Heading back to Belgium was bitter sweet. The kids and I had been in the states for 6 weeks. That's a long time. I was ready for my own space again. Then the night before we were flying back, everyone was asleep but me and I was chilling on the couch channel surfing (well, mostly watching storage wars). I got to thinking that I could do this anymore. No more staying up late and knowing I could hand my kids off to someone in the morning, no more running out to the store at all times of the day, no more shopping for cheap (sales in Belgium don't come close to sales in the US), no more TV, not more space for kids to run indoors, no more blue berry smoothies each morning...the list goes on. Plus, back to being an adult and a parent of 2 kids at that. Oh man.
My mom and dad were nice enough to help us get our luggaged checked in at the airport. They let us skim by and at least 1 pound over on each piece of luggage. We said our goodbyes and headed through security. I had kevin strapped to me in the wrap, plus we had 4 overpacked carry-on, 1 car seat, and 4 'personal' items. We grabbed all our medicine filled ziploc bags (the only liquids we carry-on) and threw them into one bin, got out the laptops, took shoes off...you know the drill. I walked through first with the kids while Ryan stayed to push all our bags through. The liquids went through and they took them for 'testing.' First bag beeped...I hadn't taken out the cast iron tortilla press. Then it came back fine. Second bag beeped, I hadn't taken out the DVD player (but I did ask if I needed to and they told me no), anyways after removing it the bag went through fine. After testing the medicine they had a problem with the Walmart brand of Desitin. Apparently when something comes back with problems that have to pat the owner down. So with Kevin still wrapped to me, they patted me down, took the little paper they did it with and ran it through the machine and it beeped. Ugh. Now they had to go through my luggage plus pat me down again. I tried handing Kevin off, but since it beeped while he was with me, I had to keep him. I picked 1 of the 8 pieces of luggage as mine and they went through it piece by piece (mind you this luggage was packed to the brim), they patted me down again in their little office and the test came back fine. So, 1 hour later we made it through the first security checkpoint AND they let me keep the desitin stuff.
The plan ride was uneventful. The kids did good. Kherington LOVED having her own TV, her own tray and her own food. When the flight attendant came by to collect it she told him he couldn't it because she wasn't done yet. Cute kid.
With the long flight out of the way, we gathered up our stuff and headed to the next plane (1 hour layover in London is not much). At the first security checkpoint they let us go through the VIP line AND offered to check 2 pieces of luggage...AWESOME...less to lug around. At the 2nd checkpoint they confiscated the Desitin (note to self...never try to carry on the walmart brand of desitin). We boarded the plan right when we got to the gate during the pre-board. Pretty sweet timing.
So it was a long day and we still hadn't made it home, but there was more to come...We wait for our luggage. Our bags checked in London came up (whew...wasn't sure we'd really see them again), our bags checked in Seattle were among the last pieces of luggage to come up the ramp. We knew from experience that our checked car seat and stroller would take awhile to get there. We waited. An hour later Ryan stood in line to see if there was any updated on when the items would come. They said it takes a while and sent him away...so he caught a guy that bring them out and ask him...he said they brought the stuff out for our flight like 45 minutes earlier. Ugh. So he stood in line again to figure out where our stuff was. Our luggage tags were left in London (the people we checked our carry-ons with in the VIP area never handed our tags back) so there was nothing they could do...yeah right. After Ryan told me they couldn't find them because we didn't have the tags, I was mad. We tried talking to them again (well, I started to, but got frustrated and walked away while Ryan continued) and somehow they were magically able to locate our stroller/car seat in London (so why couldn't they look it up the first time around). Well, while in this process, Kherington pees her pants THEN strips and starts running around the baggage carousels. I still have Kevin, am trying to watch our 2 carts of luggage and corner Kherington.
We caught a taxi home (good thing we didn't have someone picking us up or they would have waited 3 hours for us). The car seat and stroller got delivered around 11pm that evening so everything turned out fine.
International travel makes for some good memories :)
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