passed down. So I love to capture the stories here – plus when the kids complain about their childhood I have evidence that they had it good! And when I get old I’ll be able to fill in the blanks in my memory. So there may be a little too much detail in these posts for some of you, but the two dads we left behind (and others!) are traveling vicariously through us. Feel free to skim or just skip right to the pictures.
Friday night I was up until about 11 getting everything packed, and then crashed for a few hours before my 2:30 a.m. wake-up time. I woke the kids up at 3:15 – they had 8 hours of sleep by then and were great. I was a little woozy and I think my fight-or-flight response was kicking in because if I was up in the middle of the night there must be an emergency. But we got everyone and everything into the car and were on the road to the airport by 3:33 (a lucky number!).
The Pearce’s got to the airport a few minutes ahead of us and were waiting with our “orphanage bag” which we couldn’t fit into the car and had dropped off the night before. We had weighed all of our bags at home with the bathroom scale, but they were all hovering right near the maximum – 50 pounds. The Pearce’s traveled much lighter. We had planned to as well, but it never seems to work out that way. We always have way too much when we go to Morocco too. The bag allowance used to be 2 bags at 70 pounds each, and Ben’s family pushes that to the limit. One time we were in New York for a long weekend and picked up Ben’s mom at JFK. Between her stuff and ours, the car was so full that the dog (our old lab, Rosie) had to ride home laying on a stack of suitcases in the back seat.
Our bags weighed 49, 50, 56, and 52 pounds. I shifted a couple of things around and we were good to go. There is one bag full of stuff for the orphanage – soccer balls, frisbees, underwear, and crayons. The Pearce’s also have a bag for the orphanage – full of school supplies. One of our other bags was half-full with some things for our housekeeper and her kids – a backpack of school supplies and books for her 9-year-old, and a diaper bag of other toys and supplies for Maria and her other 3 kids – including her 1-month-old son. One of the first questions Aliya asked her is whether she will bring the baby when she comes to work on Monday.
We got through security and to the gate with no problem – except Adlani was disappointed that he wasn’t tall enough to go through the full body scanner. That kid is so interested in electronics and gadgets. There were several times in the airport when I saw him closely inspecting an access control reader on the wall or some other electronic device. I think he’s destined to join me in the hardware business. We have plenty of electronic products these days.
When we arrived at the gate we had a big surprise – John and Mona Harutunian! They were on our flight to Houston and then headed on to Costa Rica. Mona was Aliya’s 4th grade teacher and Adlani has her next year. They are also the parents of one of Norah’s good buddies and a beautiful daughter too.
Las tres amigas sat together on the 4-hour flight to Houston, and I sat with Adlani and Norah with Elizabeth across the aisle. We arrived in Houston at 9 a.m. local time and had lunch. It was 10 a.m. for us and although some of the members of our party may have eaten the entire contents of their snack bags (you know who you are) we were all hungry. Then it was a short wait for our flight to SMA. The plane was much smaller (2 seats on each side of the aisle) but it was fine. The flight was only about an hour and a half and wasn’t very bumpy. The clouds were beautiful!
The kids thought it was totally cool that we had to go down stairs to get off the plane instead of onto the jetway. There was only one immigration officer so we had to wait a little while but he was nice and spoke pretty good English. I’m trying to speak Spanish when I can, but Customs and Immigration is a tough place to start. He asked me how to pronounce the kids’ last name and commented that it was long. Our carry-ons were checked at Customs…he asked me if I had any food and I said that I had peanut butter, Nutella, and fluff (the necessities). He asked which bag they were in and I didn’t have a clue, so he confirmed that I didn’t have fruits or vegetables and took my word for it.
Our van driver, who had an awesome duck bill hair-do, found us right away. We sort of stood out from the rest of the crowd. I had assumed that we’d be the only ones in the van because there were so many of us, but when we got there it was already full of luggage and 2 travelers. Somehow he fit the luggage together like a puzzle and we hopped in. The other 2 travelers were from Boston and Connecticut! They are here to see if they want to retire to SMA. The drive went smoothly – most of the kids fell asleep. Norah was in the front bobbing against the lady traveler, but I think she was asleep too. We dropped them off at their house and then went to ours, which I will have to tell you about in a separate post because there is so much to say.
To be continued…
