We're Here

Well, I just figured out that Ken's laptop has no way to get the pictures from the camera on to it. So our posts will be pictureless until we either get our shipment in Feb. or get a new laptop. It will probably be the later. I thought I better do a post to let everyone know how our journey here went, then I'll follow with another one of our first week.

We left Florida one Friday, Dec. 18th. My parents drove us to the airport at around 4:30am. We got checked in (couldn't do it online because we were traveling on military orders and had different luggage and weight requirements). We took some pictures in front of the big Christmas tree and said goodbye, for a while anyway. We went straight through security and to the gate. The flight to LA left on time at 7am EST. The flight was around 5.5 hours. The kids did wonderfully and even slept a little. Then we got off the plane. We had to go to the same area of the airport we landed in, but in a round about way. We had to go to the ticket counter to straighten out our seats. They had all 4 of us in separate rows/sections. The best they could do at the counter was put us 2 and 2, 5 rows apart. Thanks to a WONDERFUL stewardess once we boarded, we were able to get seated together basically. Blake was a seat in front of me with another mom, but he was fine with that. Blake slept alot, Cathryn slept some, and James went to sleep for a little while on me. They showed 4 movies and a few TV shows, but only 1 was kid friendly and the kids slept straight through that. We were served 2 meals. The flight from LA to Tokyo was about 11-12 hours. We went through security and got the gate in record time, considering all the people going through. I think they had 6 lanes open and all backed up. The kids got tired of carrying their backpacks, but other than that, they were troopers about it all. They had the flight from Tokyo to Seoul scheduled for 4 hours, but it only took a little over 2 hours. We got to Seoul about 45 minutes early. It didn't take us long to get through customs and the passport checkpoint. Ken was there waiting. It's a good thing I packed half a suitcase of our coats and such. It had been snowing lightly all day. We got McDonalds at the airport while we waited for the bus. We had to take a bus from the airport to P'yeong'taek, the closest city to Camp Humphreys. The kids fell asleep. A guy from church picked us up at the bus stop in his Jeep and drove us to our apartment. We got here a little after midnight and the kids were wired. We didn't have a place for James to sleep so we attempted to get him to sleep with Ken & me. Made for a VERY tiring night, on top of an already tiring day.

The apartment came with 2 queen size beds. We put Blake & Cathryn in one until we could get the loaner furniture. Some one from church let us borrow a pack and play for James and brought it over with dinner Sunday evening. We had meals brought the first 3 nights.

Overall the trip went VERY well. The kids were very well behaved and I got lots of compliments on their behavior. It was their first time on an airplane EVER. James had a little harness thing to strap him in that was VERY handy/helpful. More about the apartment and living here in another post.