The Journey

Our flight from Phoenix to Baltimore was on Sunday morning, August 25th.  Sawyer, Violet, and Nathan sat in a row together.  I sat behind them with Isla.  It was actually a super relaxing flight for me because Isla slept most of the time and I was wedged in the corner and couldn't get out.  I even slept!!  Don't know the last time I've done that on a plane.  But Sawyer and Violet did pretty good, according to Nathan.  They were excited about all of the toys that we had gotten them especially for the plane.  We got into Baltimore in the early afternoon, and then somehow managed to get all of our luggage (I think it was 8 bags!) and our 3 kids on a bus to the hotel. We decided to break it up into two days, which I think ended up being a really good thing.  Other than having to shuttle everything back and forth from the hotel.  But it was just nice to relax that night and get a good night's rest before heading overseas.  We even got to swim a little.

The next day we headed back to the airport and spent some time in the USO lounge before taking off.  We tried to make things as relaxed and stress-free as possible.  We weren't always successful, but we made a good effort ;).  The kids did pretty good. They were happy to watch movies, play games, and they even went to sleep (the good thing about red-eye flights).  Unfortunately by the time Nathan and I decided to sleep, they had started taking turns waking up.  So we did not get much sleep. 

Sawyer LOVES maps.  He was very interested in looking at all of the pamphlets in front of his seat.

This was my view from across the isle.  Even Isla got her own seat on this Military Charter flight, so we were livin large. :) 

We flew directly into Ramstein Air Base, where we were greeted by an old family friend that we knew when we were stationed here when I was 5.  Her husband is a DOD school counselor so they have lived in Germany for 30 years!  She brought a friend from the ward, Wendi, who had a mini van, and she has become one of our best friends here.  They took us to our Temporary Living Apartment.  It was a German run apartment, fully furnished, called Trudi's.  It was about noon, Germany time, when we finally settled in there.  We were all SUPER tired.