Our babies finally arrived in England at the beginning of this month. Can I get a 'Holler!'?! As you may or may not know, Love and I had to get here by mid-May, but the little ones passports still hadn't arrived. And no passports means no visas. And no passports and no visas mean you no leave America. So even with our dates pushed back in hopes of receiving the kids travel documents in time, they still failed to arrive by the new deadline and we still ended up heading to Europe sans children.
The passports were the hold-up - that process was a nightmare and a half. Yeah, you read that right, it wasn't simply a nightmare, which is scary enough in and of itself...it had an extra half of a nightmare tagged on to it. Imagine it being a terrible dream and then you wake to find that scary monster you had been dreaming about standing over you drooling on your face with his canine teeth staring you down. Besides needing some face wash and a washcloth you're going to need some therapy, three times a week. Not that I'd know.
When their passports arrived the visas were done in a snap. Seth knew a passport/visa agent (different from the one that did our passports) so he gave me his contact information. I gave this guy the background of our situation and he gave us his contact at the British Consulate in New York. The consulate had their visas done in less than a week. Talk about me being grateful. But like any other happy story there is always a bump in the road, right?! The visas ended up getting lost in the mail. Whomp whomp. Then, guess who found them? The passport agent that initially helped us. He tracked them down, had them overnighted to himself and then overnighted them to my parents where the kids were staying. Basically the passport agent was absolutely amazing. Seriously, I emailed him and told him how thankful I was to him and in his response he wrote: "We are one big family!" I cried when I read his response. Seriously, I've totally turned into a crier in the last few months. It's so bad that it annoys even me. I'll cry about something (usually happy tears) and then I'll start crying over the fact that I'm crying. Apparently Europe makes me weepy. Let's bow our heads and say a prayer for my husband. Ah-men.
My flight to the states was tres tiring, you may have read about it here. But it was one of the best plane rides I ever took because it meant I got to see these cuties.
We spent two nights in STL. Those two nights were spent ordering way too much room service, catching up with a million and one stories of their adventures in Missouri and Kansas, swimming in the hotel pool, and soaking up as many minutes as possible with my parents.
I have never been one to talk up a hotel but the one we stayed at (The Hilton - right at the airport) provided the best service I've ever had. Every single member of the staff was beyond helpful. The lady at the front desk, the waitstaff, everyone. Now I sound like a spokesperson so I'll stop but if you're ever in need of a place to stay in St Louis, that's the place!
During our second night the man that delivered our dinner (he brought our food up to us the night before also) brought the kids free cheesecake and he brought me a free glass of wine. Owen even said, "Wow mommy, somehow the man knew you loooove your wine."
On Monday morning we headed to the airport. We didn't have a direct flight out of country like Seth and I did, nope, instead I trekked through two airports for a total of two days with three kids and no other adult as backup. But I gotta admit, they were amazing. Awesome. Entertaining. And such troopers. For real, I have the best kids ever. On the first plane ride from St Louis to Detroit they all got to sit together and I sat across the aisle from them. They behaved but I wasn't surprised because these kids are pretty well-versed in flying.
Then our layover happened. And again, they are used to layovers so they kept busy. There were lots of bubbles blown.
And a touch of sass:
But overall things went smoothly. I'm sure the iPad Poppa gave Owen just 48 hours prior helped with that. Yes, my father gave my seven year old an iPad. We have an iPad already - also purchased by Poppa. And we have three laptops - one of which was purchased by Poppa. And we have several iPods - I'm sure at least one of those was purchased by Poppa. Are you sensing a theme here? Poppa = spoiler of his grandchildren.
What I was really worried about was the 7 hour flight from Detroit to London. They've never been on a plane for that long at once. But again, they impressed me. It probably helped that they fed us continuously, so my crew just ate while watching TV. And they slept. There was lots of sleeping. And there was some unintentional yelling - Owen had his head phones on watching a movie while eating dinner, he turned to me (with the head phones still in and movie still playing in his ears) and yells, "Mommy! Can you pass me my apple juice pleeeease?" Then we had a brief talk about how you need to take the head phones out before speaking so that you can hear yourself when you talk. Sorry sleeping passengers. Sorry.
At about 11am Tuesday morning we arrived in London. Here's E and Air checking out GB as we descended:
So as much as I'm glad they spent time with two sets of grandparents, played in the same river I did growing up, watched my parents' new house get built, and as much as I loved my Skype dates with them and watching Owen entertain me with random tricks, jokes, and dance moves then randomly run out of the room because he became distracted when seeing a shiny object, I'm just glad I have them here. With me. In the flesh.
Let the chaos begin! Oh wait, it already has...
L
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