Home, Cold Home

As we drove to the airport in Myrtle Beach it was blue skies and 70 degrees.  We we landed in Brussels it was snowing.  Not exactly the best trade.  Our traveling couldn't have worked out much better.

Ryan need to change his ticket because his layover in Atalanta was only 30 minutes and considering if he missed our flight not only would I be traveling solo with both kids (not fun but manageable), but he wouldn't get back to Brussels until a whole day later if that.  The first time he called they told him it was going to be $1300 because he hadn't flown his Dallas leg, but if he waited until he got to Dallas it should only be $250.  We decided to suck it up and go for it so he called once in Dallas and they changed it for free because the connection time was so crazily small.

Next, I decided to pay for an extra suitcase going back.  Between Christmas, bringing back birthday presents for April, carrying on a car seat (we packed back a car seat and stroller for a friends so I could only check 2 of the car seats) AND only being allowed 20 pounds for Kevin's bag (which we didn't know til we got to the airport on the way out of Brussels) it just didn't seem like a good idea to try to make it work.  So we were going to pay $100 for an extra checked bag.  We got the airport and ended up spending 45 minutes trying to get checked in because they couldn't assign us seats out of Myrtle Beach...they couldn't assign us seats because they tied Kevin to Kherington's ticket instead of mine.  Then they release all our seats for our next legs, but I was already sitting next to Ryan.  In the end, we were for sure going to be sitting next to each other from JFK to BRU but ATL to JFK was a maybe.  Myrtle Beach is a small airport and the person checking me needed to be at the gate for an arriving flight, plus they'd made me wait forever with two kids and a pile of luggage so they said I didn't need to pay for my extra bag.  SWEET!  We made it to our next gate in Atlanta minutes before Ryan.  I'm not going to lie.  Getting both kids across the airport with 2 carry-ons, 1 personal item and a car seat was not easy but we made it.

Next blessing was that the flight was going to be full so the airline would check anyone's carry-on luggage through to their destination for free.  We happily gave up 3 carry-on's and a car-seat (keeping 2 personal items between me and Ryan that held all our electronic devices plus some snacks, toys and diapers/wipes.)

Next, we got all 12 pieces of luggage within the first 10 minutes of waiting at the baggage claim.  That is way impressive.  We did have a little issue getting out b/c the stroller was new and I didn't have a packing slip (apparently if you pack back more than 350 euros worth of stuff per person you have to pay 25% of the cost...ouch).  In the end they let me go b/c I was traveling with 2 other paid tickets and the stroller most likely didn't cost more than $1000.

Our friend was able to pick us up right outside the airport (thanks to a special NATO pass he can check-out), helped us grab our car from work and bring all our bags inside.

Pretty smooth.  I would like to note that while we did have lot of little blessings along the way, we still managed to lose Ryan's jacket.  The jacket he wore everyday.  It's a good thing I had pulled out an old wool coat right before we left so he doesn't have to freeze in this snow!

Now for getting us back into the swing of things...hopefully we still have friends after being gone so much over the last couple months :).